Ikenfell

Ikenfell is an enjoyable RPG with an interesting story, fleshed-out characters, and a dense turn-based battle system, with a superb soundtrack and some gorgeous environments to boot.

Ikenfell is a charming little turn-based tactical RPG that hooks you in quickly with a well-written story and strong cast of characters and keeps you locked in for its duration with a surprisingly complex combat system. There are accessibility options here to suit all levels of player, a good idea considering how tough some of the battles can be along the way, and, overall, this is a heart-warming and unique entry to its genre that comes highly recommended.

Ikenfell has a unique battle system and story that can make for some of the best moments in an RPG this year, but unfortunately it doesn’t always use these to its advantage and has multiple boring boss fights with the plot meandering in the first half. Still, its highs are so high that it is well worth seeing through to the end.

Ikenfell occasionally loses its way with repetitive puzzles and rehashed narrative beats, but its great soundtrack, challenging combat, and well-told story make its magical campus well worth exploring.

If Super Mario RPG helped you become a master of timing-based moves, Ikenfell offers a warm and satisfying playthrough. Undoubtedly, though, some will find the non-combat elements overly simple and the battles too demanding.

Ikenfell is a game of good intentions. The take on RPG combat is both satisfying and interesting with enough options, both with in-game tweaks to characters and strategy and also directly within the settings, to help tailor it to your preferences. It just drags on a bit without feeling like anything has actually really happened until its final moments. The nice variety and wholesome vibes present a lovely little world to explore and save. There are just enough little pitfalls in the story and execution that can be quite grating when I wanted to feel immersed.

In theory, its intricacies should be bracing, but in practice the fixation on spacing and formation further slows down the pace.

Fantastic story and great combat. I love it and all of its quirky characters

Better than Harry Potter with great gameplay. Doesnt overstay its welcome and the first RPG that has everyones pronouns on the status page, LOVED this detail! My only complaint is some of the music was a lil cringe

I loved the cast, story and soundtrack, and props for all the accessibility options and representation. the timing based combat is great but I found it tiresome towards the end and was mainly playing for the story, luckily there are options to automate the timing or skip battles all together. I definitely reccomend this game especially to anyone who can't enjoy that other wizard-school franchise anymore

There are so many things that I love about this game. I love that it's unapologetically ****, you save the game with cats (like mother 3's frogs), it's loaded with secrets, and the soundtrack is phenomenal. The story is pretty solid. There were some pretty interesting twists that made the characters feel much more interesting and complex. But as an actual game, the things you spend most of your time doing (endless dungeons, repetitive combat) just aren't fun enough to make you want to stick with the game. The first ten hours or so are particularly bad in terms of pacing, so I can see why so many people drop it early. I wanted to see how the story ended (maybe I should have turned on auto-win for the fights), but it took me months to finally beat it because of what a slog it becomes. Things I wish it'd done better: - Cut out half of the dungeons. Seriously, a lot of them only move the plot forward by bits and pieces, and the interesting parts of the game happen towards the end. What Super Mario RPG did well was that you had cute mini-games, fun and interesting townspeople. Pacing-wise, Ikenfell feels like Final Fantasy XIII (well, ikenfell has a more open world and better puzzles)... every little task you need to do (chasing after a mcguffin, being told to find yet another professor) is another dungeon. You get a short break in the form of a cutscene and an NPC who sells you new gear, and then it's on to the next dungeon. It feels exhausting, because combat isn't fun enough to be engaging. - Make the secrets more meaningful to find. You collect gems throughout the playthrough if you carefully check for secrets, which can be traded for unique accessories. But those accessories (unlike regular ones) have no stats, so it never feels good to equip them. - Combat isn't fun enough to stay interesting after your 100th battle. Most fights play out pretty similarly, other than needing to learn new enemy attacks to block. The most fun and interesting characters for combat show up towards the end. Trap-based moves are more annoying than fun, and because the battlefield is only three (!!!) rows deep, you're limited in your strategy and spend a fair amount of effort trying not to block your own characters or stand to close and get hit by an AOE. Super Mario RPG added timed attacks to keep combat more engaging, but Ikenfell's issue is that the timing is pretty precise and takes a lot of practice for certain attacks. Even worse - you often do like 1 damage if you miss the timed attack, vs SMRPG where it was maybe a 30% damage boost. Like, there's a good game in there, and the dev put their heart and soul into the game. But it's frustrating to come so close to greatness but be held back by a few issues.

The best way this game can be described is as being written by a Twitter progressive. That is, someone well meaning, but has no idea what they’re talking about. At least the music is incredible enough to bump up the ranking by one, since the rest of the game sure doesn’t make up for the writing’s quality.