It's pretty cool so far; the game is basically Chrono Trigger in a different setting with a decent number of RPG tropes and Resident Evil references galore. It's fairly challenging on the Heroine difficulty (second highest) and pretty compelling as a result. There are some bugs to be wary of but the main one is getting re-inserted into conversations while you're trying to stop it repeating; but chatting at max distance seems to solve that most of the time.

Hardest fight I've seen up to this point, the game lets you retry instantaneously like Final Fantasy XIII did so it's more just figuring out a difficult puzzle than being particularly annoying. It's gotten easier since this dungeon and I imagine on the normal difficulty it's standard relatively trivial JRPG stuff; but if you want some of the old school hard feel that's always an option:

The game is 12 bucks on PSN with PS+, I think it costs more on Steam but could be wrong.

I hadn't heard of this game. Thanks for the head's up!

I didn't realize this was Zeboyd Games' new joint. I loved Cthulhu Saves the World. I'll definitely be picking this up.

Apparently they accidentally released an older build of the game on PS4 hence the bugs, should be fixed within a day or two. PC Version should be fine though. Not moving while you mash X through a conversation seems to help sometimes (I guess the trigger to be able to restart convos is whether you have moved or not).

People already thought that releasing Titanfall 2 a week before the new Call of Duty was a bad idea. This is a classic JRPG style game releasing one week after Persona 5, an incredibly well-reviewed JRPG in a highly acclaimed franchise, and also a game that takes 100+ hours to complete.

This seems like bad timing.

@spaceinsomniac: This game has almost no buzz so safe to say it wouldn't really matter that much when they released it, though I think positive word of mouth will spread once they patch it on PS4 (PC version should be fine) and then after that it has a solid chance for success. 12 bucks for a 20-25 hour game (don't know if it's longer/shorter than that, developers implied around that length but the difficulties do play quite a bit differently so there is replay value to be had) is pretty good and the style is much more old school JRPG, not Persona talk to people for 7 hours and then do a dungeon that takes a comparable amount of time and rinse and repeat; it's more like 2-5 minutes of talking then exploration/combat for 20-30 minutes and so on.

@fredchuckdave: I can't speak for the majority, but it's definitely affecting my purchase of this game. This might have been a day 1 buy if it came out a few months earlier or later, but I don't have the time or interest to play it at the same time as P5. I'll almost certainly pick it up eventually, but I imagine it will be sadly forgotten by others in a similar position who don't keep track of that kind of stuff. The fact that it does have minimal buzz is precisely why it's unfortunate they're going head to head with Persona. They can't afford to get overlooked by the audience that is there.

They are different types of RPGs, but I'm quite certain there's a large amount of overlap in the potential audiences of both games.

Patch is out, feel free to purchase if you can afford 12 bucks.

I picked this up earlier today. True JRPG style and no sign of angsty teens yet. Digging it so far.

This game is still very buggy, mostly getting caught in the same dialogue over and over, which is a shame because I'm really enjoying it.

Question to people, anyone figure out where the shiny object is for the scavenger hunt at the festival?

They had this up for pre-order on PS4, and that got me curious about it. Not enough to buy it when I'm still wrapped up in Nier, Zelda, and Persona, but I may check it out later. Hopefully all the bugs get worked out by then.

To be fair, the game is about 2.5 years past its original Kickstarter timeline, so I'm just glad it is out at all. It probably won't do huge numbers out of the gate, but I bet it has a decent slow burn for sales.

@elwaldorf: For the dialogue issue just don't touch the analog stick or dpad when you hit X and that'll usually work to get out of any conversation.

Speaking of Resident Evil references:

@magicalex84: Alyssa agrees:

Ah man, Really wish it released on the mac or vita... I hope it doesn't take too long for them to finish those versions. This game seems legit.

@zalrus9: I don't know if they're going to finish those versions. Steam sales are lackluster according to the dev. Which is a shame, because the game is great.

This game is really enjoyable, sad to see the sales so low (under 6k according to SteamSpy).

:(

I'm going to go ahead and buy this. I hadn't planned on playing it for a while but it looks awesome and I want games more like this.

This thread convinced me to buy it. Modern JRPGs might not have it anymore, at least we've got devs like Zeboyd making good ones again.

@bobdobbsjr: Because of the premium store placement it's probably at like 15k-25k on PS4, not horrific. Word of mouth can save the day over time.

You see, this is the kind of game where my eyes would glaze over and ignore, because of the slew of Rpg maker games on Steam. I can't tell the difference anymore. Looks interesting though, so I might pick it up during a sale.

One kinda unfortunate thing for this game, and other crowdfunded games released going forward, is that the Valve's recent changes to the review system makes none of the reviews from those backers count towards the games overall rating. So, it puts you in a position where the people that are likely your most vocals supporters kinda have their reviews and opinions buried on Steam.

That problem, combined with the issue @themanwithnoplan mentioned of it having a surface level similarity to any given RPG Maker release, may make it difficult for this game to get the attention it likely deserves.

@bobdobbsjr said:

That sucks. Hopefully Giant Bomb does a quick look. I presume that kind of stuff helps. I want Zeboyd to keep chugging along.

The other thing to keep in mind with those SteamSpy numbers is that it's only been about one week since release. It can often take at least 2-3 weeks for SteamSpy to give meaningful estimates.

I found this to be a bit difficult on normal. Maybe a selected the wrong difficulty? Not looking for extreme challenge but also not looking for super easy either.

@personandstuff: Wish granted!

I'm glad this got bumped. I've played about five hours so far and it's a really good game. I'll second the recommendation to play it on Heroine - the first hour or so is rough on that difficulty but then it evens out. Brad mentioned it in a UPF, I think, which got my hopes up for a QL but that doesn't seem to be happening.

@justin258: The Quick Look is live in about 10 Hours.

I also recommend playing on Heroine difficulty. Although I hadn't realized that The API had a store in it and I went to the first big area with default weapons. That made the game extremely challenging. I had to re play 1 fight five times to get through it. It did however force me to really pay attention to the fighting mechanics and Hyper, in order to become better at dealing with encounters. Playing through it slowly, but it is definitely a gem.

@bobdobbsjr: I just saw that the QL is going to be up soon. Awesome!

I started playing this, seems good...finishing up Nier first though.

It'll have good legs, word-of-mouth will separate it from the random stuff :)

Started messing around on Super Spy, this fight can only be done in this specific set of the first six turns with specific equipment (if you don't grind):

This fight is one of the hardest in the game after being trivial on Heroine (Finn is trash, Dave is a softy and close to trash pre level 50 but not with this Enviro-Hack):

Overall it took like 6 hours to get to the 5 hour mark of Heroine Difficulty skipping most cutscenes and dialogue; so the length of the game will vary quite a bit based simply on difficulty; I'd guess 12-13 hours if you do everything on Heroine for most people, probably closer to 20 with Super-Spy. They do feel relatively distinct in terms of gameplay though, albeit Super-Spy can just be a puzzle with only one or two solutions sometimes which is compelling if you like Hard JRPGs (like the Last Remnant) but can be daunting otherwise.

I finally got around to this and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The plot and dialog are nothing special, but they don't get in the way and the combat mechanics are top notch. Production is up there as well. The only glitch I've encountered is the occasional double-tap of the confirm button when I'm in combat. It hasn't been a problem yet, but the time it kills me, it'll be the worst. I'd guess I'm about halfway through the game and I'm happy to see there's some nasty-ass post-game content lined up. I stumbled on Cthulhu on Rhomu and he utterly destroyed me. I do long for the overworld of yesteryear's JRPG.