This game is excellent! At time of writing I have just unlocked the first secret difficulty tier, and the run to get there was challenging, but not overly so. I am expecting to be truly tested over the next couple of weeks, and to use the games massive variety of tactical options to work through that test. If you are a fan of strategy games, stick through the beginning and you will be rewarded with an incredible experience.

The story also has some great highlights. The writing can be clunky in a few places, but the game makes up for it in heart. That might sound like a backhanded complement, but I'm being genuine! There aren't a lot of games out there that are as good at portraying the feeling of hope through adversity that this one can in its best moments. The hero characters are likable and interesting and I always look forward to seeing how different pairings react to the same situations. The game can feel a little bit like a time loop at times, and that only adds to its charm for me.

I highly recommend this game for anyone who is considering buying it! Zero Sun Games knocked it out of the park with this one.

Overall I think this game is too specific to give a broad recommendation for, though I do think it is very interesting mechanically and don't necessarily dislike it.

The combat, by itself, is great. The different story angles is interesting. But as others have pointed out, the Roguelike elements don't work well here.

From what I can tell there's no meta-progression — other than unlocking new heroes to start with, but that doesn't really give you any advantage in finishing a story. And the RNG doesn't seem to have any tempering mechanics. These things aren't really deal breakers by themselves, however the fights have a few preset 'types' which come with a specific round limit in which to beat them (or it starts killing you). Since there is no way to know the goal of the fight you will enter before hand (or anything about it — not the goals, not the enemies, not even if it's a bridge or a library), and a unit limit with even the heroes having completely random skills each time, the strategy ends up relying solely on luck. If you enjoy games where the major mechanic is a dice roll, then this fits the bill neatly. However, if you would like any way to change the odds of those dice rolls, there's no consistent way to do that here. You can't even rely on having access to healing, or shops, or money — those things aren't everywhere, and though it says you can follow the roads that's not really true (often there will be a road the game just ignores).

That said there's a *lot* of really cool mechanics. The memories were confusing (they're just party skills) but they seem pretty varied and interesting. The combat system would be a lot of fun without the round limits. Or honestly, if I could even see what fight I was getting into before arriving, I think that would probably solve the issue. As it stands, it feels very much like the only way to reliably progress is try again until I get lucky, and I'm not a huge fan of that.

Fun turn based strategy with great potential.