Path of the Midnight Sun

A nice game with an interesting history with some nice turning points. The characters are well voiced and have some really nice personalities. The battles are balanced, but you need to kill every enemy in every chapter to lvl up since there is no way to "farm" XP like in many RPG's. The animations become a little repetitive after many times, you can disable them in the options, the battles become much more smooth/faster after that. Some 20~ hours of gameplay. Worth the price tag and the time spent.

While the combat is perfectly functional, it's important to know that this is a visual novel with RPG elements. As such, dialogues and even point-and-click explorations are the main components of the game alongside the RPG gameplay. On that note, the narrative is solid, even if I find the finer details are quite lacking and/or a bit underwritten, and the voice acting helps a lot of the emotional punch. Though, it isn't fully voiced, so there may be times where story scenes are silent. The auto-play dialogues is too fast for my taste, and it seems to be bugged during the final boss segment. During non-voiced scenes, just turn it off. For the extras, the collector's edition is also worth buying. The OST is really good, and the artbook is well put together (just be aware of spoilers for these items).

FARATRAS

クリア後レビュー [h1]ファンタジーADV＋バトル[/h1]　　70/100 記憶喪失の主人公が、女の子に「あなたは騎士団長で大事な使命があるのよ」と言われて旅に出る。 かつて魔王が居て、魔王の力を女の子の体内に封じ込めてその子を「臣下」と呼んでお姫様のように扱っている。 臣下の身に大変なことが起きているらしいが……。というストーリー。 （臣下＝Vassal、器＝Vessel　という誤訳かと思いきや、ちゃんと臣下で合っているとコミュニティに書かれてた） RPGというより戦闘のあるADV。 [b]ナイスなキャラと先が気になるストーリー[/b] 主人公をはじめとして仲間になるキャラやサブキャラ（戦闘中支援してくれる）がそれぞれ面白い。 全体回復を覚えない僧侶ヒロインと、力自慢なのに全体回復を覚える神官戦士とか。 キャラが立っていて会話が楽しい。 記憶喪失の主人公と一緒にプレイヤーも世界の事を知っていくのだが、本筋とはかかわりなく過去に色々あったらしいのが見え隠れして、ファンタジー小説を読んでいる気分。 [b]声もいい[/b] 重要シーンはボイス付き。全体の半分ぐらい。かっこよかったり可愛かったり、キャラにあってて違和感なし。 戦闘中にもよくしゃべる。 [b]バトルが手ごわい[/b] 適当にやってると普通に負ける。戦闘回数は決まっているのでレベル上げはできない。 中盤全体攻撃を覚えた所で作業感が増してくるのだが、ちょうどその頃スキルツリーを大きくいじれるようになり、楽しくなる。 4人選べる支援キャラの選択も真面目にしよう。（回復キャラは鉄板になっちゃうぐらいの難易度） 後半のボス戦は属性や状態異常耐性もちゃんと見てないと勝てない。 [b]もっさり[/b] 戦闘シーンや移動シーンがもっさりしていて、連戦になるとイライラする。ctrlで早くなるけどそれでも遅い。 [b]死にシステムが多い[/b] 食事による正気度回復とかクラフトとか。上にも書いたが戦闘回数が決まっているのであまり出来ない。 食事なんて後半必要なくなるし。 自分の装備が弱い事に気付いた時に、もう町に戻るとか出来ないシステムなのも辛い。 [b]もっと読みたい[/b] 過去の「八英雄」とか、国同士の関係とか、匂わせ程度に出てくるけど、本筋と関係ないので分からないまま終わる。 気になるよー。 [b]一人嘘みたいに強いボスがいる[/b] 後半にそれまで溜めていた全体回復アイテムが枯渇するぐらい強いボスがいる。 そしてその後は必要素材がドロップしないので、全体回復アイテムが二度と手に入らなかった。 難易度普通なのにキツい。

peak

I don't remember where I heard about this game but I was told that it was a project that started as a Fire Emblem romhack turned into a fully fleshed out original game. As an avid Fire Emblem fan and one who wishes to support small devs, I thought I would check it out. Unforunately, for legal reasons, I can't typically finacially support romhack devs so I thought this would be a good opportunity to do so. I can definitely see the class resemblance to Fire Emblem (especially the wyvern knights) but this plays a lot more like a VN/point and click/RPG with a few tactical maps that have their unique little time management mechanic in which you get into a more traditional JRPG battle when you collide with enemies, kinda like a turned based version of YuGiOh! The Falsebound Kingdom or Unicorn Overlord. Overall I enjoyed this game as it is quite the unique experience but like anything else it did have its downsides. Pros; - Voice acting is better than some AAA games such as Squeenix's Triangle Strategy (no shade I love that game too but eh on the VA). - music is above average. - the story is actually very well-written, surpassing any Fire Emblem game imo. Except for the last chapter but I'll get to that. - 0 grinding. Not only is it not required but it isn't even an option as time move forward with or without you. - except for the cultists and enemies in the final chapter, the monsters/enemies look very unique with quite interesting designs. - made by one guy. I guess you could say the musicians and VAs mean that it wasn't but eh still pretty much one guy did 90% of the work. Neutral; - easy game despite me playing on the classic (2nd hardest difficulty of the four options). Kinda my fault for not picking hard though so goes into the neutral category. - since time moves forward with or without you I did miss a lot of content, such as adjutants, a couple bosses, a couple lore dumps on the eight heroes from the past, 2-3 side quests, et cetera. Putting this in neutral because I actively prefer games that encourage you to manage your time and keep moving forward, not stopping to grind or reset if someone dies. Nothing kills the mood like "oh the world is ending but let me just kill 100 bandits real quick to top off my levels". That being said, I feel like I was extremely thorough in my map searching and I talked with everyone yet I still missed a sizable amount of content. - I think I noticed two typos throughout the whole game (such as using 'and' instead of 'an') and one continuity error (the blind girl's bedroom is full of books despite it being established that she cannot read). Very minor but something I remembered so thought I'd throw it out there. Cons; - the plot twist in the final chapter is a combination of the two biggest cliches in the RPG genre and was a massive letdown compared to the rest of the game's writing and plot twists. - I am not convinced the sanity or hunger mechanics do anything. Maybe they are crucial in hard difficulty but I noticed 0 difference between my characters starving and being bloated nor did I notice any impact between having full or empty sanity gauge. - the romance option ended up being a one night stand then never brought up again. Would really liked to have read/seen what the main characters got up to after the story, even if it was a few sentences to a paragraph. - the epilogue lets you ask side characters what they are planning to do after the main story but the main characters you kinda have to inter. Maybe I am just used to FE which gives you a paragraph epilogue for what all the characters do with their lives now that the adventure is over but kinda felt weird that side characters got this but not main characters. I'd definitely say this game is worth the pricetag of $25 but if that's a bit much for you it goes on sale fairly often as much as 60% off. A strong recommendation for anyone looking for an indie RPG or just a fan of good stories.