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Ash is a teenager who has lived a hopeless life, only to get isekai'd into Below, a psychological horror fantasy world. Ash is tasked with slaying the Crimson God, but he has no confidence in himself and there's an evil cult trying to sacrifice him to that god. He does go through quite a compelling hero's journey and really shows his chops in Chapter 5, only to have a crisis of doubt in Chapter 6. IMO, the crisis of confidence in Chapter 6 and 7 would work better if the reveal of the 3 soul pieces' weakening effect on the Crimson God was revealed after the first Crimson God fight, and not in Chapter 2. I guess the point is that the trauma of nearly getting killed is too deeply ingrained in Melody even if she knows about the soul pieces, but it still feels really off that the protagonists would get cold feet despite knowing the Crimson God got nerfed and is no longer capable of oneshotting the party tank. Revealing the soul pieces' true nature later would have better put into perspective how far the protagonists have come and make them realize the power to attack and dethrone God was always with them. Adding to that, it would also make more sense for Peter's secret scene to only be available after the first Crimson God fight, since hearing that he fears the protagonists should be a confidence booster, lol.


I really did like the twist about the Crimson God's true nature of being Jesus, who didn't forgive humanity and lost sight of his past altruism. He's meant to be what Ash could become if the latter gave in to his hatred, which is why the true ending requires Ash to spare and save his friends even though they wronged him, as well as to hold out hope that life can get better.


The game has multiple endings where the true ending requires both correct moral choices and for two tricky sidequests to be completed. The most critical moral choices involving Ash's friends are actually fairly obvious, but there are also other choices in the game that may or may not actually affect the ending and mostly seem to be there for the sake of being there. This caused me more anxiety than it should have, lol.


The game does have some NG+/hard mode exclusive lore, which feels like padding. Fortunately, the game does include script files in the folder if you don't feel like doing a second run.


This game is an action/turn-based hybrid, but the start of the game has a lot of RNG mechanics that makes the battle system feel unrefined. The hit rate of normal attacks is very low and faster enemies have a chance of denying a dodging minigame to the player characters. This is somewhat balanced by Ash having high ATK growth, the Blessed Ring (boosts accuracy to saner levels), and the exchange of damage being somewhat merciful for a hybrid system.

However, I ended up using Blessed Ring for the whole game, since it's the most efficient way to deal damage while saving MP items. I feel like none of the other accessories were worth using, since I prefer having consistency in my attacks.

Enemies have some tricky, but very cool-looking attack patterns that makes each one feel unique. Unfortunately, all player attacks are simple slash graphics with different colors, which was a letdown. Even Ash's ultimate attack, Arcane Beam, doesn't have a laser graphic despite several enemies having laser type attacks.

The UI feels very dated compared to basic RPG Maker games, since you cannot load your save file during a gameplay session. Instead, you must cold restart the game, which can be annoying if you're trying to redo a certain segment or minigame. The UI for the casino games is also very clunky, since you can't increase your bet in increments higher than 1. Instead, you have to hold down your input button for a long time and watch the number slowly increase.

This game features a death count system, which is why there is only one save slot. The intention is for the player to maintain a 0 death run to make sure the statues of might are active, but I never found the trade-off of the statues of might worth it. I would rather the statue system be scrapped so that the player can have multiple save slots, which is necessary in a game with so many choices. I ended up having to manually copy save files to separate folders just to be able to have multiple saves.


7.5/10

I did enjoy Ash's growth throughout the game and would consider the story better than average. However, I felt like the battle system having such an RNG factor with landing hits and enabling dodge windows defeats the purpose of having skill-based button inputs and evasion minigames in the first place. The exchange of damage is still doable on normal mode, so the game is still overall playable.

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.

From the trailers, you're probably expecting that Marty or Hans's ghost are going to be the main bad guys responsible for the murders. Hell, Hans would seem to have the biggest motive since Case 0 hinted that he may secretly be more sinister than he looks. However, the real answer turned out to be a different evil spirit. At this point, you'd think Marty was in the clear, but then it turns out that he was committing murders of his own and that the enemy in the first bad end actually had several traits that indicated they were human. It was quite a clever twist, though I wonder how he's going to continue fooling Sally in future games. Maybe she'll turn against him, or maybe her new zombie body will eventually corrupt her mind to the point where she won't care that Marty killed Lily for her sake. I guess you could say that he's a twist on how an unconfident person develops into becoming more confident and decisive, since he's now extremely determined to get a happy ending with Sally at the expense of everyone else.

As for Lily, it's sad that she dies in the true ending of her debut game after going through so many trials with the Ghosteaters. She gets to live in the normal ending and it does give her the opportunity to find some kind of meaning as an exorcist, but it also means Marty's journey ends abruptly, so that ending would be unsatisfactory in a different way. It sounds evil of me, but I'm personally hoping that Lily succeeds in her evil spirit revenge arc contrary to Marty's expectations, or at least finds a way to avoid getting exorcised like a throwaway villain.

I also like how the game expanded on Jade's characterization, since she normally seems to be just a manipulative sadist, but it turns out she can hear the voices of the elder gods and she learned they could potentially end the univese any time they want, which probably caused her to decide to join the winning side. This ties together Marty/Nya's arc with Brucie/Jade's arc to show that they are much more connected than most people originally thought. In hindsight, I really should have seen this twist coming due to how similar Jade and Nya's motivations are. Though I wonder if Jade truly enjoys what she's doing or if she's trying to appease the elder gods so that they spare the universe. That will be a question for another game.

I'm pretty sure I saw a few screenshots of combat on the dev's twitter, but those were cut during development, likely because there are actually very few major battles in this game. As a result, this game is entirely just talking and activating events, with all battles happening in cutscenes. Personally, I would have liked to see how everyone uses their different fighting styles in a battle system, especially Lily who relies on money. To be fair, some of those battle cutscenes are pretty epic, especially when Jade uses her own period against the ghosts in the final battle.

9/10

I like that it ties up loose ends from the prequel Cannibal Boy game and how it makes Jade a more interesting character with her connection to Nya. I just hope the next games can give more spotlight to Lily and hopefully make her a great antagonist, now that she's stuck in the evil spirit role.

This is a game about living with the consequences of your actions, both in terms of mutually exclusive player choices and in Morgalia's villain arc. This means some choices can result in certain characters joining, the another choice could have those very same characters die or become enemies. This can lead to some interesting possibilities, though it can also be hard to make a logical connection between the choices and the outcome for certain characters, such as Virgo becoming a boss.

Like in the Trails of Cold Steel series, the majority of character development will take place in bonding events, but since you have a limited number of activity points during each town/camp segment, you'll need to save and reload in order to see them all, but that shouldn't be too hard and it's worth it IMO. Though both possible final party members to join technically only gets very few bonding events to flesh them out. However, each individual character ending changes based on their final link level, which means someone you didn't bond with will likely have a less satisfying ending. That makes me feel somewhat bad for the people I neglected though.

As for the elephant in the room, yes, the bad guys are corporate fascists, but I do think it's interesting that the major villains have a fair amount of individuality compared to some of the other antifa-coded games I played. They all have their own backstories and even their role in Zeta's dystopian state differs. Zazz is one of the most unusual fascist villains I've ever read about, since while he's a human supremacist who wants to make non-humans into third-class citizens, he's also the only human currently alive and that means he can't just immediately build a cult of personality around his master race until he can revive the rest of humanity. Instead, he has to rely almost entirely on capitalism and imperialism as tools to conquer, control, divide (based on economic class), and impoverish non-humans while manipulating them into aiding with their own oppression. I think this is partially the point: the party can't let Zazz succeed in his plan to revive and indoctrinate humanity to follow his hateful views, or they'll be trapped in an unwinnable battle against full-power fascism.

I feel like the inciting incident to motivate the protagonist uses some plot convenience. Basically, Aries shows up and puts the party in critical condition, but after syncing with Barbados, Barbados/Aries apparently have enough stamina to wipe out Pon Pon, but not enough to get past Libra to finish off the weakened party. That seems hard to believe considering that Akira took enough damage to be reduced to gas form.

The story's darkest section is when Morgalia blows up the mines and frames Akira's party, or it would have been if we could actually see the citizens' reaction and actually have people visibly turn on the party. Instead, the party almost immediately goes to Aquarius Temple for the next plot macguffin. I feel like this is a missed opportunity to make Akira question if their journey is really worth it now that they see the risks that they bring upon themselves and others by rebelling. The closest we get to this is during dialogue that occurs specifically if you recruit Kael, who explains that change needs to happen despite the risk of bringing the Zodiacs to Zazz's doorstep, or Zazz will just keep exploiting people for the rest of eternity. Even then, the whole situation smells of tell, don't show.

There are some unclear or loose ends in the story, such as what happened to the Kolfos during Zeta's occupation of Vulcanite. Zeta's records don't mention them at all, which implies that Zeta did something so horrible to them that they were wiped from history as stage 10 of genocide. There's also the conflict between the angels and the demons, as well as the God of Cycles punishing humanity for ruining the environment. The last point was either added very recently or a new game plus only detail, but I really think such an important point should be accessible on all playthroughs. Additionally, I feel like we need more specifics on how Akira's party is going to change society. While it's implied that Vulcanite will return to its collectivist roots or at least something resembling it, it's unknown what exactly changes in Zeta's government system where the corporation and state are nigh indistinguishable. Additionally, I have no idea what Akira's party plans to do in regards to the environment, since they have to avoid harming it or the God of Cycles will retaliate against them too. Hopefully, the sequel will expand on these points.

I feel unsatisfied by the Evil Runi route. For one thing, I don't see how it's supposed to change the overall fate of Zeta as advertised in the Steam page, since the reformation of Utopya, Vulcanite, and Pon Pon happens anyway. Maybe the sequel will allow us to choose which outcome is canon? Maybe the world will become a worse place without Runi to help reform it? Additionally, Akira blames the demons for this situation, which while mostly true, makes it seem like they're ignoring their own role in isolating Runi. The whole thing just seems really out of character for Akira, since even disregarding the very act of unfriending Runi, you'd think Akira would have a moment of self-reflection in the ending. To me, the choice for Akira to befriend Runi should be the canon one. TLDR, if you plan to do multiple playthroughs for the sake of achievements, I recommend doing the objectively worst route first so that every playthrough afterwards feels better.

Edit: The updated version of the ERR actually does have dire consequences now.


The game uses a Hype system, where MP upkeep is difficult unless you hit enemy weaknesses in order to steal Hype from them, and enemies can do the same to you. This means you'll have to tailor your team to the enemy weaknesses in order to win efficiently, which works for most enemies except those without weaknesses. For the most part, I found the combat balanced, though they do take a decent amount of time on hard mode because of the lower active party headcount, which makes the party cover fewer weaknesses while having less DPS. Additionally, some enemies and bosses have no weaknesses, which kills your resource loop pretty hard. Fortunately, those are usually reserved for a handful of endgame and optional bosses.

As for regular encounters, they're pretty balanced for the most part if you figure out the best party for the majority of enemies in an area, but the bonus dungeon really mixes up their weaknesses. Since you can't run away from battle, this can potentially put you in a bad situation if you're unlucky with enemy weaknesses.

Note that you can't revisit most dungeons after you complete them, but I feel like the game is balanced so that even on hard mode, you can win even if you don't pick up every single piece of unique gear, though it certainly helps.

Related to that is a romance system, where certain characters can get romance endings with Akira if you always go for their bonding events. Like with Tales of Symphonia, one of of the characters is mechanically easier to pair with the MC than the others. Note that if you're like me and you like evenly distributing everyone's sync levels to ensure everyone has more skills on rotation, it will be very hard to commit to a relationship other than Eliza and maybe Setzuna. Yes, I have commitment issues.

Yes, my review title is clickbait, but I think the game does a decent job at exploring the ramifications of using reincarnation to make up for the mistakes of a previous life. While Glenn/Van did manage to do a lot of good in many of their lives, having multiple lifetimes also means a lot more opportunities to make mistakes. Additionally, his desire for atonement also gets warped into an unhealthy obsession that causes him to shut down at perceived mistakes, even if they're out of his control. The lesson he learns in his current life is that he should focus more on becoming a better person tomorrow than trying to "cancel out" his past mistakes, since good and bad deeds aren't a zero sum game.

While this game does handle Glenn's redemption fairly well, I feel like they didn't put in the same amount of effort in Kylian. After he betrays the party and reveals that he's siding with Nabrelia, I feel like he not only loses a lot of sympathy, he also loses a lot of relevance. All of his later betrayals end up feeling like they don't matter in the grand scheme of things and that most events could proceed without him, making it seem like he betrayed all the factions for nothing, and never really gets closer to his supposed utopian goals. He has a few moments of self-reflection, but only his last one really seemed to have any impact, resulting in him only showing signs of redemption in the literal final phase of the final boss. IMO, his redemption would be more believable if he actually had a more significant role in the story, had more actual interactions with the party after his first betrayal, and actually performed more sympathetic actions even as an antagonist. Right now, he only exists as a vague expy of Glenn's first incarnation, Van, in order for Glenn to have his own person to forgive as part of a cycle.

Related to the above, the game also relies very heavily on subtext for all of their aesops, but it also feels like you need some kind of liberal arts master's degree to cut through all the subtext. For example, I'm pretty sure Whyatt is meant to a representation of what Glenn could be like if he took his desire for redemption to toxic extremes, but this only comes up in a short boss battle dialogue and Glenn himself doesn't bother commenting on it. While some believe subtext is good, this game uses so much subtext that it also unintentionally makes some characters less interesting than they could be and results in a lot of missed opportunities in the dialogue.

As for the political intrigue aspect, I feel like some betrayals are just there for shock value and removing relatively minor NPCs for little real impact. Though the Church betrayal was admittedly pretty interesting and sets up the sequel.



The CTB style battle system makes it so that you can see the turn order and plan around that, though any AGI alterations will immediately change the order. When targeting enemies, you can also see which specific enemy turn could be affected, so you can also strategically try to finish off enemies that you know are about to get a turn.

Unfortunately, the Overdrive system adds a lot of RNG to combat, since a random skill type is displayed near the gauge, and performing that skill type moves the gauge to the left. This means if the wrong types keep getting displayed by the gauge, it can be very hard to keep your gauge in the advantageous zone. Additionally, it makes certain enemy formations harder than others, since enemy actions always move the gauge to the right. The intention is to keep players from simply spamming their best skills, but being forced to play subpoptimally all the time while relying on luck isn't good either. IMO, it would be better if the player had a limited number of resources that could instantly change the displayed skill type without taking up a turn, instead of simply forcing them to waste a turn. That way, the player can still play the OD minigame without interrupting their own strategies too much.

One thing I do appreciate is that many starting skills can still be relevant even in the endgame, though you do have to make sure they have synergy with your other skills and passives, since you can only equip a limited number of skills. The class emblem system also allows you to teach certain universal skills to the party members, which aren't as potent as the party's native skills, but can easily fill in gaps in their native skillset and make it slightly easier to deal with the OD gauge.

Interestingly, a lot of buff skills will buff/debuff both physical and magic stats at the same time. This is a convenient way to buff the party regardless of what damage type they focus on, though it also makes me wonder if the game would be much different if everyone just had universal power stats. Still, I appreciate the convenience in doing more with fewer actions.

The game doesn't have a traditional leveling system and instead requires you to defeat bosses to get Grimoire Shards, which can be spent to learn skills, and spending a certain amount does result in stat increases too. This is intended to create more of a focus on strategy than grinding, but in practice, there are still other ways to increase your party's power levels that do rely on grinding. You can use ability crystals to add additional passives to your characters, and this requires you to farm crystals (sources have cooldowns) and open more slots on equipment. You also have to grind SP to upgrade your skills to get the most out of them, but most enemies drop only 1 SP each by default, making it so that you have to grind a fragile but large mob of starter enemies. You probably don't need to grind at all on normal mode, but hard mode is extremely grindy in the beginning. Still, this amount of customization can lead to some interesting builds, like using multi-hit attacks to proc status ailments or simply building towards as much DPS as possible.

Speaking of hard mode, it feels like the majority of stat based hard modes in that they're balanced for the end of the game rather than the beginning. This is especially true in Chained Echoes, since the increased enemy speed and smaller good section of the OD bar makes it so that it's much harder to balance the OD bar. It's possible to beat the early game on hard mode, but it feels more grindy that strategic, since you have to grind for a lot of AGI crystals to make up the difference.

The game also features a modified version of the main battle system for Sky Armor combat, but Sky Armors are also less customizable and the OD bar is actually harder to manage, since it's based on gears rather than skill types. While all Sky Armor battles are beatable on hard mode, the party feels relatively weaker in this mode and it does take away some of the thrill that's supposed to come with piloting a mecha.



7.5/10

If you don't like the way most light novels handle reincarnation power fantasies, maybe Glenn's story is just what you need, since it shows both the good and bad that can come with constant reincarnation and trying to redeem oneself for bad past lives. Unfortunately, the writing didn't completely land with me due to the rival character Kylian being poorly handled and because there's too much subtext for my small brain to comprehend. The rushed redemption arc makes me think the game ran into deadline issues or something. The gameplay is also a mixed bag for me, since there are a lot of interesting skills and ways to customize the characters (at least in non-Sky Armor combat), but the Overdrive system makes the combat less fun because it's luck based and forces the player to interrupt their own strategies.

This game has a very big world map with many locations, and each one has its own history. There's also lore about the heavens, the Nether, and a very complex element system. And yet, all of that is used to tell a very simple and short story about a bunch of friends camping out in the wild and having a good time. There are no super strong monstrosities to slay, except for one optional dude in the second dungeon who was literally too angry to die.

For the writing, I really did enjoy the interactions between the characters, as well as learning their stories. The ending was also very heartwarming and makes me feel happy for Tole getting closure. Unfortunately, the translation is very inaccurate, and not in an unintentionally funny way like with Sword of Paladin.


Each character doesn't really learn a whole lot of skills, but you can clearly see that some thought was put into setting up resource loop so that Tole can fill up the TP of the heavy hitters Zong and Rosy. However, due to the plot, there is also a clear power different between the characters, so in an extended fight, it can be hard to keep the resource loop up if Tole dies from his lack of levels, though he and Rosy do have decent stat growth. Sadly, there's also only one real challenging boss in the game, so there's no chance to see your weaker characters grow.

Unfortunately, the ATB system makes it so that time flows in the outermost menu, which made the combat more frantic than it should have been, and there's no way to adjust the ATB settings or speed. In short battles, this isn't a problem, but in a longer and tougher boss fight, it's very easy to panic and lose control of the situation. Personally, I would prefer a full-wait mode for the ATB so that time pauses whenever I have to make a decision.

7.5/10
Although the game is short, I did like characters and I hope to see more of the setting in a sequel or spin-off game. However, the translation really needs an overhaul and the ATB system needs a full-wait setting.

The premise is that the protagonists must fight back against the political conspiracy of Count Vorakia Estuuban, and the leader of the party, Ellemine, must develop into a proper leader rather than remain an innocent princess forever. I really liked her growth throughout the game, since she becomes more confident and ruthless while also still retaining her sense of empathy.

The game does bring up some interesting thought experiments, such as the Erran ability to read minds and sense emotions. There's technology to defend one's mind against being read, but as Eryn points out, it can be scary that someone can figure out your insecurities and give you unwanted pity. It's also subtly implied that depending too much on mind-reading means one will be much worse at reading people without it, since Arcturo misread his "friend" Vorakia until it was too late.

That said, there is a pretty blatant use of writer's convenience at the start of the story. Eryn made the foolhardy decision to have Chad arrested simply for speaking out against Arcturo's charges. This seems like a risk not worth taking, since Chad had no evidence and is unlikely to significantly sway public opinion, plus Lady Marselva correctly points out that doing so will just make the other councilmembers suspicious. As a result, Vorakia is forced to accelerate his plans and lose the advantage of good publicity that would have otherwise made Ellemine's alliances impossible to form. While it's implied that Eryn's real reason for doing this is to gain hostages to use against Marselva, it still comes off as a blatant freebie for the good guys in the long run and it also seems like an overly convenient way for Chad to get involved in the plot. Additionally, it seems strange Vorakia and the rest of the conspiracy were surprisingly lenient about Eryn's mistake, and even stranger that Ellemine and Arcturo seem to hype Eryn's political wisdom so much. Personally, I would have preferred that Chad actually do something to warrant getting captured, since doing so would make him look more like a chad for taking initiative and make the enemies seem more competent.

On the other hand, if there's going to be a major screwup in the story, I definitely prefer it be on the antagonist side than the protagonist side. That way I can take some pride in playing as comparatively competent people.

As for the use of races in the game, there's a subtle aesop that one's environment contributes more to how one turns out than racial stereotypes. For example, the Farians on Kardel are known for using their hexes for crimes or at best, resorting to extreme measures to defend themselves against criminals in a dog-eat-dog planet that was ravaged by volcanic activity. In contrast, the Farians on Yurielle live peacefully due to being on a stable and pristine planet. Unfortunately, the Draconians and Gulanians/Granians get no individuality or nuance, since they're just generic conquerors and scientists respectively. While Zazir is a Draconian/Granian hybrid, he's a lab creation and is essentially an outsider to both races' societies, which to me comes off as a lazy way to technically have one of each race in the party without having to actually flesh out Draconian and Gulanian/Granian society. We really need to be able to visit their civilian zones somehow.

Finally, the script needs some proofreading. It's better than a machine translated game, but there are still some awkward word choices and grammar errors.


The game uses a RPS damage type system where physical attacks are advantageous against tech, tech is advantageous against ether, and ether is advantageous against physical, ensuring that AOEs won't be enough to wipe out sufficiently balanced enemy parties. Interestingly, most tech and ether skills function as "magic" under the hood and therefore can be reflected, but physical attacks buffed to deal ether or tech damage do not count as "magic" and therefore can ignore reflection. I don't know if this is actually mentioned anywhere in the game's dialogue though.

The game starts out fairly balanced, but the endgame starts getting weird. Since the characters have buffs and synergies that would be considered too OP in most games, the late game bosses start cheating the turn system like crazy. They tend to do things like AOE dispel, buff, and AOE debuff as sequential actions, and these can be triggered as HP threshold events or even at the start of rounds. As a result, combat gets really messy when you have use several turns to remove enemy buffs and set up your own, only for the bosses to reverse all that with what I refer to as their "boss combo."

Astral Mode is a really sloppy attempt at a survival horror minigame IMO. The idea is that Ellemine has to dodge Astral beasts while collecting powerups, but this isn't implemented well. For one thing, the powerups show up as glowing balls, which are easy to mistake for various lighting effects. Additionally, there's no indicator showing how many items are in each area, making it hard to tell if an area is fully looted. As for the Astral Beasts, damage from them persists into the next time you Astral dive and their positions don't seem to reset, so if you exited an Astral zone with several near the activation point, going back in will immediately result in damage.


7.5/10

The story and world building are ambitious, but some parts definitely needed a sanity check. The bosses do start to feel samey at the end, since they're all just spamming slightly different variations of the deadly "boss combo" just to keep up with the player's powerful skills.

This is an opinion, but personally, I prefer the pre-June update face portraits, since the AI-generated ones just feel more offputting than the RPG Maker style face portraits from before.

The game has two main plot threads, with the first being the tension between Zamaste and Halonia and the second being Astraea's lost memories. However, both leave some loose ends, since the queen's curse isn't adequately explained until Knight Bewitched 2 and Astraea's connection to Abbie has yet to be clarified. I'm hoping there will be a continuation of Timeline 1 someday, since while Timeline 2 is good, I still want to see how Timeline 1 leads to it.

Personally, I feel like the queen's death at the end of the game would have hit harder if we had more interactions with her. By the time the party reaches her in the endgame, she's already on death's door without us really affecting the outcome. It really didn't reach the previous game's high note of confronting Zamas and getting Abbie back against all odds.

IMO, the game should have spent more time fleshing out Zamaste, since it would be interesting to see how much the kingdom was affected by their worship of an antagonistic deity. It seems strange that in the ending, they reconciled so easily with Halonia. Additionally, Adalia Primrose didn't seem that bothered by the revelations about Zamas in the Depths.


The game is mechanically similar to the previous one, but there are some improvements, such as the wider resolution. This makes it easier to fit all of the party's buffs on the UI, though the UI still doesn't show enemy buffs and debuffs.

For equipment, characters still have a lot of freedom to equip whatever they want, but equipment types are more restricted to give the characters a bit more individuality. Though I still ended up putting the Ragnarok on Dylan because most of the other magic-based equipment was mediocre. However, I personally wish there was no distinction between spell and tech slots, since I felt like having more spell slots was better in the early stages of the game.

There's now a skill tree, where you can spend SP to unlock nodes containing stat boosts and passives. In practice, most players will concentrate on a character's best stat first to maximize their strengths before going for the next most useful stat. There's also the emblem system, where characters have to complete certain events and choose between two emblems, which unlocks different branches in their skill tree that leads to some character exclusive skills, which means they have a bit more individuality than in the previous game.


TBH, the story feels even more underdeveloped than Celestial Hearts, but I did appreciate the improvements to the combat system and UI, though I wish there were more character exclusive nodes on the skill trees.
6.5/10

2 years after the fall of the Black Tower, Abbie suddenly disappears, and Mari has to actually learn how to participate in combat in order to search for her. This isn't an easy task, since she'll have to travel all over Ambrose and explore both old and new locations. For the most part, it feels like going through old KB locations in monochrome is meant to evoke a sense of nostalgia, as well as loss because most of those locations got rekt by the rising sea levels. The sense of loss of locations is probably meant to be a parallel to how the party members are dealing with loss. Mari lost Abbie, Keller lost Morgoth, Stray lost Ruth and Gwen, and Malady lost Uno, and things haven't been the same for them. They also have to deal with their worst fears concerning their loved ones, though I wish the Tower of Trials also showed visions for the non-Mari party members, since those seem like they could be interesting.

Although it's somewhat brief, you get to confront the one manipulating Typhus, Lilith, and Morgoth, and it is indeed Zamas. I honestly didn't expect that we would be able to attack and dethrone (or at least temporarily inconvenience) God so soon, but it's finally happening despite this being the second-to-last game in Timeline 1. It seems strange that the series would peak in terms of villain threat level at this point in the timeline, but it's not like we can permanently defeat him anyways. Surprisingly, despite being a human-hating jerk with a name similar to another human-hating jerk in an anime, Zamas is shown to be a slightly tragic figure because he's miserable from the loss of his sister and tries to shift the blame for it. He even shows mercy to the protagonists because he senses his sister in them somehow, though we don't know how exactly the protagonists are related.


The game mostly does away with unique skills and instead has all skills come from equipment and skill orbs. Additionally, most equipment is no longer exclusive, giving a greater degree of customization, though some characters will obviously excel at certain roles. Personally, I would have preferred the characters having more unique and permanently learnable skills like in previous games, since I feel that this gives them more of an identity in combat.

The gameplay does get grindy at around the middle, and I feel like some enemies, such as the scorpions in the Underworld, were a bit too op. Additionally, I felt like magic builds were overall better, since physical damage strategies tend to burn through too much TP to sustain while magic damage strategies felt more sustainable in terms of both MP and TP.

The bide and calm mind skills can be useful for quickly bursting down a boss, but it'd be nice if they also buffed the accuracy of the next attack too, since a lot of time and resources go into buffing up the attack.

While the game does try to capture a retro aesthetic, the UI for showing player and enemy states wasn't good. You can't see enemy states at all and you can only see two player character states at a time. The next game does fix this by giving more room to show player states, but enemy states are still unreadable.


7.5/10

I like how the story shows the effects of the previous events on the returning characters and I'm looking forward to seeing how the heroes confront the main antagonist in Timeline 2. However, the UI could definitely use some work and I miss the characters having more unique skills related to their actual fighting styles.

The dialogue in this game is overall very light, due to the fact that all the party members are silent protagonists, even Abbie. They do have Mari, their nymph companion, doing most of the speaking though, and she has a connection to one of the antagonists. Personally, I prefer the other games having a set party of important characters who all have story relevance, rather than just having a bunch of random mercenaries. IMO, Keller should have been a playable character here due to his connection to Morgoth.

Strangely, the terminology and names used in this game isn't consistent with the rest of the series. For example, Halonia is called Halona and Zamas is called Zumasa, which is weird because they're named correctly in Finding Light. Maybe this was before the names were finalized?

As for how this fits into the plot of timeline 1, the game explains that humanity has a sort of chaotic energy in them that makes them prone to violence, and Zamas didn't like that, so he screwed up the balance of that energy even more to make them destroy themselves faster.

As for Morgoth, the final boss, he's supposed to be a decontruction of utilitarianism, since he saw a vision of humans destroying each other with chaos energy, so he believes absorbing that chaos energy into the Black Tower and killing humans is going to save the planet in the long run. Though it would have been more interesting to see more dilemmas where Morgoth had to try to apply that philosophy. It also would have been interesting if Keller debated Morgoth about this, though Mari does point out the flaws in Morgoth's logic.


This game is definitely more focused on gameplay than story, even compared to KB1. You have several classes to choose from and many ways to build your team. The first class you choose, which is for the main protagonist Abbie, is also the most important since Abbie will also get anti-Miasma skills no matter what class they pick, meaning you have to consider if it's wise to delegate both the anti-Miasma role and the chosen class's role to Abbie. Personally, I made them a Brewmaster because that class can avoid having to use too much TP to perform their role, allowing me to save that TP for anti-Miasma purposes.

Note that all characters have TP, but not MP, which means you have to pay attention to how you can regenerate TP for each class. If you use two healer characters, it might even be possible to sustain yourself in weaker areas without having to use items. In a way, I think this game partially inspired the combat system in Absinthia, where you're encouraged to use guard skills to recover a limited pool of MP rather than just having a large MP pool to burn through recklessly.

As for non-combat stuff, you're exploring a huge multifloor dungeon like in the Etrian series, and you have to constantly look for ways to unlock shortcuts. As long as you find all the shortcuts, you can make it to wherever you need to go quickly, but I still wish there was a more convenient quick-travel system at times.

The town has a day/night cycle that changes when you exit the dungeon or use the inn. While some stores are always around, some merchants are only around at night or only show up randomly. Sadly, there's no way to tell when certain merchants will appear, but there's no penalty for aimlessly advancing time, so you'll find what you need eventually.


7/10

The dialogue definitely isn't the selling point of the story, though Mari herself does get some good lines in the final boss cutscenes. There is some confusing lore about the miasma and humanity's chaos energy that's needed to understand what happens in some of the other games, as well as Typhus's motives in KB1. The gameplay is a bit more complex compared to the other games in the series due to the class choices, as well as how most of the classes aren't traditional RPG ones, but it's still fun to see how your chosen party synergizes despite their lack of traditional mages.