I never knew how much I needed this game.

If you ever wanted to get into bullet hells and Touhou adjacent games, this is a great entry. If you wanted to get into endgame mmo type of raiding and never had the chance or group for it, this is also a great entry. Mino did a wonderful work adapting the difficulties, so you can get used to how the game works if you never touched anything of the sorts in the easy modes, and then you can jump right into the harder difficulties to have the real FUN of the game, with the designed mechanics and challenges.

There are 5 characters to begin with, all with clearly defined diverse game styles, and you unlock more as you play. All characters are unique and have their own personalities in ways that are so creative, which segways into the next point... Multiplayer.

Yes, this game has multiplayer, and not only does it have multiplayer, it has a VERY GOOD multiplayer. All the mechanics are adjusted accordingly to the number of players, not just as a blind addition of more bullets or more hp for the enemies. The connection feels seamless, I have barely had any instance where lag has affected me, and I can promise you it is a LOT of fun with friends. Hard not to laugh in a game where everything can look like a cluster♥♥♥♥ and noone knows what is going on on your first attempts, only to feel the synergy when you all lock in and even call out what mechanics are happening to help everyone stay coordinated.

The only con I can give this game is that the visual cues can be a bit cluttered when certain mechanics mix together (for example, if you have a horizontal knockback and a half room cleave linked to you at the same time, it may be hard to see the arrows of said knockback), but comparing this version to the demo, I can tell there was a lot of care put into what the community had to say. Visibility was improved in many ways, the UI had minor tweaks that helped understand things better... and on twitter you can see how Mino is talking about adding bug fixes and some patches, so maybe if people talk about it enough it would be something worth looking into by the dev.

There are even accessibility features where you can change the way enemy projectiles and mechanics look like, in case you are colourblind or have some visibility impairment. The HUD is easy to adjust to once you play a few runs in the game, and of course you can modify how some of your own abilities are positioned around your character to control your cooldowns better.

As a final point, I think that I would do a disservice to this game if I did not mention how good the OST is. I knew I recognized the style once I listened to it the first time, as the person working on the composition for the tracks is Steel plus, the same person that did the OST for One Step from Eden, another great game with yet another incredible OST. To top it off, Steel plus worked with a great vocalist for some of the tracks, Kitsui Akira. The songs where she is involved are so bubbly and light hearted, and they help take a lot of the tension and frustration off during some of the fights. It's amazing.

If you are on the fence, I can promise you you won't regret picking this game up. The quality greatly overtakes its price.

So I generally only recommend games one to one, to friends individually, or even groups of friends, but I usually never make public posts about how good a game is. This is an exception. In fact, this is one of my very few steam reviews.

I have never enjoyed a game in a way I've enjoyed Wildermyth. It is the easiest excuse to group up with friends, or even family, just to play something that's equivalent to a real life tabletop rpg game.

It starts with a rather simple character creation system, that you can randomize or tailor to your whims. It's vague enough so you can project whichever character type you'd like to have in the party, or even change the personalities that come from them in order of what qualities they have. This character creation also applies to every character that will join your party. You can even make them nonbinary, and even give them preferences to whichever gender (or lack of) they'll feel attracted to, and even if they'll have x types of attractions or not! And it's so easily implemented, too!

Then comes the combat. It is SO smooth, and it feels so natural. It is obviously turn based, of course, but you can move whoever you want in your team in whichever order you want, and if you are playing online with friends, the order doesn't really matter... but the tactics and teamwork feels SO damn good! The combat, though is very simple, simple enough to let a toddler decide what they'd like to do with Timmy Stonebreaker, their warrior that ended up becoming something like a barbarian so they can just run ahead and smash their opponents. Even with the simplicity, you can do really cool teamwork based attacks, such as letting said barbarian attack from the front so the rogue can do a very damaging flanking backstab, or even let the wizard buff some attacks by using a fire that is by their side.

I have not gotten tired of any combats, but that's not the best part of the game. The best part of the game is, without a doubt, the storytelling. The game sets you up in a chapter based campaign (there's different ones), and then sets you in an overworld, where you'll travel around, scout and go with the party to defeat the hardships they encounter... but each new area they find, and combat they do, will trigger events (sometimes there'll be random events that happen out of nowhere). Each event will have a story based to it, which can repeat between campaigns, but never in the same campaign. These stories have different dialogues depending on the relationships and personalities of the characters, and you can choose what outcomes you'd like to try to get out of them. This is what saves it from repetition (or at least makes it not as bad as it could be). You can happen to find a pact that turns you into a wolf person, or an abandoned shrine that will turn you into a fire elemental, for example. The stories are so memorable, and the way the characters interact just.. just heal your soul, really.

After a chapter is done, your characters will evolve in certain ways, and will age. The more things a character has done, the older they can usually get before retiring. But even if they retire, they become legacy characters that can appear in OTHER STORIES IN CAMEOS OR EVEN BECOME MENTORS-- Like, can you see what I mean? They put so much love into the game so you can put so much love to your characters!

To make it even better, the game has steam workshop, so if you're into modding, you can literally go ham with the stories or sprites.

Hands down, it is genuinely a game I need to recommend as strongly as possible, and I hope this game sets a new genre/subgenre on its own.

TL;DR: A strongly recommended game. You can play it alone, with friends, locally or online, and even with family members, even your kids if you have any. The game is simple enough to be easily understood but lets you do really cool tactics with the mind set to it, and the characters are quirky and fun. The stories are always interesting and memorable and there's a workshop that lets you mod the game easily if you want more out of it.

TL;DR 2: Imagine Miitopia + XCOM infused into a fantasy type tabletop rpg with a cartoon/comic artstyle, with memorable stories.. but good. Like, really good.

If you're on the fence, buy it. I can't say it more plainly.