View From Below

I wish more people heard about this game. I think people would enjoy it and have fun.

yes

Good game to play,love art style,character and ost except one (you know it when you know),always love this type of game. While i do like the game and all,there is still a problem which is the bullet hell itself which pretty limited on what you can do since most time it just left,right or up arrow to use except the zxc key and space bar for a attack which spam or hit it at right time. One way of the way to improve it is by making the character avatar have mini form that movable or different thing like moving the battle box,as to expending on the mechanic. Example:mini form can jump up on platform that raise up way or sideways while evade bullet. Example 2:move the battle box in straight line or vertical while there attack coming all angle from outside the battle box. Hope the next game will be fun and good,but hope if you ever hear this,wish there will be a revamp,modernized or collection ver of your old game like chaos girl series,dead detention series or maybe vn game like cosmo and alone in the cosmo,that still fun to play Anyway that my review,thx you for making the game jackastral and hope you all enjoyed it

After re-reading my review, I noticed it came off as a lot more critical than I intended it to be. I enjoyed the game and recommend you get it (it's not exactly all that expensive anyway), but I like complaining so I'll leave it as is. View From Below is Undertale with an edgy religious coat of paint. The game has enough humour and self-awareness to pull the edgy bit off, but that's not what disappointed me. What disappointed me is that the game is quite compelling when it's not just being Undertale, but when it is Undertale, it's so egregiously Undertale that it borders on plagiarism. Both Undyne chases are in this game [i]verbatim[/i], but five times as long, for example. There were so many instances where I thought "this is literally just an asset/sound/story beat/character/game mechanic/level/dialogue from Undertale, but done worse" that I got genuinely upset, especially since [i]the game is GOOD when it's not just aping Undertale![/i] That aside, VFB is a solid Undertale """"inspired"""" RPG which I had a good time with. The plot is pretty engaging despite being unintentionally goofy at times, somehow simultaneously more and less anime than Undertale's despite their obvious parallels. The combat and puzzles are good, though I find the combat is more tedious than it is challenging a lot of the time in the last half of the game. Despite all those nitpicks, I like the game and hope the dev makes similar (but please more original) works in the future.

I haven't finished all of the secrets, but overall the game is pretty good. Pros: Story is great Graphics are vastly better than I expected Music - frequently bopping, sometimes feels a little overplayed if you're in an area fighting too long. Neutral: Combat - has its moments, but can be a bit "samey" at times. Final Boss - *SPOILER IS INCREDIBLY MILD* [spoiler] everything about it is really cool design-wise, and I love how the story plays out INCREDIBLY easy on normal mode - I used one elixir in the entire fight after hitting level 10. Seriously, I didn't even bother dodging after seeing how the first few hits went. [/spoiler] Cons: There's at least one missing fast travel station. I realize that it doesn't quite fit in lore-wise, but the backtracking necessary for some of the secrets was a massive time sink. There's an area where [spoiler] right before Melody's house Rose chases you to try and kill you in a mess of bridges and like cliffy things [/spoiler] and to get back to a thing you can't complete without coming back later in the game took FOREVER, because I had to redo that area every time. The other fast travel point might have been slightly closer, but not by much. [spoiler] Melody is an awesome character who feels vastly too weak for a level 10 who has lived in the Below for multiple years. She spends roughly.....three fights worth of time? in the party and does fairly little in that time. She deserved a bit more of the limelight imo. [/spoiler] As far as any comparison to Undertale, I definitely 100% see it. I never played Undertale, but I watched videos on every. single. little. secret in that game. After seeing this get compared to it, I honestly wanted to try it just so I could actually live through an Undertale-esque world of my own instead of vicariously, like I had with UT. [spoiler] maybe I missed something but why on EARTH can I not go back and kill Peter, and why does he have 800 more health than the final boss *MEGA SPOILER DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED* who is HIS OWN FREAKING GOD??? [/spoiler] That said, if you're buying this as a sort of Undertale-esque thing, don't. Undertale has much more......cuteness? factor than this game. Enemies cannot generally be spared (there may be one or two exceptions to this), you have to fight, you have to kill, and you have to gain levels. Enemies do not generally have fun quirky interactions. You don't make an ARMY of good friends with individual relationships that you have spent the entire game developing and revisiting, you form close bonds with a couple characters. It's like if in Undertale everyone actually wanted you dead instead of secretly just wanting a hug. That said, the game is still a positive experience, with some nice messages. I may still try to 100% it, because I think it's cool enough to do so, and if I don't it's a lack of time more than a lack of desire.

[h1]Attack and Dethrone the Crimson God[/h1] [h2]Story[/h2] Ash is a teenager who has lived a hopeless life, only to get isekai'd into Below, a psychological horror fantasy world. Ash is tasked with slaying the Crimson God, but he has no confidence in himself and there's an evil cult trying to sacrifice him to that god. He does go through quite a compelling hero's journey and really shows his chops in Chapter 5, only to have a crisis of doubt in Chapter 6. IMO, the crisis of confidence in Chapter 6 and 7 would work better if [spoiler]the reveal of the 3 soul pieces' weakening effect on the Crimson God was revealed after the first Crimson God fight, and not in Chapter 2. I guess the point is that the trauma of nearly getting killed is too deeply ingrained in Melody even if she knows about the soul pieces, but it still feels really off that the protagonists would get cold feet despite knowing the Crimson God got nerfed and is no longer capable of oneshotting the party tank. Revealing the soul pieces' true nature later would have better put into perspective how far the protagonists have come and make them realize the power to attack and dethrone God was always with them. Adding to that, it would also make more sense for Peter's secret scene to only be available after the first Crimson God fight, since hearing that he fears the protagonists should be a confidence booster, lol.[/spoiler] I really did like the twist about the Crimson God's true nature of being [spoiler]Jesus, who didn't forgive humanity and lost sight of his past altruism. He's meant to be what Ash could become if the latter gave in to his hatred, which is why the true ending requires Ash to spare and save his friends even though they wronged him, as well as to hold out hope that life can get better.[/spoiler] The game has multiple endings where the true ending requires both correct moral choices and for two tricky sidequests to be completed. The most critical moral choices involving Ash's friends are actually fairly obvious, but there are also other choices in the game that may or may not actually affect the ending and mostly seem to be there for the sake of being there. This caused me more anxiety than it should have, lol. The game does have some NG+/hard mode exclusive lore, which feels like padding. Fortunately, the game does [spoiler]include script files in the folder if you don't feel like doing a second run[/spoiler]. [h2]Gameplay[/h2] This game is an action/turn-based hybrid, but the start of the game has a lot of RNG mechanics that makes the battle system feel unrefined. The hit rate of normal attacks is very low and faster enemies have a chance of denying a dodging minigame to the player characters. This is somewhat balanced by Ash having high ATK growth, the Blessed Ring (boosts accuracy to saner levels), and the exchange of damage being somewhat merciful for a hybrid system. However, I ended up using Blessed Ring for the whole game, since it's the most efficient way to deal damage while saving MP items. I feel like none of the other accessories were worth using, since I prefer having consistency in my attacks. Enemies have some tricky, but very cool-looking attack patterns that makes each one feel unique. Unfortunately, all player attacks are simple slash graphics with different colors, which was a letdown. Even Ash's ultimate attack, Arcane Beam, doesn't have a laser graphic despite several enemies having laser type attacks. The UI feels very dated compared to basic RPG Maker games, since you cannot load your save file during a gameplay session. Instead, you must cold restart the game, which can be annoying if you're trying to redo a certain segment or minigame. The UI for the casino games is also very clunky, since you can't increase your bet in increments higher than 1. Instead, you have to hold down your input button for a long time and watch the number slowly increase. This game features a death count system, which is why there is only one save slot. The intention is for the player to maintain a 0 death run to make sure the statues of might are active, but I never found the trade-off of the statues of might worth it. I would rather the statue system be scrapped so that the player can have multiple save slots, which is necessary in a game with so many choices. I ended up having to manually copy save files to separate folders just to be able to have multiple saves. [h2]Verdict[/h2] 7.5/10 I did enjoy Ash's growth throughout the game and would consider the story better than average. However, I felt like the battle system having such an RNG factor with landing hits and enabling dodge windows defeats the purpose of having skill-based button inputs and evasion minigames in the first place. The exchange of damage is still doable on normal mode, so the game is still overall playable.

Pretty good game with great music to boot.