99 Spirits

A good mix of reactive turn based combat and Puzzle! I am not really familiar with a lot of Tsukumogami and am prety slow when it comes to puzzles so it wouldn't be my style to keep playing. However, the art is lovely, the music sounds great and while it's a bit dialogue-heavy, this is clearly made for those who enjoy that sort of thing. Definitely recommend if you like any of these: calligraphy, japanese folklore, puzzles, reactive combat and Tsukumogami.

I'm a sucker for anything set in the Heian period and it had MYTHOLOGY in it so of course I had to buy it. The story and writing is....fine? I genuinely fell in love with the characters and the cute lil' monsters. Gameplay-wise, the difficulty spike during the last few chapters was surprising but possibly not going to be a big issue for the grinders out there. Didn't finish it because the combat system felt less and less engaging as I went on. I think it had something to do with the same-y monsters toward the ending

The story is good. The music is also good. The battle system is fun at first, but at some point it can be very time consuming or repetitive depending of your equipment or character.

---{ Graphics }--- ☐ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☑ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☐ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☑ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{ Difficulty }--- ☐ Just press 'W' ☑ Easy ☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Significant brain usage ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{ Grind }--- ☑ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isn't necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You'll need a second life for grinding ---{ Story }--- ☐ No Story ☐ Some lore ☐ Average ☐ Good ☑ Lovely ☐ It'll replace your life ---{ Game Time }--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☑ Long ☐ To infinity and beyond ---{ Price }--- ☐ It's free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If it's on sale ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{ Bugs }--- ☑ Never heard of ☐ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs ---{ ? / 10 }--- ☐ 1 ☐ 2 ☐ 3 ☐ 4 ☐ 5 ☐ 6 ☐ 7 ☐ 8 ☑ 9 ☐ 10

This game was a lot of fun. It's a pretty simple premise, but still manages to make the combat engaging, and the story is decent as well. Basically, combat is like a game of Hangman - you use skills to glean clues from your enemies in order to determine their identify. As the enemies are all tsukomogami, they are spirits inhabiting everyday items (well, everyday to the Edo period). Each clue gives you a letter or a word; the letters are part of the name of the enemy, and the word clues are related to the item's materials or function. You are encouraged to discover the true identity of the artifact spirit as soon as you can, so knowing the types of items in an area can help immensely in repeat battles. One thing I didn't like were the boss battles, which were almost always against the same one or two items. It was a bit of a letdown each time. But the main loop of combat, shopping, and VN-style story kept me going through to the end. Another potential issue is that you need to be at least somewhat familiar with items from long-ago Japan, and in some cases their Romanized names. For example, "tatami" instead of maybe "bedding/floor mat", "katana" instead of "sword" (though that's an easier one to know). There's also some specific items that are translated, but you might not guess them if the setting is unfamiliar to you. Luckily, I am a low-key weeb, so it worked out OK for me. I think the game also comes with both the English and Japanese

very different kind of game of what I am used to, but, thinking back to Sega Saturn days, we did had crazy weird ass stuff like this. There is a lot to go around in it. The combat system can be monotonous some times. I played the japanese version first, because i forgot i had this one xD The overall presentation is very good, and do you go slowly getting what is to be done, and there is a lot of functions in this game. So its good a thing in this case, that the game is slow in doing things, or else, there would be too much information in a row to process. It is still a fun game. And I do have fun. BUT... The japanese version comes with an extra mini game, based on the combat system, where you do also have some achievements and such, which actually help you identifying at first the demon creatures, which also helps in the main game to identify at first, as you gain bonus xp because of that. Its like a Training Mode. This on the japanese version. This english version lacks that mini game. At least, its not on the starting menu like the japanese. Do you unlock it? I don't know. I like this came , i dont feel like finishing it already xD

99 Spirits has a genuinely clever hook — figuring out a spirit's identity by piecing together hints like 'wood' and 'cleaning' to deduce you're fighting a possessed broom is the kind of puzzle mechanic I hadn't seen before, and the Japanese folklore art and story kept me curious. But the battle system, charming as it is at first, wears out its welcome fast; by the time you're re-identifying the same Tsukumogami for the tenth time in a region, the novelty is long gone. The single looping battle track doesn't help, and I ended up muting it entirely. The real dealbreaker is the bugs — the Kirikiri engine crashes often enough that 'save constantly' isn't just advice, it's a survival strategy. It's a shame, because there's a genuinely interesting game buried under the repetition and instability.

Underated gem. People complain about the battles being repetitive, as if all J-RPG weren't like that... Good story, fun characters, cool mix of turn-based battles, timed block and word guessing, and an awesome boss theme.