Tales of Seikyu

I played for a long time because these kinds of games let me focus, but overall, Tales of Seikyu felt unfinished in the graphics, gameplay, and story departments. This should not be the full release of the game.

Overall, a nice twist on the farming sim genre. It's fun and I haven't encountered a lot of bugs. They have been applying patches whenever they do find bugs so the dev team is doing a good job of staying active and making the game better. I do think the game could do with more polishing - 1.0 seems a little like it came too early. My only large complaint is the AI artwork. I honestly wish I had read reviews before buying because if I had known about the AI I wouldn't have bought it. I very heavily disagree with AI use because it is literal theft of artists work everywhere. Due to this I can't recommend the game, unfortunately. All they had to do was hire someone for the portraits and it would have been fine. You can tell the portraits are AI by the little inconsistencies. Yui's eyes show it in her portraits and Leon's hands aren't the same color, among other things. JUST HIRE AN ACTUAL REAL LIVE ARTIST WHOSE JOB IT IS TO CREATE ART. It's that simple. It's a disappointment too because the story is intriguing and the gameplay is fun. So my final take: Don't be me and leave the game running while you ♥♥♥♥ off into the ether for several hours. I'm going to play it because I spent money on it and can't get a refund. It is what it is. If you don't care about theft and AI slop then buy it and play. If you have moral decency and want to support real artists instead of programmed ones that steal from art that's already been created then don't buy it, just watch someone play it.

Pros: Farming automation comes relatively quickly and the idea of using different forms is interesting, even if they are mostly pointless. Cons: Incredibly thin NPC dialogue and character depth, weird sequencing issues which resulted in characters being unavailable or referring to events which had already happened repeatedly, combat is tedious and the dungeon area is one of the worst I've played since the original playstation. There is also something incredibly off about a lot of the character portrait art.

So at the time of writing this, I have played about 16 hours of Tales of Seikyu. It is a gorgeous game, of that there is no question. When writing reviews for games, I typically try to put in an honest 40 hours, but I just don't have the patience needed for this one right now. I also like to give you "the good, bad, and the ugly" so here it is: The good: The overworld is stunningly beautiful, and the romanceable characters are genuinely attractive. Storytelling is deep, and I appreciate the Japanese-themed mythology and magic. Instead of using farm tools, you will transform into varying animals and yokai (spirits) to do the farm work. Has a very similar feel to Stardew, but with modern graphics. The bad: FISHING. Why is fishing so difficult?! Even when I think I've got it, I don't! Fishing is always my number one source of income in a farming or survival game, and this time it's just too frustrating for me. Also, I personally wish that yokai taking human form would be more humanoid, I dislike furries in general, so this one kind of gave me the ick, but not enough to quit the game. You may not feel the same way, considering they're still very well-designed even if I personally don't want to fall for a dog-faced girl, or her brother who was WIERDLY into me from the start. As I said before, furries don't bother everyone, but it's not my thing personally. The fishing bothered me more than the animal-people hybrids if I'm being honest. The UGLY: Janky player motion, and needlessly repetitive sounds was really the deal breaker for me. Most games at least try to vary the pitch or tone of the voice slightly so you aren't making the same exact noise every time you use an action. This game will have you making the same exact boar-squealing every time you make an action in boar form, and I just can't, it gives me a headache in like 5 consecutive squeals. As for the jank, the player's character does not act like they're interacting with the world around them, they move like ps2 graphics, janky as heck, like they're not actually there but superimposed. flailing about in the air as they move across the surface, never touching the ground on a slope for example because the player's body is behaving like they're walking on a level surface. I get that the dev-team was small, but the jankiness was such a mood killer. Can't really fight well if your character doesn't respond the way you'd expect them to. So, if you can get past the bad and ugly parts, and enjoy games like Stardew Valley, this would truly be an incredible game for you, which is why I feel it's such a shame to not recommend this game/write a positive review, but I must be honest, all things considered it just didn't grab me like I thought it would, so I can't recommend this game in earnest even if it has the potential to be great for someone else.

Was released from Early Access too early. There are still too many user interface problems that should never have been allowed to stand even in EA. The game locked up three times and forced me to end it from the task manager because the game vomited a series of tutorial popups and when I acted on one of those pop-ups, the next one blocked the UI from actually properly activating, leaving the game running but unable to control anything including bringing up the menu to load or dump back to the main menu. Crashed to desktop twice while running through the field, and I've been killed twice from enemies which the game didn't render. Steam? This is why you don't try to pressure people into reviewing a half-baked game.

I think the game is beautiful - that being said, I do wish they would have used less AI. I haven't fully completed the game, but what I have played I've enjoyed. Though I do have several things I would like to see updated: you go through the trouble of having to craft a large bed and stuff for your spouse to get married. Then afterwards they sleep in a separate room and you can't sleep in the same bed (this appears to have been updated recently), but you can still have sleepover dates and share a bed, but the dialogue is the same as if you were dating. Additional dialogue would be nice as well. The fox underground can be very confusing at times and the map appears very hard to understand for me.

Another soulless Chinese farming sim generated by AI. The texture looks hideous, I feel ill playing that crap for 5 min. Even they're many characters and bachelors you feel very lonely playing this pseudo friendly game.

The game has a Japanese setting, which I love but I can't even take off my shoes indoor? Wtf/10