Fair warning, minor spoilers ahead.

As of the writing of this review, I am at what I believe to be roughly the halfway point through the game, which is just after the airship assault on the Tierian tower. Once I complete the game, I will make sure to come back and addend this review. Additionally, I recognize that this game was not made in Japan, but I will be using the term "JRPG" to describe it even so, due to its similarity to that genre and the engine in which it was made.

The short of it: Letter Grade B, standard JRPG mostly for the better but some few times for the worse. Absolutely worth the meager $4 that the developers are charging for it, and I would gladly have paid closer to $10 for it.

The long of it:

Pros:

-Hard difficulty actually means hard. I find that it's fairly troublesome to actually achieve meaningful difficulty in JRPGs. In most JRPGs, you can usually just grind for half an hour if you find yourself stuck on a boss or a fight or whatever, and just sort of bullrush right through it once your character levels and equipment is good enough. For Einlanzer, though, nothing could be further from the truth when playing on hard difficulty. There have been several bosses that I've needed more than a few tries to beat, and even normal random world and dungeon encounters can wipe your party if you don't treat them with the respect that they deserve. Fights in Einlanzer require you to genuinely think instead of just spamming your strongest abilities and steamrolling through fights.

-A good variety of party members. As of where I am right now, I have the Physical Damage Warrior, the Dedicated Healer, the Quick Critical Hit Thief, the Mage, the Monk, the Defensive Tank Paladin, the Mixed Damage Spellsword, the Support Dancer, and I've seen a character that I suspect to be the future Hunter for my party. Additionally, I had a Samurai as a temporary party member. All of these party members have been meaningfully different from one another, and a few of them - such as the Spellsword and the Monk - have mechanics that I haven't really seen in other JRPGs. All of these characters have three different subclasses, which give benefits ranging from stat bonus to new skills and spells.

-An above average story with above average characters. Einlanzer isn't exactly high literature, but at its price and its scale, it doesn't need to be. Evil demon god is coming back to life; heroes have to stop it, using magic talking holy relic sword. I actually suspect so far that there's a lot more going on than just those cliches, but for right now it's fairly standard JRPG fare. The characters, while mostly fulfilling their respective tropes, all do have fairly decent arcs and development. Again, it's not much compared to the likes of Chrono Trigger, but it's still far better than most RPG Maker games you'll find.

-Good worldbuilding, aesthetic, and tone. The setting is fairly standard JRPG high magic medieval fantasy, but Einlanzer fully accepts that setting and does good work within it. Everything is fairly believable for what it is, and all of the art and music assets are used appropriately.

-Good progression. You start off investigating an abandoned mine filled with rats and bugs and snakes, move onto caves filled with orcs, then ancient crypts, then fighting human soldiers and mages, and then horrific demon beasts that swallow people whole. Admittedly, there are some things that feel out of place - why is a Gorgon defending the sewer exit of an otherwise normal human castle? - but everything is mostly put together in a way that makes sense.

-Good side content. Apart from the actual side quests, Einlanzer features two types of side content that I've seen thus far. First is finding the Shrines that will give your party an item that imbues a single party member with a unique skill. Second is finding and defeating Shen throughout the game. Shen is an reccuring optional boss that is moderately strong for whatever level your party is at, and who gives you rare gear if you defeat him. The distribution of optional treasure chests throughout dungeons is additionally very well done.

Cons:

-Sometimes absolute nonsense unfair difficulty. Yes, hard difficulty means hard, but hard difficulty shouldn't mean that I face a boss that can attack twice in two turns and has an attack that simultaneously hits my entire party and has a chance to stun while also dealing more than half of my healer's HP if it hits her. This is the Golem at the end of the first trek through Tierian tower, by the way. It's hard. It's very hard. It's too hard, in fact, because I have to hope and pray to the RNG that the Golem never decides to use his Cleave twice in the same turn. And if he does? Well, I'm ♥♥♥♥ out of luck, aren't I? The balancing in boss fights is mostly good, but sometimes it is just simply unfair.

-Some party members and some abilities end up feeling useless. For example, I rarely use the Monk character outside of a few niche circumstances, because he just doesn't do anything that some other party member could do better. Yes, he can heal, deal light element damage, and do good physical damage all at the same time, but... So can the Paladin, and she can also tank. In terms of abilities, I've used my Mage's sleep ability exactly once that I can remember, and have never used her poison ability at all. The Spellblade has water, wind, and earth element spells, but very few enemies in the game so far have been vulnerable to those; thankfully, his ability to imbue his weapon with fire, lightning, or ice element attacks have kept him a fair bit more relevant than the Monk. This is, unfortunately, something that tends to occur with too much variety; inevitably, some options are just inferior to others.

-An annoying amount of permanence. I recognize that this is primarily a matter of the RPG Maker engine, but it's frustrating nonetheless. When you pick one of the subclasses I mentioned earlier for any given character... You are stuck with it. You cannot change a character's subclass, no matter what. This had a genuine impact on me as a few hours into my first run, I realized that I didn't like the subclasses I had chosen, so I completely restarted my game. Additionally, when you use one of the items from the Shrines I mentioned previously, you cannot transfer the skill it grants from one character to another. If you gave the skill to your Warrior, then you cannot ever give it to your Healer. This is primarily annoying when I gain a new party member and realize that a skill I had given to someone before would be better suited for this new party member. This stuff isn't necessarily a huge deal, and it is again clearly a problem most likely with the engine rather than necessarily with the game, but it is still annoying either way.

-The morality system feels... Forced and out of place, so far. The protagonist is a typical JRPG protagonist, and his party is a typical JRPG party. They are all do-gooders, inside and out. I don't mind the concept of like... Keeping gold taken from bandits rather than returning it to the villagers it was stolen from, or whatever, but the idea of this party of typical JRPG heroes deciding to turn evil just feels really weird to me. Additionally, the fact that it's a binary morality of system of good or evil (not even any neutral options!) also makes the whole thing just seem... Unnecessary and out of place. I don't mind having choice in RPGs, but I think the morality system in this game could be taken away and nothing of meaning would be lost. Maybe it'll affect more things toward the end of the story, but for now, it feels kind of pointless.

To reiterate my summary from before: I feel that Einlanzer deserves a Letter Grade of B, and that it is well worth a purchase at the price of $4 if you are a fan of JRPGs. I'd really be interested in seeing the developer(s) make another game, if at all within the realm of possibility!