(If you don't care about my little blurb, you can skip towards to the bottom to just see my pros/cons
Also as usual tl;dr at the bottom)

So as of writing this I've completed the game. I'd first like to start off by saying I came into this kind of late. I know there was some frustration with people who had been here before it released, and even some after before it got majorly updated. Just figured this was worth mentioning so you can kinda get how I may not fall into this group.

When my husband told me about this game through him watching OneyPlay's play it, I was honestly shocked I had heard nothing about this until then. Especially considering this had a Switch release and everything, it just went under my radar.
Like most people I totally have had my fair amount of time laughing at this game as well as being bewildered by certain things in it. However, I can easily recommend it as someone who enjoy's RPG's, overall weird ♥♥♥♥ and interesting characters (yes I said that) and designs.
Also, if I'm being honest I think some people really exaggerate when it comes to this game being bad. Does it have many things it could improve upon or maybe didn't need to be in it at all? Definitely. Is it so bad that it should be cast into a dark pit, never to be seen or played by anyone? No.
I think the lesson to be learned from this is that you can enjoy something despite it's flaws, AND you can also point out those flaws and still like it. I think often some people feel it's either all or nothing lol


So now so this doesn't become 100 miles of me just writing paragraphs I'm just gonna list some of my favorite things about this games, and then things I feel could be improved upon!


-Pros/Cons- (some of the pros may be subject to opinion, but they're things I personally enjoyed about the game)

Pros:
- Great art direction, designs (I especially love the Essentia)
- Variety with battle mechanics (I like everyone's different style and approach in battle, it may be a bit frustrating to learn at first, but by end game I was dodging and doing good/perfect attacks all the time)
- Soundtrack (The music in this game is just really good. A couple ones that fall a bit short but overall I maybe only got sick of a couple tracks. Into the Mind, Battle with Rhythm, Disco Battle, just to name a few)
-Story (this is SUPER subjective I realize, but I personally found myself invested. There are low points, or parts that may really confuse a new player with no context but I feel overall it ended up making sense in it's own weird way.)
- Voice acting (There were probably only a few performances that were noticeably off, mainly the Police officer, just a bit too weird and sounded like it was done in one take or something. But as a whole I think it's great for a project that's made by such a small team. I tend to give credit to voice acting that's decent in smaller indie titles because it certainly isn't easy)


-Cons-

- Seemingly useless abilities (Despite the fact there's a pretty large variety of skills, I felt like they just... didn't serve much of a purpose? I beat the entire game fairly easily by only using "Beat Down" and the normal attack. I'd say the best skills are Photoshoot, LP toss, Item Spread, and Panda. Outside of those I didn't use a whole lot. Oh and Banish doesn't count because it's pretty much a key story ability.)

- End game(pre-epilogue) (so by "end game" I'm referring to the point in which you have a month before the new year comes, to train for the end coming. I managed to get through this part in a couple sittings, but it's definitely the slowest and worst point in the game. I feel it could have easily been condensed down into maybe ten days or something. Enough to see all the support conversations, get the level ups from the exp gained from those, and then a couple days to do the monster dungeons if you need to. I don't think anyone would need that many days to catch on to what might be expected of them. And I was already a decent level at this point anyway, so the monster dungeons just kind of topped off my leveling.

- Bugs/Glitches
Here's a little list of bugs I encountered. Thankfully I never lost too much progress because of these, but figured I'd list them in case the devs still look at reviews and so players may keep these in mind.

- Camera not moving after a cutscene ending in Wind town
- Game crashing after logging onto a computer in one of the internet cafe's
- Game menu deciding to not show it's open despite it being open with sfx's

-Characters
(Finally, let's discuss the characters just a bit. I get it's a meme to hate Alex, and I understand why. However I do feel that he shows some progression and has an explanation to his actions AND also goes through some kind of change. Same with Vella and Rory. I couldn't stand Vella at first and thought she was just gonna be a feminist cringe dispenser but thankfully she didn't head that way. Even Rory, the resident edgelord ended up going in some good direction. Micheal is glorious and is the best character, this is a fact, not an opinion. Claudio is cool. Doesn't get enough lines honestly and he should have spoken more than Chondra who is the worst part of this game.
I'm not joking. Devs, if your goal was to create the most obnoxious, annoying character...then you did great.
And finally, I really like the Essentia. Even after seeing the ending I think she's an interesting character and I'm hoping there's a sequel that could explain her and Alex more.


And uhhh I think that's everything?
Yeah this has gone on long enough lol


TL;DR
Fun battles, great music, a story line you might find interesting despite things being confusing at first and seemingly not knowing where it's going. Good ending in my personal opinion that did explain certain things I just didn't get at first.
A couple characters that can be annoying on and off, but there is some type of development. A few bugs/glitches. Slow segment towards the end of the game. Dungeons can drag on a bit, but they're aren't too many of them.
Mainly recommended for players who really like RPG's and want something weird and fun visually.

(If you don't care about my little blurb, you can skip towards to the bottom to just see my pros/cons Also as usual tl;dr at the bottom) So as of writing this I've completed the game. I'd first like to start off by saying I came into this kind of late. I know there was some frustration with people who had been here before it released, and even some after before it got majorly updated. Just figured this was worth mentioning so you can kinda get how I may not fall into this group. When my husband told me about this game through him watching OneyPlay's play it, I was honestly shocked I had heard nothing about this until then. Especially considering this had a Switch release and everything, it just went under my radar. Like most people I totally have had my fair amount of time laughing at this game as well as being bewildered by certain things in it. However, I can easily recommend it as someone who enjoy's RPG's, overall weird shit and interesting characters (yes I said that) and designs. Also, if I'm being honest I think some people really exaggerate when it comes to this game being bad. Does it have many things it could improve upon or maybe didn't need to be in it at all? Definitely. Is it so bad that it should be cast into a dark pit, never to be seen or played by anyone? No. I think the lesson to be learned from this is that you can enjoy something despite it's flaws, AND you can also point out those flaws and still like it. I think often some people feel it's either all or nothing lol So now so this doesn't become 100 miles of me just writing paragraphs I'm just gonna list some of my favorite things about this games, and then things I feel could be improved upon! -Pros/Cons- (some of the pros may be subject to opinion, but they're things I personally enjoyed about the game) Pros: - Great art direction, designs (I especially love the Essentia) - Variety with battle mechanics (I like everyone's different style and approach in battle, it may be a bit frustrating to learn at first, but by end game I was dodging and doing good/perfect attacks all the time) - Soundtrack (The music in this game is just really good. A couple ones that fall a bit short but overall I maybe only got sick of a couple tracks. Into the Mind, Battle with Rhythm, Disco Battle, just to name a few) -Story (this is SUPER subjective I realize, but I personally found myself invested. There are low points, or parts that may really confuse a new player with no context but I feel overall it ended up making sense in it's own weird way.) - Voice acting (There were probably only a few performances that were noticeably off, mainly the Police officer, just a bit too weird and sounded like it was done in one take or something. But as a whole I think it's great for a project that's made by such a small team. I tend to give credit to voice acting that's decent in smaller indie titles because it certainly isn't easy) -Cons- - Seemingly useless abilities (Despite the fact there's a pretty large variety of skills, I felt like they just... didn't serve much of a purpose? I beat the entire game fairly easily by only using "Beat Down" and the normal attack. I'd say the best skills are Photoshoot, LP toss, Item Spread, and Panda. Outside of those I didn't use a whole lot. Oh and Banish doesn't count because it's pretty much a key story ability.) - End game(pre-epilogue) (so by "end game" I'm referring to the point in which you have a month before the new year comes, to train for the end coming. I managed to get through this part in a couple sittings, but it's definitely the slowest and worst point in the game. I feel it could have easily been condensed down into maybe ten days or something. Enough to see all the support conversations, get the level ups from the exp gained from those, and then a couple days to do the monster dungeons if you need to. I don't think anyone would need that many days to catch on to what might be expected of them. And I was already a decent level at this point anyway, so the monster dungeons just kind of topped off my leveling. - Bugs/Glitches Here's a little list of bugs I encountered. Thankfully I never lost too much progress because of these, but figured I'd list them in case the devs still look at reviews and so players may keep these in mind. - Camera not moving after a cutscene ending in Wind town - Game crashing after logging onto a computer in one of the internet cafe's - Game menu deciding to not show it's open despite it being open with sfx's -Characters (Finally, let's discuss the characters just a bit. I get it's a meme to hate Alex, and I understand why. However I do feel that he shows some progression and has an explanation to his actions AND also goes through some kind of change. Same with Vella and Rory. I couldn't stand Vella at first and thought she was just gonna be a feminist cringe dispenser but thankfully she didn't head that way. Even Rory, the resident edgelord ended up going in some good direction. Micheal is glorious and is the best character, this is a fact, not an opinion. Claudio is cool. Doesn't get enough lines honestly and he should have spoken more than Chondra who is the worst part of this game. I'm not joking. Devs, if your goal was to create the most obnoxious, annoying character...then you did great. And finally, I really like the Essentia. Even after seeing the ending I think she's an interesting character and I'm hoping there's a sequel that could explain her and Alex more. And uhhh I think that's everything? Yeah this has gone on long enough lol TL;DR Fun battles, great music, a story line you might find interesting despite things being confusing at first and seemingly not knowing where it's going. Good ending in my personal opinion that did explain certain things I just didn't get at first. A couple characters that can be annoying on and off, but there is some type of development. A few bugs/glitches. Slow segment towards the end of the game. Dungeons can drag on a bit, but they're aren't too many of them. Mainly recommended for players who really like RPG's and want something weird and fun visually.