I'm a longtime fan of NIS, and wanted to like this game, but... it's not happening. In fact, I would advise anyone who likes fairness in their games to avoid this one.

The core problem here is that this game, as it's designed, has flaky controls and is just flat-out unfair, especially the boss battles. The circular targets that the fireflies can interact with seem to have very small and strict activation windows, plus the little girl you can guide around can sometimes go where you don't want her to if you are not precisely in the right place at the right time. The bosses, as you would expect, have distinct attacks and movements, but forget about studying their patterns, because they are often random in the worst ways.

As you might expect, this leads to the little girl dying a lot, especially given how large her hitbox is. The game expects you to die a bunch, going by the achievements. However, there is nothing fun or interesting about her deaths.

On top of all this, the PC port isn't very good. It seems like the alpha channels and/or other normally hidden parts of various sprites are often visible. How this looks ranges from bad to awful. Playing windowed at the game's native resolution may fix it, but I didn't bother to try.

You have to either be a masochist or extremely patient to be able to get through this game. I made it as far as the third boss before setting it aside, and don't know if I will ever go back to it. If you like difficult games, there are much better options out there.

I'm a longtime fan of NIS, and wanted to like this game, but... it's not happening. In fact, I would advise anyone who likes fairness in their games to avoid this one. The core problem here is that this game, as it's designed, has flaky controls and is just flat-out unfair, especially the boss battles. The circular targets that the fireflies can interact with seem to have very small and strict activation windows, plus the little girl you can guide around can sometimes go where you don't want her to if you are not [i]precisely[/i] in the right place at the right time. The bosses, as you would expect, have distinct attacks and movements, but forget about studying their patterns, because they are often random in the worst ways. As you might expect, this leads to the little girl dying a lot, especially given how large her hitbox is. The game expects you to die a bunch, going by the achievements. However, there is nothing fun or interesting about her deaths. On top of all this, the PC port isn't very good. It seems like the alpha channels and/or other normally hidden parts of various sprites are often visible. How this looks ranges from [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2924509764]bad[/url] to [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2924394496]awful[/url]. Playing windowed at the game's native resolution may fix it, but I didn't bother to try. You have to either be a masochist or extremely patient to be able to get through this game. I made it as far as the third boss before setting it aside, and don't know if I will ever go back to it. If you like difficult games, there are much better options out there.