Original review at 10h play time. Pros: -Great music. -Paper Mario style (if you liked it) -Buttery humor and buns. Not constantly trying to make you laugh. -"Baked" art. (npc's, world design, etc.) -Although the target audience is for 10 year olds. I enjoy it as a 25 year old who rarely play kids games. -Side quests actually helps you on your journey with many equipments and upgrades. Cons -Frequent minor bugs (A button doesn't work to block about 1 in 15 times or attack about 1 in 100 times, sound bug when getting close to the bakery for the first time, skipped 2 dialogues without pressing A a 2nd and 3rd time when picking an option who was skipped. -Unintuitive pause menu and combat action "cards" are inverted directions as you pick an option. -Blocking is kinda strange since it allows the whole enemy team to attack you, but every blocks regen WP and no damage recieved if blocked (action points used for many combat moves). -I'm playing on Hard difficulty and while definitely feeling about to get toasted, I can just get the teammate that heals, use the first turn to block to regen WP and use the gained WP to heal until high hp, which just lenghten the combat for awhile without much challenge. Although it only costs 3wp for 5hp+1(if perfect), it should cost 4-5wp because the block+heal combo is OP. -Depth perception caused by the camera. It's often too close and too low to the ground, which makes it hard to judge your exact location. While making purchase to the store in the western forest, it's a bit hard to know which product you're standing in front of. An other example is the parkour with the aforementioned problem. You will eventually fail a jump or even fall off something that seem to be a line, but it's angled and it's hard to see. -Enemy attacks are inconsistent when it comes to blocking them. Even with the "boon" that tells you when to block, sometimes you have to do it 0.1-0.2 seconds later or literally as the particle appears and you have to remember which one's which. Earlier I mentioned that enemies were a bit bugged when it came to blocking them, well sometimes pressing it at the right moment just doesn't work 10x in a row, then it's gonna work 50 times in a row like normal. It's a matter of luck, not enough skills, which is definitely a problem... About 3 enemies (up the end of Chapter 2) may attack normally or instantly as they get in your face. Which gives the enemies freebies for no reason when you're often fighting in 2vs3-2vs4, at least on hard difficulty. -Half the times I definitely hit an enemy before they enter in contact with me (start a fight) didn't count as a free hit. -Didn't get much advertisements and partnerships to help the sales = poor sales. Although it has a lot of minor problems, I still rate it a fair 7/10. It's definitely enjoyable and entertaining and it doesn't spood feed you everything cooked, which is apreciated to let us explore, do side quests to get better stuff and make minor mistakes. Without a doubt, this game clearly has a soul. edit after completing Chapter 4/5 (35h in with about 10h afk) - The game clearly has combat bugs, the mentioned "yeti" i spoke about that are actually "Trolls" are bugged in the 3rd and 4th slot, where the attack doesn't travel until it reaches you and there's no indicator for when to block, and speaking of block indicator, there's more and more enemy attack that has a wrong timing shown and many enemies who attack twice have a bugged 2nd attack (especially starting from Chapter 3), in Chapter 4, only the crab isn't bugged (again, proving their superiority over any living races). - I could talk about many of the bugs I've encountered but the devs don't seem to care at all since they're there since the game launched. - The mentioned "OP strategy" doesn't work in the slightest starting from Chapter 3, where 10hp heals are simply pointless when the enemies can hit you from 5-45 in a single turn. -Chapter 4 was way too short and enemies were always solo and compensated with high damage. - I've yet had a fallen team member as of now on "hard" difficulty (about to start the final chapter) Chapter 3 and 4's best heal option is to gain levels because there's no other good way to heal when consumables heal for 10-40hp and you get that as damage on every turn since some attacks are bugged when x2 or x3. So the only good option is to heal outside of combat and speedrun damage output. Of course you can always flee but I ain't a wuss and I want xp. - Blocking almost serves no purpose late game since it only increase your defence by 1, which is not motivating at all when you still take 90% damage with many broken enemies, broken block indicator who tells you 0.1 second too late up to 0.5 seconds earlier than when you have to press so it's unrelyable. - "Hard" difficulty, or "baked" in the game's terms only shows 3 buffs the enemies get (max hp,atk,def increase) but they also get 2 hidden buffs and 1 debuff for the player, where they have more chance of being more enemies in fights, they are faster and the block window is tighter. - The first half of the achievements are obtainable before the end, and then you gotta do 100% to get achievements back to back for the second half (obtain all of this, obtain all of that, complete all of these to get said all of that, etc.). There should've been achievements for arriving in a new area or beating a boss so the achievements are more spread out or a second part of each side kick for their "exploration uses" (RT on controller) to reward exploration (dig 15 holes, then dig 50 for example). There could also be combat achievements such as beating 4 enemies in a single turn or what I literally just did before updating this part, where I blocked the attacks of 4 enemies and they all died during their attack turn (LIFE THIEF boon), idk about you but calculating the right amount of retaliatory damage as you tank them all to sync all their death in a single turn is something to be proud of. Other suggestions for achievements would be : "win a fight with 1hp remaining" (Close one!). "Use 5 consumables in a single fight" (Snack time!). "Save at every save points" (Checkpoint!). "Block 50 attacks in a row" (Black belt of inner peace / Can't touch this!). "Fill up your wallet to the max" (Got that dough! / Doughy wallet). "Fill up every squares of your weapon inventory once fully upgraded" (Packing heat! / Tetris master / Bagfull of goodies). "Successfully flee 10 fights" (I'm not scared! I got places to be!). "Get all collectibles in *region name* x5" (No stone left unturned / Explorator of *region name*). Break all breakables in the Royal town at least once (A menace to society). Hit every animal race you can pet (I... Did it for the achievement and I don't know if I'll recover from this). edit once completed 100% in 35h on hard with no fallen team member on first playthrough: 100% Completion achievement issues? make sure to check the 100% guide and check every weapon and boon in your inventory, I had 2 missing ones who I picked up many hours ago and the map was saying I already picked them up despite both had respawned at their original location. The guide also mention about food items who drops in the sewers, which is false, you can get all consumables from quests rewards and merchants sells all non-quest consumables. Btw I posted a guide to get quick money late game for an achievement who costs a ton of money (cards, of all things...)
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