The Edge of Allegoria

Look, the game is fine. If you like low effort humor and nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, then go for it. You'll probably enjoy yourself. I can't forgive the pacing though. This games runtime needed to be chopped in half. Not to mention that some of the later game dungeons are an absolute slog. The warp panel dungeon in particular was horrendous. To the point that I wonder if it was even play tested. I tapped out just before the end, which is a shame. There are things to like about it, but this is one of those games that walks a fine line between fun and annoying. And it very much became the ladder for me.

Quite fun, very raunchy (putting it lightly). Movement is smooth and travelling becomes a breeze once you finish a certain side quest but never ran into an issue where something it studdery. Game doesnt exactly take 20h+ to finish, just trying to 100% might. Gameplay-wise, it is a psudo pokemon game, except you are the ones beating up on monsters and capturing none. there is also no encounter zones even though there is grass around, you can get into an encounter anywhere on any non town or sanctum map, though the encounter rate is low (for better or for worse). You get a miriade of skills from weapons and stat gains from gear and though you can run anything you want, you'll likely find yourself gravitating more towards either burn and sleep builds since they reduce atk/def and matk/mdef respectfully, and is the most damage you could be doing. Progression-wise, its pretty linear with a lot side quests you can be doing, getting hints from your dog as you beat bosses on where to go next, you can also freely teleport (though have to beat the boss in a dungeon if in one) to any key location you've at least entered so getting around isnt that bad. There are hidden areas here and there but unless you are specifically looking for them then you might miss a bunch, and it's not until way later do you get an item that helps you see the hidden spakle better. These areas mostly just have a single piece or gear (or 2), which is another skill or more stats, so not the worst thing to miss. Those areas also scale with your level. Music-wise outside of battle they are mostly short loops but don't get gratting if you are just running through. Its not really until you are running back and forth looking for certain encounters that it gets bad. Best to mute and play your own in that case. things i like: - movement is fluid and there isnt much interuptions from exploring and mass opening chests outside of required bosses and mimics respectfully. - You get stronger the more you put into it, so going out of your way to master things is helpful in the long run - levels are frequent, which refills hp and remove ailments so they are nice to get, especially before boss fights. - lots of synergies and wepons with matching ailments are close together, though later ones has the trade off of a higher infliction chance for a lower hit accuracy. It does let you try things, even if certain synergis are much harder hitting. - story is interesting, so going out of your way to learn more about the world in game can be fun in it's own way. and now for things i didnt like: - There isnt really a tracker so if you are going for 100%, its really hard to figure out what you are missing because even with a guide there is no way to sort items so in the event you are checking what you are missing via an alphabatised list. You are then spending the next few hours either checking items off one at a time, or spending hours sorting your gear list one item at a time to match to the list. - Missions that require very rare enemies and are not guarenteed drops from them, ideally you omit them to not sell as junk as you find them, but unless you are following a guide then you might not know what you need (especially since some of those are worth the most to sell), wish the sell all junk option sold all but 1 instead since money early to mid is quite needed. - Since the encounter rate is quite low, it takes forever to find certain mosters either for drops or beastiary (satyr took me 2 hours to find for instance), game could use either an encounter rate slider or a dedicated button to force encounters, if it seems too broken this could also lower the exp gained equivalent to how much increased. - Some skills are so over tuned that trying much of anything else but it is definitely more of a pain then it's worth (ex: guard was in my 2nd skill slot from the moment i got it until the end of the game, and when you have to setup synergies or need to run, then there is no reason not to use it). All in all fun game. Very crass, very raunchy, but more then anything the interest to keep ging was there since i was curious where the story was going with my single random fisherman character going around beating up demons, angels, furries and dragons.