Trials of Kokoro

Full disclosure: i know the Dev IRL and have played his previous games. I did not receive the game for free., Trials of Kokoro is a turn based game that uses an action battle system. It is an rpg/visual novel on rails. ToK is the follow up to ToG and is a complete departure from the previous games playstyle so if you played the first its important to know that. I enjoyed both styles, but preferred ToK's style more in most ways. I played on the second hardest difficulty and so my review will be based on that experience. Im going to stat with the strongest part of the game in my opinion. Combat. Like it ToG every fight (mostly) that you are in matters. There is no grinding, no mindless button mashing. Combat is approached in a thoughtful manner, and each fight sans a few specific fights in a later chapter, are fun and challenging. I enjoyed learning the fights, figuring out how certain skill interacted with certain mobs, and experimenting during combat to see what i could get away with. The fights are tight, but forgiving enough to allow for adjustments on the fly. There are three battle types: Stand alone fights, Chain and Boss. Stand alone fights are what you'd expect, no need for real detail about them. The chain fight system was really cool, it basically was fighting waves of enemies that that got stronger, but felt that the player was heavily in the driver seat on those by the last round of the fight, since buffs persist, and would have liked a little more balance/challenge along those lines. Boss battles were fun and generally had unique mechanics to them as you would expect. Most were tuned tight, but again with enough wiggle room, especially moving into late game, to not get overly punished along the way ( i did die on a few of them though so that was cool too). I will say that i felt that there was a bit too much hand holding with explaining mechs in each fight, and would have preferred it to be a bit more vague in the explanations. Overall, battle was fun and engaging with room for exploration and the healing/rest system was a cool add too. Music/Art/Presentation: I thought this was great. Dev took great care in choosing and plotting out all these things. Overall i dont think I'd change anything here. Like a really great comic book/manga with a back ground score. Story/Pacing: This was my one gripe about the game, but let me explain. It was mainly the pacing that caused me issues, due to it being jarring/sudden at times. And sometimes story was delivered and packed into spots that seemed odd. I feel like adding an extra act in the middle just to break up some of what was going on would have helped here maybe? Or it could just me being picky. i dont know. Thats not to say i didnt appreciate the story though, because despite having some tropes, Dev did subvert my expectations with multiple characters. Which really was the strength of the story. There were three characters whose story lines were very cool conceptually and made me smile. Looking forward to the third game when Dev gets around to it. I dont really like point scores so my take way is this: Time well spent, never felt like a chore, had me wanting to play again when I couldn't, and would play again happily.

TL;DR: There is a lot of passion put into this game and the fact that ToK is so unknown is a loss for the gaming community. The gameplay is completely linear, which for some it may be a negative, but believe me that the developer made the best out of it and almost every battle feels unique and special. The characters are endearing and you can feel their growth as the story progresses. Probably my favorite part of the game. Quality of life features could have been improved though, especially in the menus. Like if I buy a new piece of armor, I would like the option to immediately equip it. The battle system is pretty much the classical turn-based RPG formula. Each character has a clear role and they complement each other pretty well. It feels quite polished and the overall experience was pretty fun for every battle. I think in part this is thanks to the fact that the number of battles is predetermined, so the developer was able to fine-tune the battles and make each of them feel challenging but rewarding. I really enjoyed the game and I hope with time it will become more well-known.

An unusual, but nice little combination of turn-based combat and a VN to read, Trials of Kokoro may be a little saccharine (and I personally wish it had a little more personality to its writing), but it's earnest and quite endearing. Likeable characters, lovely art, some nice music and surprisingly involving fights and equipment flinging. Pick it up on sale if you're unsure, but it's a nice little adventure that gets better as it goes on. 7/10