If you consider buying this game, here's some statistics:

1) Half of positive reviews are written by people spending less then 4 hours in the game and never returning to it after review is published. Is 2-3 hours a lot for "exciting" JRPG game? You tell me.
2) I played for 7 hours and got the achievements for defeating first bosses (tutorial bosses don't count) for each main character. The rarity of those achievements is 10-15%. So 85% of players didn't kill even one single boss. Why?

The game claims to be Horror RPG, while in reality it'ss neither Horror nor RPG. It's a walking sim/visual novel with occasional combats, facinating monster arts and great music, but slow paced booooooooring writing and horrible UI.

If you look for some real Horror RPG experience - turn your gaze to Fear & Hunger.

I love VN's and games with rich and complex stories, like Xenogears, The House of Fata Morgana, Raging Loop , The Nonary Games and 13 Sentinels.

That being said, after finishing my plathrough, i absolutelty HATED my experience with Frail Hearts.

Let me be clear: I started out really liking this game. Loved the art style and loved the turn based battles. The little scenarios of each character were easy to follow, but fairly uninteresting, with the exception of Cathrine's, which I kinda liked. That was tolerable, though.

The problem is that the true, "behind the scenes" story is incredibly vague and impossible to understand.

After almost eight hours, the game slapped me with an ending that answered none of the questions that it presented since the beginning. The story just gets progressively more nonsensical, with characters talking about people and things that were never mentioned before. There's is no emotional payoff in any of the scenarios and it just ended up with a "WTF was that all about?" feeling.

Later i found out I got a bad ending - only because of the name of the achievement made that clear. I have no idea what i did wrong or what i could have changed to get a good ending, and the ending i got didn't offer any clues. Thank god someone posted the "good ending" on youtube, because i´m not going through this game again.

I would not have left such a bad review if I felt that the bad ending gave me at least some partial answers or some tips, but the way it is, it ruined the entire experience for me.

I also feel that most people would have a similiar negative experience as the one I had, since less than 5% of players got the good ending, which is why i DON'T recommend you buy or play this game.

Pros:
- Lovecraftian cosmic horror (monsters)
- music
- visuals
- pixel animations
- the dark atmosphere
- turn-based combat
- Alexis
Cons:
- sound effects are too loud in fights
Like the game and ready to play it through.

It was May 13, 1983, in Gris, the City of Emptiness, when monsters appeared and several residents died mysteriously. You witnessed a terrifying and perplexing tragedy. But don't worry; you'll soon discover all the secrets hidden beneath the darkness that has engulfed this city. Just sit back and enjoy the opera in Frail Hearts!

The story of Gris's darkness will be divided into four core parts, each focusing on one of the four heroes here. You can follow Michael, the gangster who is mourning the death of someone he cares about. You can help support Cathrine, the nun who, for some reason, always feels threatened in church. You can read Anne the Bookworm's story about her stressful life, which blurs the line between reality and her mind. You can also study Arthur, the scholar and sole heir to the Gris archaeological museum, who is still bound by his father's departure.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2957541371
With such disparate backgrounds, they are somehow connected to the event on May 13 and Alexis, a strange man from the Gris Theater who becomes the key to discovering what lies beneath the city.

This game provides three game modes to enjoy the opera that you can choose from based on your preferences: story mode (focuses on the plot and has an easy battle difficulty), standard mode (has a balanced portion in both the plot and combat), and challenge mode (for hardcore players). In essence, the path the heroes must take in order to unravel Gris' story will be filled with tales and battles.


I'll admit that the game's premise piqued my interest in playing something that leaves an impression on the heart. Unfortunately, Frail Hearts did not live up to my expectations.

Story-wise, it's so average to the point where you can predict what will happen next, especially if you're used to dark and tragic stories. Not to mention that there are at least five important characters here, but this game appears to make players more familiar with and attached to Michael's story. I didn't feel as strongly attached to other characters as I did to him, which I suspected was because the other characters' stories were less explored.

The gameplay consists of classic turn-based combat and puzzles. I had no comments on the combat system per se, but the puzzles irked me. I didn't like how simple and uninteractive they were, making my efforts and excitement to solve them futile. I understand that it's probably a good reason to make the game more enjoyable and faster to beat. It's just a shame the puzzles have so much untapped potential, especially given that this game also has strategy guide DLC. However, because of their variety, I wasn't too bored to "click and see" what I'd get after solving each puzzle along the way.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2957541544
I still have praise for the game, though. The BGM and art are excellent, and the developers appear to have used RPG Maker MV skillfully to make the game feel more polished. I also think that the monster variations are well thought out, both in terms of design and skill. This made them look fantastic and was exciting to look forward to when exploring Gris!

So, what's my take? As you can see, I don't recommend picking it up if you used to read stories in similar genres or solve complex and interactive puzzles, because this one is mediocre and lacks difficulty and interactivity. Nonetheless, if you just want to play a well-polished old-school RPG with some cool enemies to fight, I think it's okay to buy it on sale, putting aside the aspects I criticized.

I absolutely ADORE this game. I had high hopes going into this (I generally tend to enjoy visual novels as it is) but this has to be one of the best I've ever played. The storyline, acting, backgrounds, the pixel art, and character designs are gorgeous and I was entirely immersed very quickly. It wasn't necessarily obscure and dark, but it had an eerie atmosphere that drew you in. I especially liked the storytelling in Alexis's chapter of the game :)

An RPG hybrid visual novel. You have 5 characters (4 with unique endings) and you can control 1 at a time to learn more about their story. Nun, college student, archaeologist, and a gangster.

Pros
Art is unique
Music matches the mystery/horror theme

Cons
Story makes little sense - fight monsters and supernatural beings, but gives little background on why
Too many extra screens- Do you want to save and do you want to enter this location? Its just annoying the player by asking location question each time.
Switching characters every 20-30 minutes diminishes the flow of the game
Late game bosses are too strong and player has limited ways to upgrade characters to beat them

This game is like the saying the sum is not greater than its parts. You can play the game to explore 4 different characters, but the game has boring fights. After reading the text or solving a puzzle, I asked myself what the hell just happened and how does it relate back to killing monsters.

Playing Frail Hearts is like reading or watching a very interesting and deep story. The OST is superb, I appreciate instrumental music, I can say the sound effects during the battles are fine too! A really nice classical RPG!

Frail Hearts: Versicorae Domlion is a really good jrpg, virtual novel styleg game with some pretty good lovecraftian elements in it, alright then the story. The dark and mysterious City of Gris, a unique place were many individuals call this place home, but not all is what it seems as the city is not just rotting from the previous great war, monsters have started to appear and four individuals know the truth.

Each of these individuals not only are trying to uncover the madness of the city, but they are dealing with their own personal demons, but each one is being guided by a mysterious figure, a dandy of a fellow called Alexis; this is a story of four individuals trying to unravel the mystery and dealing with monsters both external and internal.

Now the likes, the story is really good with plenty of great twists and turns, a pretty diverse set of characters and a very good mystery with a nice set up that pulls you in and keeps you guessing till the end. It also has a bit of an anthology vibe to it as we play four different characters and see their own lives and stories tied together by the mysterious man Alexis.

Each of the four characters stories were quite good and very well written each dealing with some heavy topics like prejudice, regret and other things, I felt like it did a good job in talking about the subject matter. The story also has a lovecraftian good feel to it with otherworldly powers and twisted monsters, while still doing its own thing which is always quite good and shows how versatile Lovecraft’s work can be.

The characters are very good each one with their own unique and likable personalities, even the character you consider a jerk is quite likeable. Also some of the NPCs are quite good and kind of interesting like this reporter and the Duke. My favorite character is hard to pick, but probably would have to be Anna and Mitchell, Anna just being this adorable wallflower and Mitchell just being pretty much a badass, a guy who sees this lovecraftian nonsense and his answer is, “screw it I'm kicking its ass.”

The gameplay is very good it's a mixture of term based combat with a bit of virtual novel and exploration thrown into the mix, the turn-based combat was good each character has their own unique abilities and attributes that can help in increasing their power, removing debuffs or giving buffs.

The virtual novel aspect was interesting, although it's not exactly like other virtual novel games where you can make certain choices that choose the ending, the story is rather linear, but doing side quests and certain things does help in changing the character a little bit or getting the good ending or secret ending.

And that’s where the exploration comes in, as you go through the different areas and try to discover all there is which can help you get the good ending or unlocking certain things like fights, like I said it was all a pretty good mixture. The RPG hand-drawn graphics art style is really good very nice to look at and is quite detailed, you can tell that the artist put a lot of thought how the graphics would look and the world would look, it all has this sort of has this nice old school feel to it with plenty of good details.

The levels are very good each one suitably different from the other, with plenty of good details and little bits and pieces that make the city feel alive and just asking you to just stop and stare at it. The enemy/bosses are all really good, each one has this very gross and ghoulish design, you can tell that whoever designed these enemy/bosses was having a great time since each one has their own unique and gruesome look; it also kind of has a sort of Cronenberg meets lovecraftian feel to it which is quite enjoyable.

The side quests were good, while completing them is needed to get the good ending, even if that wasn't the case the side quests help with establishing and building the world the game takes place in and are quite enjoyable. The music is very good; each one has its own unique tracks to listen too.

The Monster cards you can get were interesting, basically when you defeat a monster you get this card, the card itself doesn't really do anything except if you get them all you can get part of an item that will help you get the good ending and they do play a bit of a roll in the story, but ultimately they're just for show and that's okay.

Now the dislikes, there's not really anything to dislike about this game it's almost perfect, but I will say there are a few bugs in it, but it's honestly nothing really game breaking.

Also I do have a little bit of a problem with new game plus mode because after beating the game they say that all the cards that you gathered would be transferred over to the new game plus, so I beat the game and got the good ending and got all the cards, but when I played new game plus it turns out not all the cards were there despite knowing I beat those monsters.

I also would have liked items that you purchased from the store like clothes, weapons and potions to be transferred over as well, I get the fact that you don't want the character to be overpowered when starting New Game Plus, but come on you beat the game and got the good ending you should be able to just be fully decked out, especially when playing in super challenge mode.

Now that I told you this Frail Hearts: Versicorae Domlion is a really good jrpg, virtual novel style game with some pretty good lovecraftian elements in it, with a really good story, very good characters and very good gameplay.

So I recommend this game if you're interested in a lovecraftian like game or just a jrpg this is definitely for you, I also recommend getting the DLCs and I certainly can't wait for the next project these people make next.

First I was confused if the game was a VN or a JRPG, but the more I played that, the more I was sure it's a very good JRPG with some old school vibe.
The game is story-focused and has some turn-based battles from time to time, it's very interesting to discover the story, the plot is intriguing enough.
Love the game's art too! It's stylish and unique. First, the grayscale transmits the atmosphere of the game well. Second, pixel animations are great! And the style of hand-drawn characters is cool too.
The game's music perfectly matches the melancholical mood with a bit of fear. Love the main theme a lot and also the battle music, it's very dynamic.
As for the battles, they are very interesting, and the player has to take a tactical approach to defeat the monster. Each of the characters has special skills, HP level and so on.
Finally, the chapter system is very convenient! I wish a lot of success to the developers!

There are advantages I'd like to favor:
1. Laconic but descriptive graphics
2. Great OST, sometimes dramatic and fast, sometimes slow and meditative
3. Kinda variety of playable characters
4. Exciting battles
5. REX! Rex is great :3