Is it worth it?

[BCS]

$15 seems a little much.

[James McN]

I just picked it up a few days ago and I've already sunk a good few hours into it. I'd previously played and greatly enjoyed the short game "A Healer Only Lives Twice", but I've never played healer in any multiplayer capacity.

It's got fun dialogue that pokes fun at itself and rpgs in general and simple enough mechanics to get used to in terms of controls in my opinion but the differing combinations of items/spells/tactics keeps it from becoming repetitive at all. I'm 15hrs in and 68% through the game according to my save but that's with me playing on the highest difficulty and occasionally grinding for that sweet XP and gold (which hasn't felt necessary but I like to collect shop items as I find them).

The game autosaves and there's no heavy penalty for failure in a battle, just a dust yourself off and try again mentality. You can use keyboard/mouse, keyboard, or solely mouse controls; I've a touchpad so I've opted for keyboard and keeping my team alive feels very satisfying.

I'll probably end up playing through the game again on easier difficulties for the fun of playing the different alignments and unlocking extra achievements. I'm currently playing a "Good" alignment with a relevant bonus and started a new file for a few minutes out of curiosity (You can keep 5 different save files) with an "evil" character alignment who immediately charmed me with his frustrated insults in conparison. You can also have a "Victim" alignment. Which I look forward to trying out. Also, the cartoon style appeals to me.

It depends what you consider "worth it" in a game. If you're looking for difficulty the game can be surprisingly challenging, especially if you don't learn to adapt your magical skillsets to the current situation. If you're looking for an easy time of it the autosaving and lack of a death penalty means you can dip in and out easily enough and never worry, although I can't speak for the easy difficulty setting having not played it. Timewise, I'm guessing I'll get about 20-25hrs on my current save file unless the difficulty ramps up, but then I'll also obsessively hunt down the last items/ring upgrades/challenges after the story concludes, and then I'll likely have other playthroughs. On the other hand if you're not a collector and just played through the base linear game on easy/medium you'll probably get through much quicker than I.

Hopefully some of my rambling here is useful to you in deciding. I find it worth the price but I don't tend to focus on length and prefer games with some humour or good story to them. I also find the option of playing as the non-damaging party member intriguing and as someone who doesn't tend to play MMO's etc, it's a great alternative to be able to put myself in such shoes.

[Kyutaru]

If you love puzzles, it's worth it. You're going to be faced with a challenge figuring out which combinations of abilities will clear the monsters. There are lots of unique puzzle fights and your characters don't become obscenely powerful over time so you're going to have to design decent build synergy. It's unlike other RPGs where you have basically infinite resources and level advantages to overpower any fight and handle things in a turn based setting. This game will make you master a rotation and keep it up under constant pressure, managing health bars and status effects with seconds of decision making. The planning ahead aspect, the boss mechanics, the process of figuring out the solution, is all well worth the investment.

[thefollowingcharacters]

While at first glance it may not seem much better than a flash game, it quickly reveals a high level of polish and excellent game play. The art design on the sprites is really quite great. The dialogue is fun, if cheezy at times. I would say the only downside is the "overworld" maps which are kind of crappy.

But really, for $15 dollars? They did a REALLY great job.