TL;DR If you're a fan of SRPGs and don't mind puzzle-like challenges interrupting the overall gameplay loop, Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery is a standout game that justifies its price tag.

It took me ninety-six hours to complete my first play through of Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery. I was playing the game blind on Challenger+. It had quite a few challenging moments. As a seasoned SRPG player with over two decades of experience, I found the game's difficulty on Challenger exceptionally well-polished.

However, while impressive, the game has flaws, with the stealth missions being a common point of anger. The stealth missions in the game play out, for the most part, like long puzzle set pieces. Movement and timing are generally relatively rigid; making a mistake can cause you to lose the map more than a few turns later, which can understandably feel unfair. It is frustrating to think you've solved the puzzle, and suddenly, two or three stationary enemies start to move across the map. These enemies are pathing right into your hiding spot and either trap you and make you restart or find an entirely new route to the very end. To the developers credit, many of these maps can now be fought through instead of winning with stealth. However, by winning with combat, many of these maps can not be cleared with max stage rank.

Outside of the puzzle-focused stealth missions, the game plays exceptionally well. I got stuck infrequently due to low hit chances or bad tool management. In most cases where hit chances were an issue, tools were available to work around them and bring them up to a reasonable level. The main characters all have various ways to build them and even the ability to change them around a few times through a single run through the campaign, so you should be able to experiment with a few different character setups to find one that works for you. The stages with more than two factions were, overall, my favorites.

I found a few things that could be improved with the English translation throughout the game. In many story-important cut-scenes, where the game is switched to auto-advanced text for pacing, the text doesn't display entirely and cuts off. There are also a few items where descriptions could be better and a few poorly explained mechanics. It took me more than half the game to realize that any turrets that die in maps would come back afterward, and for the entire first half of the game, I would re-spawn them before finishing maps, thinking that I would lose them otherwise. Near the end of the game, a few story sections with very noticeable translation issues crop up that could hamper enjoyment. The story was enjoyable, and I could see myself rereading it.

Overall, the game was a very enjoyable experience, and I hope the developers plan to make a sequel. I would love to get more of this game play. I personally enjoyed the stealth missions and had a blast going for all S ranks blind. Fantastic work, and I will absolutely play this again. There is also still a fair amount of extra content for me to finish.

It's not a tactical RPG, it's a puzzle game and you better spend your days finding the exact valid pattern otherwise...

Had plenty of interest in this game due to being a huge fan of Girl's Frontline's story, though this experience has definitely blasted every expectation I might have had out of the water.

There is so little reliance on any of the Dolls from GFL, when I had expected this to be chock full of them to take advantage of their popularity. Instead we have a interesting cast made up of multiple well fleshed out individuals with clear roles in the group.

Gameplay wise, I didn't know what I expected. But I find it very difficult to explain it to friends since its so unique. It feels like a lot of my favorite parts from Fire Emblem, XCOM, and Valkyria Chronicles were used and refined. But saying anything of the sort doesn't really express it. Nearly every mission is a delight to figure out, even if some require a bit of trial and error. The gimmick stages are interesting, and rare enough to not bog down the core gameplay. And the Stealth Missions manage to be some of my favorites, though it can be annoying to mess up my positioning, get caught on the enemy phase, and need to wait for every enemy to take their turn to reload.

Story wise, I refuse to spoil anything about this. But its been heart wrenching. I don't know how I'd rate the story itself by number, but I've loved every bit of it. Jefuty's struggles and victories have been great to witness.

Ultimately, I just have to recommend this game to anyone even mildly interested in Tactics RPGs. Though a lack of patience may end up killing it for some. As stated before, some missions can end up being a game of trial and error if you mess up. But the save system is extremely generous, making the worst case points just a matter of save scumming. Though it was rare for me to reach that point.