Chickenph

The more I played, the more I appreciated it. At first I thought it was decent but derivative (which it DOES borrow bits of other games) but the combat was satisfying, enemy design is cool and there were a lot of little details that showed how much time and effort they put in. I honestly got hooked on this game and spent all my free time playing. As with any game, watch a stream or gameplay video to see if it looks like you’d enjoy it.

Imagine if someone designed a really good car but had it manufactured by whoever would do it cheapest. This game is very interesting, it has a cool approach, but it looks like a PC game running on the lowest settings. A lot of the voice acting is painfully bland, it seems like they didn’t even try to make dialogue match the characters' lip movement…idk, it just seems like a game that would have to have released in 2013 for people to accept the overall presentation. I still think there’s a lot to like about the thought put into the game, and interesting little touches like a character with vitiligo. But they weaken their own IP by allowing it to be presented like a indie dev's first try at a genre.

It’s a definite 10/10 *if* you can enjoy a game with a lot of story (and some tower defense that’s fun and pretty easy). There’s a lot of effort put into the world, the story, the animations. Watch some gameplay videos and you'll know if it seems interesting. It’s misleading to call it a visual novel because you play through the story instead of just clicking through text. The graphics are really pretty, and there are a lot of different locations. The gameplay in the story sections involves talking to people, a little interacting with things, and presenting topics to people. It’s very streamlined so you don’t waste time trying out every option like in adventure games. It’ll highlight any option that you need to use, and give you an onscreen indicator that you have a topic you need to present to someone. The story involves time travel, high school, conspiracy theories, a cat, mech battles, gangs…I mean, it’s a fun story that touches on a lot of topics and genres. You play through short episodes that continue each character's story, and after the prologue you choose what character's story to play next. The tower defense sections are cool and I’m not usually a huge tower defense fan. They’re pretty easy on normal difficulty, and I enjoyed using the different abilities. Like, some characters control mechs that are for close-range damage, so you can make them jump in the air and do AOE damage. If you don’t enjoy it, you can set the difficulty on easy and just rush through it. I looked at screenshots and didn’t get why I kept hearing rave reviews of “This game deserves to be way more popular,” but I bought it and agree. The story is enjoyable to follow and slowly understand, and it’s presented in a way that feels like you’re playing through a season of a cool show. It’s a special game that just has that game magic you can’t explain.

I wish I could give a negative number as a score. The multiplayer is sabotaged by servers that make it pointless to play, and spawning that's so aggressively bad that it has to be an intentional choice. The time to kill is very short, so either you have amazing internet or you don’t even know you’ve been shot until a killcam starts. Spend your money on something that’ll make you happy, NOT this game.

I didn’t expect it to be more than a 7/10, like where it’s cool enough to be worth playing but nothing amazing. I love it though, and I’m not even a FF7 fanboy. The demo was interesting but I barely beat it because I struggled with combat. It’s very cinematic. I was caught off guard by how much I actually got caught up in the drama and excitement of the story. And the city is AMAZING. I couldn’t stop looking around at how cool the city looks. You can always see how absolutely gigantic it is. Overall, it’s a beautiful game on PS5. They put a lot of love and effort into making the world feel special. I expected the music to be kind of generic orchestral stuff, but they use a good variety of interesting music that I found myself impressed by. I played with a headset and highly recommend it. Combat gets more fun as you earn more materia and level their skills up. It can be difficult on normal difficulty, but don’t let that discourage you. The game is so cool that it’d be a shame to miss the experience...just play it on easy. Is it worth $70? It’s supposed to be a 35-50 hour game, depending on how much time you want to get out of it, so you’ll have to decide for yourself. I highly recommend it, but also you should be aware that it’s very linear (just like the Midgar section in original FF7). You can explore and find items because maps still have side passages, etc. but if you absolutely hate linear games, be aware this is one. To me it’s an awesome, cinematic experience. Some of the dialogue is corny but a lot of the voice acting is charming. If you buy it, I hope you love it too!

I need to mention I’ve played Persona 2-5, both Persona Q games, and 4 different SMT games. This is the only Atlus game I wouldn’t recommend. I wanted to love this game but it’s just too basic and outdated, including the writing. This is the first SMT or Persona game I’ve played where the story wasn’t great enough to make up for any flaws. It just doesn’t have that SMT/Persona magic. Even Persona 2 (which came out LAST CENTURY) has all the personality of Persona 5. Even if you love another SMT or Persona game you played, I don’t recommend this, even at a discounted price. It’s **** basic in every way. The dungeons are just blank hallways with nothing in them, the story (and added voiceovers) is painfully low effort. It pains me to say it, but just don’t give time or money to this game. I regret it.

I’m not sure why other reviews are so negative. I had a lot of fun playing this game! It really feels cinematic, with cool camera angles and things like that. It seems like people wanted a game that has predictable consequences so you could easily get the best ending, but I enjoyed not knowing what would happen. Until Dawn was a horror movie in game form. This is more of a thriller with horror elements, but also a better game overall. You can tell they wanted to improve on the formula. If you want a game that’s a fun, cinematic experience with jump scares that make you laugh at your own reaction, I recommend this.

Aggressively mediocre. A great concept with almost entirely joyless execution. You don’t have much fun, you just desperately try to avoid dealing with the frustrating mechanics of being trapped in a group of people all trying to jump on a platform but bumping into each other. Hahaha this is such wacky fun! You memorize symbols that appear on tiles, then stand on one. Omg what... fun...gameplay... :/ It’s just not fun. The only part they really put effort into is monetization. It feels like a f2p game that you have to buy, and the game is based around desperately avoiding the awful gameplay.

NO SPOILERS. . . . This should have been even better than the original TLOU. Naughty Dog have only gotten more talented, and the characters are already loved. BUT they took all that talent and applied it to a genuinely awful idea for a plot. I don’t mean “challenging,” I mean awful. I’m staying vague for your sake, but this is the last direction you should take with a **** multiple ways. The original is now cheapened by having its story extended to this. Give praise to everything else (graphics, design, sound) because it’s deserved, but I’ll never say “It’s by Naughty Dog, I know it’ll be great” again. They messed up. They committed to an atrocious idea for what the sequel should be. I wish this game didn’t exist because, if it didn’t, Ellie and Joel's story would still be so amazing.

After taking that long to release a new game, they put out a game that could’ve been rushed out a few years after BL2. Minimal improvements, worse writing, AND they made most PC gamers wait a year unless we want to start on a separate store. Hard pass.

If you’ve played Persona 3 and/or 4, this is a fun chance to see those characters again. Some reviews really trash it as shallow fan service, but I don’t ****’s unique and addictive. It incorporates a lot of familiar elements like fusing personas, but the gameplay is switched up. You move around a 3D map (the levels are cool enough to make exploring enjoyable) and use the 2nd screen to mark doors/chests/etc. Once the casts of P3 and 4 meet up, you form a 5-person party using any of them. So you can have both games' main characters in one party if you want. I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected, and immediately started playing it too much. The story is just "we're in some other dimension, wonder why" but it has that lighthearted tone that makes SMT/Persona games so fun.

Less value and no improvements. Please don’t trust the people giving the game 10's just to make up for low scores it earns. They still can’t be bothered to put some of their money into their servers, OR improving spawning. There isn’t a single AAA shooter with this bad of spawning or servers. It connects me to servers half a country away. It’s only competitive in terms of internet connections, not really skill. Quit buying these games or they’ll never make an effort to fix their constantly ignored issues.

Beautiful, well-directed, unique world design, great use of music...this is a great game. It’s obvious that a lot of time and money went into it. If you haven’t played a game by this developer, their games focus on story over nonstop action, and gameplay relies heavily on QTE'S and contextual button presses. It’s a mature game, not because of language but because the pace is slow for a game and the story is told by the world as much by events, much like an indie film. I can’t recommend it highly enough, but be aware that it’s not the equivalent of an action movie.

An insane finale doesn’t make up for the painful amount of filler. The trials are always great, but getting to them is frustrating. If someone sees a gun on the ground, you have to click through 30 lines of "Huh? Is that? Wha? What’s he looking at? I don’t ****?" before someone says "It’s a gun on the ground." The characters are just as memorable as the ones from the first game, but the pacing is absolutely brutal. Still glad I played it, though.

Two extremely well-written visual novels that are filled with twists and intrigue. I’m not much of a visual novel fan, but once these games really get ****’s hard not to get hooked hard. I’m really glad I bought this.

I'm thrilled that I decided to buy this game. It balances a lighthearted tone with some serious subject matter. One of your teachers is abusing students (and using his power to sleep with at least one). If you didn't notice, it's M rated. The presentation is great and really stylish. You should know that your own enjoyment will depend on one thing: are you interested in a LOT of story, with fighting mixed in sometimes? You can technically spend a ridiculous amount of time in dungeons, but the focus is on story. Find someone playing it on Twitch, and you'll either like the idea of that kind of game or you won't. It has a ton of voiced dialogue, and the voice acting is good. The game follows a calendar, so the story progresses day by day. I absolutely love the game, but it's important to realize that its focus is telling a story instead of hours of grinding to advance the story.