REYNATIS

REYNATIS is currently a middling, barely playtested affair coasting on vibes alone and whether or not its combat will somehow click. Music's good, it's a Yoko Shimomura affair. Graphically nothing to write home about but the art direction is phenomenal. Story wise, it seems to be going for some sort of 'drug/societal outcast' plot, which as it's a Japanese production from someone who spends a lot of time at the top of Squeenix, is about as subtle as a brick. Google Pierre Taki. VA is in Japanese too, it's fine, you instanly know who's who. The frigid witch sounds like a frigid witch. The menhera goth lolita sounds like a menhera goth lolita. The Neku expy sounds like a Neku expy, etc. etc. I get sub purists, you know you're probably going to get exactly what you wish for, but you're like vegans and Linux users. We never asked, but you're probably going to tell us anyway. Translation TO EN is fine, but translation INTO EN is iffy. The concepts get across, but the writers forgot basic English or some such. I quote an old Spanish webcomic writer I used to read: "Tenses is my mortal enemy." Now gameplay is where the floor drops out. You have a 'Liberated' mode and a 'Suppressed' mode. See? Told you, Subtle as a brick. In Suppressed mode, the focus is on dodging enemy attacks to fill your magic bar. 'Liberated' mode is where you dish out the hurt. When your hit count goes over 50, you start dealing more damage, so if you want those high deeps, keep that hit count a-goin'. Except, it wouldn't be that simple, would it? The problem is your dodge cue is screen discolouration, which clashes with the extreme amount of colour correction the game uses, so you can't tell what's a dodge cue and what's the game's aesthetic. You can choose to play multiple characters, too, but some of them feel like they came from a game that's not the final game. There's a fist brawler with an art that... keeps you in place for its entire duration? There's a hammer user that's... slow as molasses when the beat'em'up system is right there? REYNATIS's combat excels when fighting big enemies - you beat them up till you see an attack winding up, then change into Sup form and take the hit - dodge it and keep the combo going and get a magic boost for your trouble. Anything else it feels like butt. Presentationally too, there's too much of a focus on canned animation for the price I pay for this game. REYNATIS asks too much of your wallet to be released in the state it is playable in. I bought it on a 30% discount, and even then that feels too much. I pirated it at first, but jumped to Linux and lost it. And honestly, that might be the best way to experience this game.

I would like to say that the game is Janky but really fun underneath but it really isn't. The gameplay is extremelty janky and barley acceptable. So in other words the story has to make up for it. Sadly the story is just bad. Like, the story itself could be good but the game is so incredibly low budget that it feels like they skipped half the stuff that should be there. Confusing cuts are everywhere and the story feels like 90% of it is missing most of the time.

西島佐理が可愛い事しか良い所がないくそげ。 ゲーム内のやれることは全部やったけど、全部がシンプルにつまらない。 DLCで物語の結末を見れるかと思ったけどそんなことなかった。 アートブックだけはめっちゃ良かったけど本当にそれしか褒めれる物がなかった。 暇つぶしに９０００円出せる人なら買っても良いんじゃない？

I've enjoyed this game a lot! Although it can be repetitive sometimes, the combat is pretty awesome which keeps you entertained and has a good story, all while keeping inspiration from Tetsuya Nomura games.

[b]This game isn't bad, but I can't recommend it to anyone.[/b] tl;dr at the bottom Let's start by saying that I was looking forward to playing this game when I saw the trailers and heard it was made by people who love Final Fantasy XIII-Versus, Kingdom Hearts and had a rare collab with a all time favorite The World Ends With You (TWEWY). If this game released like 10 years ago it would've been good but for todays standards it just too overwhelmingly mediocre and average in its execution. The gameplay is no better than a free gacha game like genshin impact and often feels like it too with how very limited and basic the combat often feels. While the character designs and shibuya itself have a strong style, the rest of the game looks very generic. Running around through the "dungeons" which is literally just a corridor with sometimes a branching path that you have to trespass [i]MULTIPLE[/i] times and fighting some fodder enemy that are there to drag out the experience. The music somehow features the legendary YOKO SHIMOMURA, but has like only 5 tracks total with the main title theme being the only one that stands out. Running around Shibuya with only a single track available for running around, fighting and being chased this game could desperately use more tracks which is all the more noticable when you play the TWEWY bonus chapter. While the main cast get a lot of screen time the story and npcs never really take off. The story is so generic and bland with no real motivation or drive except for the generic shonen trope of "I wanna be the strongest". Enemies are often only presented a few minutes before their respective boss fights and then are immediately forgotten, because their relevance to the plot is basically non existent. Seeing the cutscenes and trailers and overall description of this game being inspired by games like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and The World Ends With You, portrays a completely different game than it actually is. I can see the idea or spark that inspired certain moments from these games but nothing is done with it. Honestly if I haven't been told that this was inspired by said games I would've never guessed it. Take the combat for example, you only have a single basic combo and 2 skills and a finisher for each character and you can have up to 3 characters to switch during combat. That sounds like you should be able to do lots of cool combos or have interesting interactions between the characters but no. Every character almost plays the same, it doesn't really matter who you play with since switching out puts you on a cooldown for the next character switch. There are no synergies and no strategies to apply to the combat, so your team consists only of the characters you like nothing else. Compared to the free gacha game Genshin Impact it can't even hold a candle since there building a team is a big part of the gameplay and helps switch up the gameplay and makes for interesting interactions. Somehow this game is more comparable to a free gacha game, than the square enix games it was inspired by. Make it make sense. [b]TL;DR[/b] As someone who was really excited about this game and even got all achievements, I can't recommend this game because I don't know who would play this game in this day and age especially for this extremely high price. You can get better games for way less like NEO:The World Ends With You, HiFi Rush or Devil May Cry. They all come with greater graphics/style, absolute banger soundtracks, compelling characters, great story and gameplay thats both stylish and satisfying to play. [i]Don't buy this game unless it's on discount and you really crave a mediocre jrpg for a very casual playthrough. Literally get any other game I listed in this review, you will have more fun and a overall better experience.[/i]

Combat feels floaty but fine I guess, kinda simple also with only 2 skills Story is god awful, I can tolerate most JRPGS even Furyu Slop and infact I love Monark and Crystar but holy sht Reynatis was terrible. Story didn't make sense. Everything feels rushed and ending at chapter 33 felt somewhat fine but then "After Reynatis" and chapter 34 happened. Ruined any kind of ending there was, even for Furyu slop this one is bad and I got it at -40% discount, this needs to be atleast 90% to be worth it honestly. How did they even get yoko shimomura for this man.

I'm the type of person who thinks about Versus 13 more than my own parents. It's kind of nuts to think about how much a game that doesn't exist has influenced gamers as a whole, to the point where whole games are coming out now posing as spiritual sucessors to the idea. Reynatis doesn't quite fill the hole in my heart left by Nomura all those years ago, but I get it, I see the vision, and I've never felt this close to someone I've never met before. The game itself is a low budget affair, headed by a novice programmer, and it shows with nearly every facet of the game. Combat is functional, but lacks too much in the weight and variety department to call it anything more than that. Even with new skills being unlocked the loop ultimately doesn't change, and the way dodging is handled makes the overall experience far too easy to make any kind of enemy or boss encounter interesting. The Shibuya overworld is excellently crafted, full of detail in the largest and smallest of areas. Certain scenarios increase your stress meter, which you can lower by getting drinks at vending machines. Restaurauts across the map all have their own inventory with dine in and to go options, and obtaining and upgrading skills is handled by finding magical graffiti, which becomes more frequent as the population's trust in you increases. Things take a dip once you leave for the game's dungeons, however. Initially, the forest atmosphere is a nice change of pace, but the same exact set of assets gets old extremely fast, and it's fairly easy to get lost in the long, identical corridors full of respawning enemies. One aspect I like about this game without as much reservation is the narrative and writing. You'll be strung along to the very end of it, with enough mysteries being solved to keep you satisfied while introducing just enough intrigue to keep you moving. Each party member is well defined and likeable, even though some have much more story focus than others. Unfortunately the budget rears its head once again in the cutscene quality, as many scenes contain fades to black to avoid needing to animate them, and the blocking/business aspect is basically nonexistant. I guess what I'm getting at is that It's a fine game, fine enough for me to 100% complete at the very least. Really, the draw for this title is its style, and its connections to the White Whale that is Versus 13. Some of Yoko's best work can be found in the soundtrack, the eternal night of Shibuya is just wonderful to be in, and the whole experience feels deeply personal and charming despite its shortcomings. You'll know if you'll like this game based on the premise alone, but don't go expecting the experience you've always wanted. -Spoilers for REYNATIS below- One last extremely bizarre thing I wanted to mention is this game's post launch chapters. The initial ending for the game sticks the landing narratively for me but leaves a pretty big unanswered question in the form of the Consul, and their plans for Shibuya. Rather than wrapping that up neatly, REYNATIS decided to balls-out go for the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ throat by killing off every single supporting character in the streets like dogs supposedly as an attempt to set up a sequel. I can't imagine this game sold super well, seeing as I'm the 68th person to ever review this game on Steam, and I can't imagine the developer didn't know that seeing as the content came out months after the initial launch. The game got future free DLC chapters, but were all part of a completely unrelated dream-based paralogue and the whole "everyone's dead" thing went completely unresolved as post launch content ended months ago. I extremely extremely desperately want to know what's going through this guy's head, and if anyone anywhere is out there with a grasp on Japanese and access to this dude, let me know ASAP.

i like it