Recent reviews by h.arle

It's really good! Super Mario RPG-style combat but difficult and with a lot of auxiliary mechanics and subsystems (as well as a guitar hero minigame). Will update once I've played more, but having played the developer's other game, I'm sure this will remain as good as it's been so far.

Beat it on the PS5, going to beat it again here.

Not a perfect JRPG, and certainly different from what most Final Fantasy fans might expect from a game in the series--different, not worse. The action combat system is great and gets better the more options and abilities you unlock (though a bit on the easy side; I wish for this release they'd let you tackle Final Fantasy mode from the start), the soundtrack is as good as you'd expect from Soken and his team (that is: probably my favorite in the series), and the story is compelling with well-written characters and arcs (bar a few important characters, unfortunately).

My main gripe with the game is that its implementation of what you'd expect from a JRPG--an item and gear system; party members; leveling up and assigning abilities--is basically window dressing. Gear is a straightforward path that doesn't require much investment from the player other than just playing through the game, with little choice-making aside from accessories which have asinine perks like '+5% damage for this specific ability', and the itemization and loot systems in the game have you finding stuff like chests with 50 gil inside them while at the game's final zones; party members are present but their contributions in battle are hard to measure (you also can't customize or gear them up); and leveling up just gives you improved attributes, with nothing new or playstyle-changing unlocked. They should've either ditched these elements entirely or actually invested some thought into how they're implemented, as it stands it feels like they're there just because genre conventions say these things must exist in a JRPG.

Having said that, I still think the game's great, carried by an excellent cast, soundtrack, fun & quick (if a bit easy) action combat and a plotline that manages to be cohesive and interesting in ways some previous Final Fantasy games might have floundered (particularly towards their conclusion).

Edit: quick update for the Steam Award stuff.

It's all the best parts of FF14 (raiding, different jobs, bunnygirls) without any of the bad (male Au Ra, interacting with people, Balmung, male Au Ra).

Jokes aside, fun raid-like gameplay loop slapped atop a roguelike structure. Works with friends or solo, very easy to start up and do a few runs.

Very, very good platformer with a low-enough skill floor that most people should be able to complete it, and a skill ceiling high enough to allow for plenty of optimizing and speedrunning. My one issue with the game is that since there are very few /hard/ gates early on blocking you from the several zones, the first couple of hours of your first playthrough can feel a tad aimless as you wander deep into a new area only to find out you can go just far enough to not actually get a powerup or upgrade. This was way worse without the map, but now there is one and it's less of an issue.

Surprisingly good action RPG. As someone who's never played the Gacha, the story didn't hook me - there were some fun exchanges between characters, but the pace things happened felt way too accelerated - but everything else did. Over a dozen characters that each play very differently and fulfill different roles in a party, with a combat system that's similar to Final Fantasy 16's (basic combos mapped to two attack buttons; a block and a dodge roll; four skill buttons per character) and great, stylized visuals. It's a great package as-is, but if they stick to a Monster Hunter style post-release support - a few free updates with new characters or fights, capped with paid DLC that truly expands the game - they'll really elevate the game. Be warned that the main focus here is not exploration, is not the story, and is not what you traditionally expect from a JRPG.

There are some minor issues that they'll hopefully iron out (the multiplayer region-locking has already been fixed, fortunately), such as a lack of different gamepad button layouts (I use a Dual Sense and the only option for button layout indicators is the Xbox controller).

Short, sweet and cheap. My first run took just about an hour, but there's plenty to do in terms of challenges if you'd like (no-damage runs, speedrunning, etc.)

Momodora I is quite different (much closer to Cave Story than the following games), but if you want a very similar experience entirely for free, try out Momodora II first (available on itch).

While I excitedly awaited for Moonlit Farewell's release, I played through all the Momodora games and the (sadly underrated and underappreciated) Minoria. I'm a few hours, several zones and several bosses into the game and can safely say that this feels like the culmination of years of practice, improvement and iteration from the developer. Everything feels bigger, better, more thought out; there's more story to be told, and the game isn't afraid to tell it (in that sense it reminds me of Minoria more than its predecessors); bossfights and special encounters are generously peppered through each of the richly-detailed zones, which steadily provide you with augments to your exploration/movement and combat skills, in such a way that you're always only a few minutes away from some kind of improvement; the pixel art and sound design/soundtrack is at its best... and so on and so on.

To avoid being even more repetitive, my point can be summed up as: this is Momodora at its best and I can't wait to play more of it. If you're a fan of the series or Metroidvanias in general, I fully recommend it.

Risk of Rain's formula translated very well to a 3D environment -- unless you have a personal preference for the first game's perspective, RoR2 feels like a significant upgrade in every sense possible. Interesting items and artifacts, classes that play very differently, a wide range of different environs and challenges, and what (so far) seems like a steady stream of updates, patches and DLC.

I'm an SMT fan with very little knowledge of Touhou (only game related to the series I've played is Touhou Luna Nights, which I also recommend!). This is a fantastic take on the classic SMT formula. Think SMT 1 and 2, but with heaps of Quality of Life features. The difficulty's well-balanced, with Grimoires letting you tune it to be easier/harder according to your preferences, and there's a wide variety of characters to catch and build up (from what I understand, all of them are girls from the Touhou games).

The developer is still updating the game, with plans to make a dungeon editor and several bugfixes/UX-UI changes to make things better -- coincidentally, that's the one gripe I have with the game: navigating the menus and inspecting your characters can be clunky (such as when fusing them, or when picking one to summon mid-battle -- I wish there was a way to see more info. about them in those situations). One final point to make is that the OST is full of memorable tunes. Easy recommend for anyone who enjoys the SMT style of gameplay.

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