Incredible! This game is just incredible! Can’t really find the words to talk about it, I feel like keeping it very simple. I’ll compare this game with Lies of P for me personally, not because they are similar, they are not, but because as with Lies of P, I see the game being announced, all I can think is “I REALLY want to play this”. But with both games that were things I felt could prevent me from doing so. Lies of P was for being a Soulslike, a genre I never played other than the first couple of hours. And this game was turn base combat, a system I have never played in my life, not for a minute. And this, as with Lies of P, I’ll bee forever glad I stuck through it, saw it was not rocket science, and came out of it playing one of the best games of my life.
Before I cared a lot about stories in games, I thought it always needed strong stories, but lately, after a lot of games trying to be movies, I kind of change perspective. However, this does not mean that we can’t have phenomenal stories in games, quite the opposite. This game gives one of the best stories recently in any medium. Original, creative, unpredictable, emotional, and a group of characters that are incredible, and won’t be forgotten.
And what about the soundtrack? Phenomenal! Countless times I had to increase my volume just to enjoy it more. The game also thrives aesthetically. The world they built is fascinating. It feels amazing just to walk around, explore and see more of the world. And exploration is very rewarding, I maybe even overdid it. I was definitely overleveled for the last third of the game, it took me a long time to move on with the story because I was exploring and didn’t know when to stop.
The combat is great. For my first turn base, I really dig it. I heard the mechanic of parry and dodging is not very common in this type of game, but for me the whole system felt very natural. Combining skills, the weapons passives and pictos, everything is amazing to see it play out during combat. Really enjoyed this.
There’s no way this is not game of the year, even if the award doesn’t recognize it, I don’t care. This is GOTY, and I’ll have to take a look at recent games, cause this may be the best game since don’t know how long.
