It's a pity that this never got a Quick Look, but I guess Patrick was the resident "editor who gives a shit about Earthbound." I would've gladly traded some of the Quick Looks from the last couple weeks for one of this game, but what can you do.

Anyway, for those who have played it, what have been your impressions of it so far and/or your final thoughts if you've finished it? I'm still on the fence about buying it, because my backlog is largely a bunch of JRPGs that I already can't find the time for.

Hey @addfwyn, the activity in this thread I've created suggest you might be the only person on this site who played this game. I read through your review. Now that you've got a week or so of distance from the game, anything to add? Do you recommend it, or is it something that is already slipping from your memory? I feel like 3-star reviews are always the games where I have the hardest time deciding whether I'll be able to overlook the flaws.

Also, any word on whether those crash bugs you encountered were fixed?

Usually for me, a three-star review is a qualified recommendation. In this case, you will have to really like turn-based style JRPG combat, because that is the majority of the game. As I mentioned, every dungeon is just a constant parade of combat, which is why the pacing sometimes becomes a slog. Not only the amount of combat, but the amount of time spent on combat dialogues just really ruin the pacing of the game. The first time you get hit by a crit and everything pauses while the VP says "oooooh, that's gotta hurt" isn't a problem. The 30th time it happens in the same dungeon, it just gets old. Additionally, while the sheer variety of characters is great, if you use the same core team throughout the entire game it will get really boring. It's great to find a combo that really works, and nothing prevents you from using those same 3 people for the whole game, but I can't recommend doing that.

If you really like that style of combat though, and you like constantly trying different characters and teams out, it's a pretty fun game. It is a slog at times, there is a reason that 4-5 characters all have travel-based powers that help you get around faster. If you have a lot of other JRPGs on your backlog, it may be better to hold off on this unless the Earthbound style combat is really appealing to you.

Technical issues, I haven't played it in the past week or so, but I don't remember reading that they were addressed. Most of the issues seem to be avoidable, just don't let dialogue pop ups stack up with other things. Specifically notifications that "so-and-so has finished studying" or "your <item> is here" from the assorted character talents. Stop and let all those resolve before you do anything else, and you should avoid any of the crashes I experienced.

I hope that helps, let me know if there's any specific questions you had.

Man I've been checking into the thread for a while to see a couple more opinions about it, kinda weird to see that no one really did play it.

@addfwyn: That does sound about roughly 3-stars. Do the characters (citizens) that you recruit have any interesting interactions a la Fire Emblem: Awakening ?

@bisonhero: Looks like you are getting your wish, seems to (finally) be a Quick Look lined up for Friday!

I'm actually in the middle of playing this game, just started Chapter 4 (I believe there are six chapters). I played Earthbound for the first time last summer and loved it, so this is definitely scratching that itch a bit.

I will say I agree with most of @addfwyn 's comments on the game, I would probably give the game 3 stars at this point. There's definitely a lot of JRPG styled combat, so if you aren't into that, you'll probably not have a good time. The positives keeping me playing the game are the weird storyline, characters, enemies, etc. and just general bizarreness, as well as trying out lots of different teams of characters. The array of party members you can get is pretty varied, and it's fun meeting them and trying to recruit them. As was said, I could definitely see how it would be possible to find a team you like and stick with it, but I think that would be less fun; you level up pretty quickly, so I found it easy to quickly grind out levels for newer, weaker characters to see if I liked them.

There are some characters with super useful skills like the Car Salesman (which lets you drive a car around the world map, and get around faster, as well as run over enemies so you don't have to fight them), the Pilot (who lets you fast travel), and the Mascot (which allows you to change the difficulty on the fly). I would recommend trying to recruit them ASAP.

I remember reading about technical issues with the game, but I'm playing the PS4 version, and after about 13 hours of game time, I haven't had a single crash or bug.

Anyways, those are some quick thoughts! I definitely think I'll end up finishing the game, especially knowing that it doesn't seem to be absurdly long (by RPG standards).

@beard_of_zeus: Our long national nightmare is finally over.