I have to admit my expectations for this game were pretty high prior to having played it. Also this is not a staunch "No" to the game overall as it isn't terrible, however this is a cautionary review to anyone considering paying full price for the game. I would only buy this game when/if it is significantly discounted, 29.99 is quite a hefty price tag to be asking for it, and even at 14.99 when I bought it for half off I can't help but feel I would have gotten more bang for my buck from other titles.

While the art and design of the characters and enemies are undeniably cool-looking and the story is full of sci fi tropes fans of the genre will enjoy (requisitioning alien technology for human / earthling use, an imminent alien threat...) the gameplay itself is pretty repetitive. The effects can be cool as enemies explode into colorful "firework" looking displays of sparks and particles, however defeating the same enemies with the same execution animation for the nth time begins to wear thin relatively quickly. A limited moveset for the player (you can boost/dash, double jump, slide, etc...) is expanded as you unlock other abilities, but the movement itself feels quite stilted. (If other players of the game have abilities or weapons they recommend unlocking to make your character's movements / style seem less "blocky" than what is offered at the base level, I'm open to hear them...) Some cool, large boss fights shake up the action, but the overall gameplay loop is pretty basic.

If you're a diehard fan of sci fi / anime and intrigued by the setting or look of the game I might suggest still giving it a go but I would definitely wait to snag it during a sale as what is present feels a bit thin.

Extremely poor game.

It feels and plays well initially, but once the gear scaling kicks in, it feels like the worst version of every genre that it borrows from.

The skill system is completely overdesigned and adds next to nothing to the game, it's entirely unclear what parts come from where most of the time so farming for gear is extremely unreliable until you do isolate a particular item, and being stun locked is just a part of life.

Weapons ranges are garbage, weapon descriptions are misleading, and controller input generally errs on the side of "you wanted to do something other than the thing you were attempting."

Unless you can demo the first 5 hours of this game to make sure that the later aspects of the game appeal to you, avoid, because it'll be a sudden shock, and you wont be able to refund it. The game presents something promising and then just crashes and burns once you've comitted any time to it.

It *could* have been good, had it more variety in scenery and enemies, less difficulty spikes and allowed for less reliance on linear gear progression / more build variety. Controls are fine, even with keyboard, but each boss enemy represents a gear check for which you need to either grind components to craft better weapons (in terms of raw damage ourput or required mods like, for example, defense down), or grind enhancement materials to upgrade existing ones.
Not as hardcore as it could have been, and thanks for that, but way too grindy for my tastes.

A repetitive HackNSlash that is easy to get both lost and bored in the superfluous skills system and oversimplified combat.

Some of this game is just strange.
- The story takes place in america but everyone speaks japanese.
- There are 3 random followers that disappear once a fight starts and serve no other purpose than running behind you while out of combat. They look like the player character except THEY HAVE NO EYES.

The skills system is feels unimportant, allowing only minor attribute changes that don't seem to make much of a difference. Unlocking a +1 dmg to a single attack for one of the hits in a 7 hit combo is just dumb. Navigating the skills tree isn't difficult but it displays all the skills you don't have leaving a ton of irritating space to wade thru.

The combat system has combo's and you can link attacks between enemies but it still feels limited in that the gun doesn't mesh well in combo's leaving you to a lot of X button mashing. You do get a "special meter" that charges up and when activated gives you a few powerful attacks.

After completing the first two story missions I'm now stuck waiting on a 3 hour in-game timer to advance the story. The timer only counts down while you are in the game and unpaused....

In the mean time there are "free missions" with OP bosses. The game suddenly feels like Dark Souls.
Overall the game feels scattered. Maybe if they lent the art style to another project of theirs with more fluent gameplay something could work.

Not recommended; especially at its current price tag (~30USD).

Pros:
+ Artstyle
+ Music fits the genre

Cons:
- Limited enemy types
- Directions/ tutorial unclear and brief.
- Having to wait in-game for hours to advance the story missions. Complete with countdown timer.
- Grindy
- Repetative levels
- Vague story concepts that feel like somewhere, something got lost in translation. (What is with the american general masterminding in perfect japanese the invasion of Wisconsin through the underground network???)

So I keep trying to give this game a chance, but the issues it has in the forefront stop me from wanting to venture any further into it. Now if you actually look at the skills, it looks like it could potential be better later, but if you're gonna start me with crap until that point, not really into it.

The setup is pretty basic for combat as far as I got into it. You can get some skills here and there along the way, but besides the double down, I didn't find any use in the double forward, usually came out accidentally, like the air throw, so I just left it off, which I'm extremely glad for. Hate when it offers something bad but it's forced on you forever, ruining the good you did have. Rather it be genuinely useful though instead of a hindrance I can turn off. Besides that, it's really basic. You can run up and throw to air combo with your standard, neutral air into it. Just a really boring string for a long time.

Worst case, the string doesn't work. Sometimes the game just isn't consistent about it at all. The enemy will just fly away, leaving you with absolutely nothing to do but repeat the starter and hope they stay close enough to follow through the whole combo. Adding to insult, since I've seen this game compared to Odin's Sphere, which actually has a good combo setup and expands to become even better, this game has diminishing returns. So if you can chain a good combo, whether it's someone broken on the ground, or in the sky, you'll be punished for continual chaining a target. This completely ruined guns for me and wanting to do dual wield, which while I was doing it, was just horrible. I was close to 200 damage hits on melee, guns have limited ammunition, a worse lockup frame and didn't even begin to have anything that great to warrant the downsides it has. I just don't get it. You expand to make it more enjoyable, not make it occur way later when I wanna leave the game already.

Really hate that this has to keep being a reoccurring thing in side scrolling platformer games. I seriously hate when graphics are above technical gameplay. This camera is way too close and just smushed into your character. Considering the game isn't designed around this, it's quite a problem. You can have enemies already prepping long range attacks you can't even see. Early on it's not as bad, since the claw enemies will just pop you once if they do it off screen and the gunfire is pretty weak, but later on when you start getting set on fire, it can actually start hurting and like most games with a rating system, just because it's little increments of damage, doesn't mean the rating system is gonna look at it as a whole, but as single hits each, making your rating turn to absolutely garbage, even if it was just one string of unforeseen ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Really wish they'd think this through when they do rating systems.

Honestly just felt really clunky, which is why I find it insulting for it to be compared to other games like Odin. Now certain characters in that could feel awkward at times with very specific moves, but the lockup preventing dashes just feels gross. Just been too spoiled I guess from other games. Doesn't help either when enemies have small windows or almost none. Worst I've seen on that was the sawblade robots. Break them apart, if they're still alive, they'll either shoot a rocket, or a laser with basically no animation. So whatcha gonna do, jump into a rocket to avoid the laser, or keep attacking hoping it doesn't laser? Properly doesn't help they flew into corners and dashing at that point is a tossup, either letting you do what you want, or shoving you back up front.

Pretty bad as well the last thing I had to deal with before writing this. So I can kind of understand elemental immunity, even though early on that shouldn't be the case and even then , it should be resisted at worst. During the dual gun run, I made a ice gun and ran the first stage on hard, since it forces you on normal. The boss is immune to ice and I cut off sword attacks to prevent accidentally using it while going for executes. Had to reset. Could be argued to just leave attacks on, but there wasn't anything to showcase at all that it'd be immune to it. You just run into it and tough ♥♥♥♥. This came to pass when I was going through the 2nd boss fight against the golem. Had a serrated blade, standard, didn't get lucky with drops to get a better weapon. Guess I accidentally made it easier the previous time, because I did half damage with this one. Really sucks to get to these parts and then be handicapped.

Stats are pretty convoluted as well. You can get stats and link them to specific things, but it's in such a way that it's just really dumb. You can put it as the first string in a combo, or you could put it through the string. Considering things won't always be consistent, it's probably not your best interest to put it at the end, but at the start or into a special move. Early on it was good for one shotting for 1k bonus on ranking. With how enemies and bosses are though, it really didn't need to be this awkward specific move type deal. +1 on everything would have been fine without making you overpowered, at all. Once you get to Wisconsin, it's not even remotely the same hp pool anymore, so don't see any reason why it's setup like that.

With the bits I see, the later parts could indeed be good and I've noticed most being similar when it's shorter times, but it's just not doing it for me. Just isn't doing anything interesting enough to keep going to a possible good end. Especially with the negatives I genuinely hate, like the camera.

This is one of those C-grade action games where it feels like there's almost no relationship between your moves connecting and the enemy's behavior. Weak enemies get hitstunned forever, strong enemies force you into a continuous dance of dash-cancelling out of every attack. Shame about the cool graphics.

100%'d and it's excessively mid. Combat and movement is chops, story is a mess, a lot of the enemies/bosses are just annoying (especially the tunneling sharks my god wtf) has that chinese spyware feel.
On the flip side there's no missables and it's easy.
It goes on sell regularly for $3 and that's about how much it is worth.
My desire to play their other game "Lost Epic" has diminished greatly and now I can wait on a bigger sale for that title so there's that.

If I had to point to the flaw of this game it would be it's just not interesting. It has other gameplay mechanics that I could complaina bout but when the game isn't even fun enough to get to those issues then we have a problem. This takes the wonderful formula of Odin Sphere and makes it feel like a hack and slash, adding passives that amount to (+1 stat)

I bought this game for around 60p. I'm glad it had the decency to reveal in the tutorial mission that there was no gameplay beyond spamming attack. Pity that so much effort went into the graphics without good gameplay, but then again I don't think I would have been able to stand the egregiously self-serious story presentation anyway.

Run into a major controller problem that's widely discuss in the forum, yet the dev have yet to fix it.
Can't recommend the game until they fix that.