The premise of the game is that Terra was destroyed by an antimatter comet and humanity had to move to Luna to survive, but now Comet Coda is going to hit Luna. There's also the threat of antimatter beasts known as the Murks, but the protagonist, Bella, can sense the Murks' sorrow somehow when no one else can. IMO, the game made the twist about the Murks too obvious from the start by having Bella sense their emotions even before the game starts. It would have been more interesting if the prologue included a segment on Bella being a greenhorn who has yet to actually fight a Murk and show how she reacted to the first time she realized they had emotions, rather than introduce her as an experienced yet conflicted soldier.

I did like the Murk Slayer's development from an edgy rival character to the secondary protagonist and party member, as well as the revelation about how he wants to atone for being used by Saros to create the Murks. It feels like he got the majority of character development in this game compared to everyone else. I'm hoping the Monsters of Magnesia quest sheds more light on his past.

For the final part of the game, most characters join Bella in opposing Saros, despite the latter's previous good publicity. I'm conflicted on this, since it does seem like a challenge that was overcome too easily. On the other hand, you can argue that Saros left behind enough circumstantial evidence due to the constant missing people reports to make Bella and Nickle's testimony more believable and that the scientists of Lunex Space Station would have the expertise to connect all this circumstantial evidence. Additionally, a lot of people may secretly resent Saros for doing nothing about the missing people reports, especially if they were friends or family with the missing people. I wish the game would make it more clear why people believe Bella beyond just being friends with her.


The gameplay is a strange combination of the Mario RPGs, Undertale, and Megaman Battle Network/Starforce. Your own attacks either function as simple commands or as commands that need you to follow button prompts. However, you get a choice between 3 random skills from your support skill pool, and you have to make sure your pool only includes the ones you need the most to manipulate statistics in your favor, which is supposed to be similar to folder building in MMBN. You also have to dodge and block enemy attacks, but your environment for doing so changes based on the enemy attack. Some will have you move in a 3x3 or 1x3 grid, while others will have you control an Undertale-style soul to dodge bullet hell patterns.

Although the game is balanced for a standard exchange of damage, the game features a ranking system based on how many hits you take. This is based solely on hits taken rather than time, so you can technically cheese the rank system by using more stun-based strategies instead of direct damage if you suck at dodging. However, ranking doesn't seem to affect your rewards, so it's solely for bragging rights and meeting the quota for certain sidequests. If you really want to challege yourself, you should refrain from using invisible, the first hit barrier upgrade chip, or stun-based skills to ensure that you have to perfectly dodge every enemy pattern. I ended up having to resort to stun spam in the endgame, since I'm really bad at reacting to the ever speedier enemy patterns.

There are no random encounters, so if you clear all mandatory encounters, you can freely explore any dungeon. However, you'll need to grind respawnable enemies if you want to afford every single upgrade in the game. At the start of the game, the best grinding method is to fight Chronos EX repeatedly, since it takes less effort to deal with a single boss enemy with easy patterns than large mobs of enemies with a variety of patterns. Later, Xenotaur EX becomes the best refightable enemy because of its excellent rewards to HP ratio. IMO, it's strange that there's a lot of refightable bosses that don't drop much more loot than Xenotaur EX despite taking several times more effort.

Tetra can enter Network Dive segments, where she can shoot enemies with her buster and dodge obstacles. Unfortunately, the field of view is way too small, making it hard for the player to see any long-range attack coming and react to it.


8/10
The gameplay is very creative, though there are some cheese strats and some skills completely overshadow others *coughRelicSwordcough*. The story is alright, but it could have done more to increase the impact of learning that the Murks have emotions and aren't just standard chaotic evil beasts.

[h1]I'm Pretty Sure That's Not How Antimatter Works[/h1] [h2]Story[/h2] The premise of the game is that Terra was destroyed by an antimatter comet and humanity had to move to Luna to survive, but now Comet Coda is going to hit Luna. There's also the threat of antimatter beasts known as the Murks, but the protagonist, Bella, can sense the Murks' sorrow somehow when no one else can. IMO, the game made the twist about the Murks too obvious from the start by having Bella sense their emotions even before the game starts. It would have been more interesting if the prologue included a segment on Bella being a greenhorn who has yet to actually fight a Murk and show how she reacted to the first time she realized they had emotions, rather than introduce her as an experienced yet conflicted soldier. I did like the Murk Slayer's development from an edgy rival character to [spoiler]the secondary protagonist and party member, as well as the revelation about how he wants to atone for being used by Saros to create the Murks. It feels like he got the majority of character development in this game compared to everyone else. I'm hoping the Monsters of Magnesia quest sheds more light on his past[/spoiler]. For the final part of the game, [spoiler]most characters join Bella in opposing Saros, despite the latter's previous good publicity. I'm conflicted on this, since it does seem like a challenge that was overcome too easily. On the other hand, you can argue that Saros left behind enough circumstantial evidence due to the constant missing people reports to make Bella and Nickle's testimony more believable and that the scientists of Lunex Space Station would have the expertise to connect all this circumstantial evidence. Additionally, a lot of people may secretly resent Saros for doing nothing about the missing people reports, especially if they were friends or family with the missing people. I wish the game would make it more clear why people believe Bella beyond just being friends with her.[/spoiler] [h2]Gameplay[/h2] The gameplay is a strange combination of the Mario RPGs, Undertale, and Megaman Battle Network/Starforce. Your own attacks either function as simple commands or as commands that need you to follow button prompts. However, you get a choice between 3 random skills from your support skill pool, and you have to make sure your pool only includes the ones you need the most to manipulate statistics in your favor, which is supposed to be similar to folder building in MMBN. You also have to dodge and block enemy attacks, but your environment for doing so changes based on the enemy attack. Some will have you move in a 3x3 or 1x3 grid, while others will have you control an Undertale-style soul to dodge bullet hell patterns. Although the game is balanced for a standard exchange of damage, the game features a ranking system based on how many hits you take. This is based solely on hits taken rather than time, so you can technically cheese the rank system by using more stun-based strategies instead of direct damage if you suck at dodging. However, ranking doesn't seem to affect your rewards, so it's solely for bragging rights and meeting the quota for certain sidequests. If you really want to challege yourself, you should refrain from using invisible, the first hit barrier upgrade chip, or stun-based skills to ensure that you have to perfectly dodge every enemy pattern. I ended up having to resort to stun spam in the endgame, since I'm really bad at reacting to the ever speedier enemy patterns. There are no random encounters, so if you clear all mandatory encounters, you can freely explore any dungeon. However, you'll need to grind respawnable enemies if you want to afford every single upgrade in the game. At the start of the game, the best grinding method is to fight Chronos EX repeatedly, since it takes less effort to deal with a single boss enemy with easy patterns than large mobs of enemies with a variety of patterns. Later, Xenotaur EX becomes the best refightable enemy because of its excellent rewards to HP ratio. IMO, it's strange that there's a lot of refightable bosses that don't drop much more loot than Xenotaur EX despite taking several times more effort. Tetra can enter Network Dive segments, where she can shoot enemies with her buster and dodge obstacles. Unfortunately, the field of view is way too small, making it hard for the player to see any long-range attack coming and react to it. [h2]Verdict[/h2] 8/10 The gameplay is very creative, though there are some cheese strats and some skills completely overshadow others *coughRelicSwordcough*. The story is alright, but it could have done more to increase the impact of learning that the Murks have emotions and aren't just standard chaotic evil beasts.