The writing here is funny, and it has good use of comedic timing with its scripting system. Characters will frequently talk over each other, ignore each other, etc. The half-simplistic Minecraft character style is actually well-animated enough to support some basic, Final Fantasy 7-style emotes and hijinks that work out really well. By not going super-realistic, nor super-dumbed down for pixel art, they struck a median that makes it easy for them to do a moment's artwork and animation for many quick, one-off jokes. For the first hour of gameplay, even just having Hikaru try out random words to cast spells on people with her wand stays pretty funny.

I like that the writing never really goes EXCESS in being self-parodic. Yes, there's a bunch of fourth wall drops, and the main character is hyper and self-centered, but they still manage to stamp out important story beats without needlessly trying to toss jokes into it.

The combat has some inventive elements too. Like many games, enemies have a weakness system, but you must strike *each* of their weaknesses to progress to a knockdown effect. Also, you can charge up a character's special points faster by taking them out of the active 3 fighters. It's not an amazingly deep system, but it's interesting enough.

You can sorta tell the UI didn't add much to the basic Unity kit, and I have the strangest suspicion some of the animations were taken from San Andreas or something, but it kinda all works, and never interrupts the flow. I bound Ctrl to Back so I didn't have to reach for the Esc key so often.

Main appeal to me is the funny writing and situations, especially when they're willing to tie them with a good animation or funny sudden gameplay tweaks, like a character still being "BLIND" because of something in a short one-off cutscene.

Highly ridiculous game! I have been waiting for it to be released for a while and so far it is worth the wait.
MC is a thieving, troublesome little wench that is going to give me anxiety if she keeps setting people on fire... on accident. Haven't run into any issues so far.
My only gripe would be some way to track what you are doing next. Or maybe I haven't found it yet? Pesky hiding widgets. xD

So far so good, the graphics considering they are pixels are overall smooth, no loading screens when going to different areas.
Looking forward to further updates and game play. I love anything Suikoden inspired and the comedic element just adds to the charm of the game.

Keep up the good work, I appreciate how much hard work it can be when you're a tiny studio of one person. <3

The Mistress

Where do I start? I just want to say first off I have been having a really tough time in my life... I feel like it's going to get better but then something worse happens. This game had smiling and laughing... if you are going through some tough times and like jRPG type games pick this one up. It will have you laughing and forgetting about your problems so quick. (AAA title Hogwarts game couldn't even do that for me)

First I will begin with... It's been a while since I picked up a game and couldn't put it down... whether I paid for it, got it for free, that I have actually been able to sit down and enjoy. I got dying light for free on epic store, I bought Hogwarts legacy and played to hogsmeade, I bought RE 4 and I love it and I'm only at the castle, I Played wartales for 20 minutes...... etc etc The game I've played the most recently is..... Fallout 3/ New Vegas which I already have hundred of hours in.

That being said I picked up this game because I loved the Suikoden games as kid. Even though It didn't talk about my favourite part of that game which was battling armies vs armies I decided to give it a try anyways and I was not disappointed.... in fact I was blown away by how much I enjoyed the game.

First lets start off with the humour.... Right from the get go this game had me chuckling.... almost every interaction between the Main Char and her friends have a bit of humour too it. Some parts had me bust out laughing and I don't remember video games ever doing that to me.

The world is a minecraft looking world which if someone had told me that before I Started it would have turned me off because I was never a minecraft type player... but had I not recognised the blocks you wouldn't know it, It would just be a different art style fitting for a small dev team type game. That being said the game is a simple design, but also doesn't feel like its lacking. I saw another reviewer say something about certain identical assets in the game (like a book shelf or cabinet) having treasure and others not and you had to spam x to find them.. but that reminds me of playing ff8 where you had to walk around a room clicking on everything to get a ! and find hidden treasure. I find it more rewarding when a game doesn't hold your hand and you can miss certain things.... and find it on your next play through. The UI is simple and clean. Nothing to complain about.

Story. It's cute, charming, and not over sophisticated. It does well with what it has. The jokes and references made that both poke fun at itself allowing it to get away with "cliche" type stories like "oh no bad guys are attacking the village, we must save the village" doesn't feel so lame when the guy who made it is just using what assetss he has to work with and no dev team to build out a much "in depth" AAA type game. That being said the story it does have is based on humour and JRPG elements.... a neat little blend done well if you ask me.

Game play... Well I wasn't expecting a whole fleshed out system I have never seen before but at the same time the "Shatter" system that is uses is in depth enough for it to both be fun, and a challenge at the same time. It has all the elements you would want in a jRPG game. Different weapon types, armour types, counters to each. It's own umm "orb" type systems where you assign different elements to your armour or weapon. All the items you would recognize what they do from other games like "Phoenix xxxxx" being the resurrection item, "medicine" healing, "eye drops" for blindness etc. Just when you think the game is getting to easy it throws a bit of a difficulty curve at you. Also the first time I died and I said okay that's enough for now it had a "try battle again" and of course that kept me in the game and playing for another 45 minutes or so. I didn't have to reload from a save point. You can save anytime or use the "save points"

I didn't think my ps4 controller was going to work for the game but it did. (Maybe steams controller profiles helped with that)
-I thought the way you picked up items in the monster areas was really cute, and I enjoyed how you used the mine craft block environment to make some of the items harder to reach and you had to figure out the path to get to it. (Don't want to spoil what the item pickup looks like, its cute, and not something I thought I would like if I heard it outside of the game, but loved it in the game)


Cons or things I didn't like: Honestly the music in the first zone/village get repetitive. They don't have some famous composer working for the game so of course you cannot expect much. I never was one for video game music anyways, I'm the type that always has a podcast or my own music playing while I game. So for others it might be fine. That being said IT WASN'T BAD music or anything it justs after I heard it for the 10th time I was like "okay that's enough" but by then I was in the next area anyways.

-I am already dreading for the game too end, I have made it to the castle (for the 2nd time and unlocked the rune system) I don't want it to end!!! We need more chapters, we need more people working on this game!!!

This game can be a huge JPRG success. Honestly I played the first legend of heroes Trails in the sky game not that long ago and I had much more fun playing this game. I know that series gets way better as it goes and has become a huge hit with newer titles and I can see this game getting to that point.

Suggestions for the game.

-Please add a pause feature!! I want to be able to pause the game instead of go to the menu and have the time continue to tick(I am a stickler for completion times on my games,)
-Maybe for higher difficulties turn the "save anytime" function off and make them only use the save points
-Have a new game plus feature so the higher difficulties don't become a grind fest and more of a "replay the game but scale the enemies"



*I AM NOT DONE WITH THIS REVIEW* I will add more to it as I continue through the game, whether it's stuff I like or dislike or suggestions that I have.

For now I give this game for WHAT IT IS as a 10$ Jrpg a 10/10.... if comparing it to other games like AAA titles a 7.5/10 but that would not be fair in any way to compare it to an AAA title. So for what I was expecting, what I paid for, and what I got I give it a 10/10

Thank you for this little gem! :) <3

I had a blast with this one. Big fan of old school RPGs, and it's easy to see that the developer is as well. Lots of love has gone into this game already, with great references and gags sprinkled throughout. There really was never a dull moment.

The battle system is pretty interesting. It took me a couple of encounters to fully understand the nuances, but once I did it kept me very engaged, even during your average random encounter. The player has the option to swap out party members during battle too, which I love, especially in games with huge rosters to pick from.

The rune system allows the player to customize each character as well, and although I never really went wild with it I can tell that by the end game players would have a TON of options on how to build their characters. Very cool stuff there.

If nothing else, play the game for Enrico. Trust me.

I played through the first chapter in EA and THIS WAS FUN! The sense of humor here is unique and makes the game charming... left me wanting to run right into the second chapter. I hope to see the next one soon! I am kinda sad that the first chapter did not have more of the recruiting and castle formation stuff, but it is forgivable as long as the content continues and we can keep playing along.

I have been streaming it on my Twitch and my viewers are OBSSESED! We have like 6 clips made already from the first 3 hours of the game XD. The jokes have us ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dying!!! The "Elohamora" bit was personally one of my Favorite early moments as well as the Aerith flower reference. I really hope this does well and you can make the rest of the games. The touch of Suikoden, Grandia and Minecraft together leaves this game with an OVERHAUL of nostalgic feelings. the 10$ price is more then fair for a 5 hour long game with around 100 characters to recruit!!!! I can't wait to see where this franchise heads.

Curiously enough I found Castle of the Underdogs by searching for indie rpgs and spelunking through some Youtube vids and I have to say that I can appreciate that the game wears it's inspirations on it's sleeve without trying too hard to be either grim-dark or ridiculously campy that it circles around to being cringe. Granted, you'll bemoan some of the humor at times but so much of it is made in a light-hearted jest that you'll smile at it anyway.

Mechanically, the game is a toss-up between mechanics found in Suikoden, Final Fantasy and Octopath Traveler in that you recruit party members to a castle and have formations/switchable party members and equipment screens that look like it's from Suikoden. The Final Fantasy inspirations are far less integrated into the makeup of the game itself but you'll see it in item names, references, and so on.

Combat is where the Octopath styled mechanics come into play where you have to figure out weaknesses and then 'shatter' the enemy to deal more damage. Characters can be customized with 'corbs' in their armor and weapons for buffs and elemental affinity, so it allows for customization that's both simple and in-line with the humor of the game.

Really and truly, COTU feels like a quirky love letter to the jrpgs that inspired it and while its goofy, it's enjoyable through and through. There's some clunkiness in the menus if you're butterfingered like me, but everything's remappable.

Can definitely recommend it to people seeking an oddball quest with an equally eclectic roster of characters.

My Overall Personal Game Score: 8 / 10

-Lots of comedy scenes and dialog.
-The environment is similar to Minecraft.
-A nice game to play.

-There are some bugs here and there but still fun to play as it is currently an Early Access game.
-Has a lot of potential in the future.

this game is super easy, most dialogues are hilarious and no need for grinding except you wanna get all badges. I think it's still in development so plot is totally incomplete tho (Presumably Ep 1 only 15% of the whole game). Await for Episode 2/3/4/5/final to come out

great game, take your time for next episode. stay safe & keep some rest!