Recent reviews by SonofTzeentch9

Mechanics and difficulty are fun and challenging. There is a decent amount of ability complexity and interaction. Headless Horseman is cool.

...however, the UI in the game is terrible and hides critical information in all sorts of places (and some of it is randomly not translated to english, but that at least seems rare and not a huge concern as far as I can tell, but I was only 5 hours into the game, so maybe there's more of that).

As one of the main elements of the game is discovering new skills and modifiers for both your own team and on enemies, prepare to lose some runs due to not seeing some additional caveat on them (important ones like things that end your turn upon useage of an attack, your skills being locked in a particular battle after useage, etc. - i.e. not just small stuff where a skill combination doesn't work out or you get a bit of additional damage. I just figured the enemies had some sort of interrupt ability/skill debuff that I triggered from time to time somehow, which is incorrect). Just to give additional context: I'm the sort of player that reads every tiny text, tutorial, side story and item description in any game I play, and it helped me none here. If an overpreparing completionist can't find this info, I doubt more casual players will.

I'll give this game another try in the future; if the mid-to-end-game makes putting up with the UI worth it, I'll update and/or change my review.

If putting up with terribly conveyed information is not a huge problem for you, the game is recommendable; difficult games with itneresting skill combinations are hard to come by, and this one is at least pretty decent. If, like me, it's a game breaker for you, then the game cannot be recommended.

----

Suggestions for the devs: While I still don't know why my skills were locked, it would be nice if the tutorial would let you know how, when and why they could be locked, and what modifier categories exist (enhance, cure, etc. - one of these is "completion" which if I understand correctly now, means the skill ends your turn); also skill descriptions ought to mention these things as well.

If you're afraid of bloating the current tutorial, just give some text-only advanced tutorial that can be read optionally somewhere. It would be a great help.

Full Disclosure: I'm a friend of the developer.

This is a 3D platformer and a collectathon primarily, with a light-hearted story of a princess exploring the dreams of her subjects and the royal family to find a way to break the curse of the witch that put them asleep (apparently this involves collecting lots of dream bells).

Short pros and cons first, then a bit more detail on the important points:

Pros:
+ Actual focus on platforming challenges at about a satisfying mid-level range of difficulty, with a few more difficult levels here and there
+ Surprising amount of varied minigames and level types (more than I'd expect from a modern 3D platformer)
+ A lot of different collectathon challenges
+ Due to the bell collection mechanic, can beat the game while skipping sections that you don't want to deal with
+ Cute handdrawn style

Cons:
- While the controls feel good and responsive, the character's air control is limited, making platforming high-commitment (could be a + for some people)
- Lower level art assets
- Textboxes and UI elements are a bit simplistic
- Some of the writing is fun; a lot of it is not the best (usually not an issue as there is very little actual dialogue, so this is limited to NPCs describing quests and such)

Estimated completion time: If you're really good at platforming and exploring, I think you can get through this in about ~10-15 hours. More towards 15-20 if you are being completionist about finding all secrets and beating all levels.



Longer version:

I'm not really into collectathons, but I really like platformers; there's a lot of modern platformers that focus on combat mechanics and exploration rather than the actual challenge of platforming itself, so I always appreciate when a game actually makes you do challenging platforming (not necessarily hard: this is not an overall difficult game) as a main focus of its gameplay, so this is a huge plus for me.

The level variety in terms of architecture is also pretty good, featuring your basic sprawling multi-directional landscapes, disappearing fields of platforms, lava & ice stuff, rotating architectures and spiralling upward "tower" levels, etc., but there's also some quite unusual ones such as levels where you must follow along a spotlight in the dark, levels that rotate the geometry, mazes, invisible white planes that have to be navigated(!) to unlock seeing some of its features, etc.

The game features 4 boss battles, each of which has quite a few attack patterns that they select to do via RNG (so you have to get used to what the boss can do overall to get comfortable at beating them - which I like). Aside from the bosses, combat is simplistic: you have a spinning attack, and the few enemies in the game aren't too crazy in what they do. Nothing too special, but also not the focus of the game.

Collectathon missions come in 2 varieties: one usually involves having to figure out how to traverse the level while collecting 64 coins or 5(6?) red rubies and then finding your way to where the bell reward spawns; the other kind involves doing a minigame or quest challenge and is far (!) more common (about a 70-30% minigame to just collecting things ratio): There's casino games, timed mazes, races, being shrunk onto a roleplaying boardgame, fetch and activation quests, ice-skating - a lot of stuff!

The main con for me is the air control - not the responsiveness of the controls, which is quite good by all measures. Basically you have a jump, a stomp that can be used as a fast fall, and a double jump; the double jump however can only minimally affect your jump direction, meaning you cannot really use it to save your ass most of the time - it's primary use is slight air control and to gain more distance. I do appreciate that this means you have to be a bit cleaner with your jumping in general, but I prefer my double-jumps to allow for more air-control, and this game doesn't have that.

In terms of platformers, I'd rate it thusly:


Difficulty:
(10 would be something like Wings of Vi, Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils, Ghosts'n Goblins on NES)

4/10: most modern 3D platformers tend to be on the 2-3/10 scale imo.


Platforming User Experience:
(10 would be something like YuuYuu Jiteki no Yuukarin, Here Comes Niko!, Newer 3D Marios after Mario64)

6/10: The minimum I would expect from a good platformer, but since that's rarer these days, I think that's a huge plus.


Platforming level and challenge variety:
(10 would be something like Reverse X Reverse, Battle Toads or Super Mario Bros. 3)

8/10: While there's not a lot of precision platforming at all, there is a ton of unusual platforming challenges in a large amount. I prefer precision platforming, but was never bored and had to do some things I've never been forced to do before - great!


Overall game fun:

8/10 - I had a good time!

Interesting game brought low by a high amount of bugs. Which I would normally put up with, but in this case they kill entire runs by deleting your progress through savegame corruption, ships bugging out, etc.

While minor bug fixes were regular for a while, these larger bugs have not been addressed in years.

The game requires many runs to really see a lot of it, so that is a frustrating combination. I recommend checking out the bug report thread in the discussion forum before considering a purchase.

Nice casual coop game with a suitable amount of content. I played this together with a friend and we unlocked all additional collectables in our playthrough. My playtime should be accurate to how much we played, minus an hour or less.


Gameplay/Positives:

The game starts very easy, but then continues to get more difficult. It's puzzle-like (never too hard of a brain teaser though), but also involves a lot of timed movement (4 directions only, no special jumping or other actions involved). Nothing too hard in my opinion, but if you or your wingman cannot hop your way out of an easy frogger level, then you might want to fetch something else. The final levels are slightly challenging too, so be prepared.

What's really nice about the game is the variety of content in the levels; many mechanics, obstacles and enemies are briefly introduced, you play around with them, then immediately discarded for another new mechanic / gimmick, so that all stages are very fresh - through the entire game you won't ever be thinking "time to do more of xyz again", as more levels with more new gimmicks keep popping up.

The story is told by an american narrator with a very slight southern accent, whom you meet in the overworld in-between worlds - a kind of travelling musician character. She'll make a lot of puns along the way and some other PG-rated jokes. Overall nothing dramatic, just a bit of a fun commentary as you play through the levels.



Minor negatives:

Note that some users have reported bugged achievements (they worked for me - well, we got the all photos achievement before we actually had all of the photos, but other than that it worked fine), but there's also a fan-patch in the forums for that.

While the game lets you pick the color and the pronoun of your character, the in-game dialogue never refers to the characters in any sort of way that would require a pronoun, so the choice is meaningless (doesn't matter to me either way).

A handful of written monologues differ from what the voice acted narrator actually says; 2-4 or so lines were missing audio altogether.

---

Overall very recommendable to people that play video games occasionally but regularly, or just want to play something fun with a friend.

The slight challenge of the stages and constant new mechanics keep the game interesting for more adept gamers as well, but there isn't any extreme challenge involved here - definitely not intellectually .The aforementioned movement timing should be only slightly challenging for averagely skilled gamers that are capable of completing execution-oriented games, and moderately challenging for those that aren't.

Fun little game, but really, REALLY needs a human vs human mode, whether that be hotseat (with this kind of game, steam's integrated remote play together would be sufficient, as it is turn-based) or some other form of netplay.

There's potential for various strategies involving plotting paths where you try to predict your opponent's color change and blocking them off of it by nabbing that color at a critical time, as well as the usual space-grabbing and trapping strategies. No idea if the game would be all that deep, as the AIs can be figured out after a while and countered fairly effectively. With human opponents, this game could potentially be an engaging hidden gem, but currently it is still good for a short fun puzzly romp only.

Price is adequate on a sale; with player vs player implemented, price might be entirely justified. Hope the dev adds it at some point.

Alright, review time:

Pros:
+ Both feels like the previous games as well as having enough new stuff to stand out from its predecessors
+ much better input reader than previous iterations, making quartercircles and dragon punches much easier to get consistently
+ great sprites, ost and voicework
+ easy access to complex pressure routes due to reverse beat (ability to use any unused normal/command normal in a combo in any order)
+ easy anime gameplay
+ competent rollback netcode
+ interestingly different character movesets
+ nice color editor for custom colors
+ good patch support as well as DLCs incoming


Cons:
- parry system is slightly too lenient, making parry vs parry vs parry encounters not as hype as they could be (not a huge minus though)
- autocombo implementation can make avoiding getting the autocombo difficult timing-wise, which can lead to misinputs once one gets past the novice level
- too many functions overlayed onto B+C as an activator, leading to misinputs (moon drive activation, moon skill, level 3 super)
- can't color maids separately if played as a team, so I can't make Remilia and Flandre colors for them (minor gripe)
- Tutorial is a major step backwards from Under Night In-Birth (minor gripe - it's a fighting game, so crap tutorials are unfortunately expected, just head over to the mizuumi wiki of this game instead or play MK11's/Virtua Fighter 4's Tutorial to learn how to play fighting games in a more general sense)


Neutral:

? Story and singleplayer modes - haven't had the time to look into these personally; but they are my favourite combination of things: story + fighting, rather than only a cinematic/VN experience or only an arcade mode. May be a plus or minus for you.

---

Overall, the gameplay has been as smooth as one would expect from the classic anime fighter series: easy, fast and good overall. This time around advanced combos are a bit easier to learn, but on the other hand appear to have less complexity potential upwards (though as usual it is too early to make that judgement). Getting good damage in is easier than in the previous game as well, making it a good beginner entry game.

Definitely recommend the game if you want to just mess around with it or dedicate yourself to playing something that's easy to get into and maintain a good level of skill in on the side. Unless this is one of your first fighting games or the style really vibes with you, not the game I'd recommend to sink your "main fighting game dedication" into; Melty Blood's style is as deep as any other fighting game's, and while it will certainly be great in terms of competition, it is not necessarily excessively deep in terms of what sets it apart from other fighting games (Melty Blood never has been that way, as that's not the aim of that game series). This makes the game great as a secondary game however, as it still has all the good charms of a well-made fighting game.

In that sense, Melty Blood: Type Lumina feels much more competent in its design goals than most recent fighting games, which have struggled balancing newbie-friendliness and wider appeal with more depth for veterans and overall dedicated players. Hence the recommendation.

After completing every sidequest and achievement (except for getting all decorations - never cared about stuff like that), I think I can recommend this with reservations:

If you are a fan of Little Witch Academia, this is a must-buy; there's tons of entirely voiced interactions between all of the characters and a ginormous horde of other witches/students in the game.

If you are wondering if this is a good game beyond that however, well:



Pros:
1.) Lots of Slice-of-Life Fantasy School Adventure gaming. The sidequests (and main story quest) are long and sometimes quite detailed. Easily the best part of the game.

2.) Game wasn't afraid to experiment with some more classical adventure gaming mechanics: all quests need to be done at a specific location with specific people at specific times; due to the groundhog day-style time travel in the game, you avoid the "locked in for defeat" state that older games like Dark Seed forced you into.

3.) Competent 3D models with anime aesthetic. Cute even.

4.) OST is taken directly from the show and well-implemented (a neutral for me personally).

5.) If you aren't the best "action gamer", then the RPG mechanics allow for relatively easy adjustments to stats that you feel you need more than others, so you can get through the combat relatively easily


Cons:

1.) weird "realistic blur" visuals for foreground and background. The chocie, while making sense in how it is implemented, is simply not that pretty to look at when it happens.

2.) some sidequests involve long grinds (~5-6 of them, so less than a 1/10th of them). They are not hard. But they take a long time. Entirely optional though.

3.) Main story + sidequests is a lot of good material, but personally, I find if you ONLY want to play the main story, it can feel a bit lacking tbh. Time should be invested into the sidequests.

4.) Lack of quest progression clarity. Thankfully guides are out there, but they only help so much: sometimes a character, not yet attained item or quest running in parallel will block you off from completing a quest you are meaning to do at the moment - with no indication what or where one should go first to remedy this. The numbering of the quests has nothing to do with their order either, being based more around an intenral set of connections that are only clear once you've done most of them.

Don't get me wrong, you always know where to go - but if you opened a lot of quests all at once (an unfortunately common occurence in the game!) you will be blocked off of many of them with no indication what is being blocked where. Only taking a few quests at a time or using a guide remedies this to some extent.

Lastly, the map lacks any kind of time-dimensional coordinates, meaning you sometimes need to observe the whole map across a day to figure out the next step/find a person you are looking for. Additionally, some quests can be repeated even after completion, meaning they pop up on the map and further obscure where these people might be. The coins and clock quests need to sometimes be re-cleared (thankfully just walking up to them and interacting with them works) to have the actual quest youa re looking for appear.

5.) I play fighting games. I like beatemups too. This game's main action is in the form of a beatemup. It is...simplistic. Not like Final Fight or classic simplistic in only having a single auto-combo - you do have mana and some spells. But aside from jumping high and attacking/double-jumping and attacking again, along with some dodge-rolling, there isn't much to do. Don't expect anything as complex as Aliens vs Predator, Scott Pilgrim Saves the World, River City Girls or any of the Tales of games. (To be fair: it is reasonably complex when compared to most well-received games nowadays, so that's just me wanting more). Some of the gravity/freeze/immobilization spells lead to enemies floating in a state where they cannot be hit, which is also annoying, despite being useful for crowd control - they take damn long to recover!

6.) Most quests are adventure/RPG -style quests - find X, talk to y, be at z to observe a, maybe cast spell b. This is not a negative to me, as its what I expect, but thought I'd mention it.

7.) RPG-esque items are very standard fare - different percentage bonuses to different stats and damage/defense types; no fancy special skills or abilities are associated with them. To be fair, that's 99% of RPGs out there, but I didn't like this.

------------

So yeah, if you can forgive it for being not the most detailed action game ever and maybe not really all that clear with how its quest lines work, then this game is pretty fun. It is, in fact, overly well-made - my long criticism is simply because it's one of those games that are true gems one wished got cut with a bit more precision. It has everything to make it one of the greater video games out there, but the combat and lack of quest clarity make it fall short of that goal. And that's disappointing.

8/10 - great game with glaring flaws.

Fascinating cthulhoid romp with loads of historical details about 19th century poland and the wars it went through. Highly recommendable!

A fun short dice-battler with ok but strongly themed Pixelart.

While skills are useful and somewhat varied, that variation is strategically easily ascertained and then feels a little limited - especially if you play defensively and have a good amount of patience. Some more variety in effects here and there would have done the game good.

The story and theme of the game feel good however, and the simple dice battling around that makes it a worthwhile experience.

Tiny puzzle game of 1-1.5h length. Aside from the simple but cute sprite-work, the puzzles range from easy to intermediate in difficulty, with 1 or 2 headscratchers.

The central mechanic of the game of interacting with everything until the awareness level of the zone rises so that you can find more details is simple but especially effective for those people that interact and look at everything before progressing, making this kind of exploratory behaviour part of progressing the game.

Definitely worth it, wonder what a longer game with such a mechanic would look like.