Long Gone Days

Easily one of the best new games I've ever played. I bought it because the screenshots reminded me of the geopolitical intrigue of the Suikoden RPG series, and I was not disappointed.
I instantly cared about the characters and their motivations, the story was compelling, the NPCs brought life to each location.
I hope this is the first in a new series.

Nope. Just Nope.

TLDR review:
Forgiving and recruiting a guy who murdered children and trafficked women is needed for the ‘good’ ending. What did they mean by this?

Longer review:
First, the good. The character design and overall art direction is great. The main cast is likeable. There's a foundation here that could have made a good story. That's more or less the only praise I have for this game.

I'll summarize using their listed features on the Steam page.

A Nuanced Look at War: Experience the clash of modern conflict against civilian life through the contrast of intense RPG combat and slower, slice-of-life gameplay.

Nothing "nuanced" about it. This isn't Spec Ops: The Line, Come and See (1985), or the first few minutes of All Quiet on the Western Front (2022). This is Frodo and the Fellowship journeying to Mordor. This is the Pevensie siblings and the White Witch. This is the Avengers vs. Thanos.
There’s no “contrast” between intense and slice-of-life gameplay. The combat isn’t intense. It’s mind-numbing. Most of the brief moments of respite for the characters make no sense considering the urgency of the plot. For example, Lynn decides to sit down with Atiye to discuss her past trauma in the middle of them escaping capture and trying to rescue Adair and Rourke who are getting dragged into a train going who knows where.

Communication is Key: As Long Gone Days is set in the real world, you'll encounter several language barriers. Recruit interpreters in order to communicate with others and forge bonds beyond borders.

Not worth listing as a feature. The interpreters are just the main cast and you meet them almost immediately the moment they're needed. 
Cool concept to acknowledge the language barrier though.

Strength in Others: Meet a colorful cast of potential comrades. Grow relationships through your words and actions as you live and fight together.

Only as far as their design and the tropes they fill. Within the actual story, they’re all one dimensional and didn’t develop in any meaningful way.
Minor spoilers for the main characters.

• Rourke and Adair break 20 years of brainwashing the moment it’s challenged.
  
• Vanya is a conscientious objector but promises to do what’s necessary. This is never challenged.
  
• Lynn has trauma from being kidnapped by human traffickers. She reveals and overcomes it all in the same level.
  
• Atiye feels bad about not helping her friend investigate a bunch of fascists, so she picks up a gun.
  
• Pascal feels bad about helping the human traffickers, so he picks up a gun.
  

Keep Morale High: Choose dialogue options wisely to boost morale in battle. Every character has distinct personality traits and motivations.

The morale system is bad design. It’s one of two factors for the ending and it makes no sense for both the narrative and the gameplay.
As an example, if you have low morale, you are locked out of a quest to help Vanya's neighbor find her missing daughter. Vanya will ask Rourke for permission (for some reason) and Rourke will refuse saying we don't have time.But you know what is available despite the low morale? A little further down the road, we can help a random stranger with finding every stray dog and cat in the area.

Strategic RPG Combat: Spot and take down targets from afar in Sniper Mode, or engage up-close in front-view, turn-based combat. Target specific parts of an enemy’s body for a tactical advantage.

You have iirc 3 times where you enter “sniper mode”. It’s not your choice, it happens at specific points. There is one where you get the option which results in a morale loss because Rourke feels bad about killing these armed nazis (who kidnapped Zoe) in particular and not the rest. You click to snipe and there’s a timer that resets when it runs out.
The “up-close combat” is engaging in the same way that a cangue keeps a prisoner awake by jabbing into their neck. It requires enough attention that you can’t just mash the attack button, but doesn’t compensate in any way to make it enjoyable.

No Random Encounters: Every battle is hand-crafted and directly related to the plot. Your choices in battle will shape your party's lives, and the world around them.

No random encounters is great, but the 10 or so unique non-boss enemies you encounter over and over are all functionally the same. Either regular attacks or regular attacks + heals.
You get some dialogue choices during boss fights (there’s 5), but they don’t affect anything save for one near the end which is the 2nd factor for the ending.
Specific dialogue choices do reward morale, but it’s ridiculous because the options hardly feel any different.
Example 1:
"Because they taught me to see the world in a new light."
"Because they have done the same for me."
Example 2:
"They make me strong."
"They don't need my power. They have their own.”
Which choices do you think give morale and which don’t?

Ending (major spoilers)
A single playthrough takes about 12-15 hours and I did both endings.
In the “good” ending, you beat the big bad and our characters return to their lives because you kept a positive attitude and chose to see the light in Coyle’s baby killing, human trafficking eyes. 
In the “bad” ending, your characters will have to spend probably the rest of their lives as fugitives because you weren’t optimistic enough and failed to recruit the war criminal. Note that our characters WANT to recruit him. You only affect it by succeeding or failing.

Some of my problems listed:

• Our characters don’t immediately subdue Father General, who might as well be mustache man. I get that this is supposed to be a thematic face-off of ideas but this allows—
  
• Mustache man to send an order to shoot protesters outside. An action that will ruin decades of propaganda work, just to prove a point that “people cannot govern themselves” and will “turn into animals trying to escape death”.
  
• Neither of the two endings cover what happens in the rest of the world. We’re only told what our main characters are personally up to.
  
• Why is morale a factor for the ending when our characters take the exact same actions regardless? What narrative purpose does morale play aside from locking you out of side quests?
  
• Why does the “good” ending require clemency for an organization that killed children and kidnapped women to “sustain” their army to then be disposed of when they no longer can?
  
[*]Spontaneous movements happen, but organizing a protest of thousands in one night using just a projector to display some powerpoint slides onto a building goes beyond even the most spontaneous of movements.

Look. If you asked me whether I enjoyed playing this, my answer would be a yes despite my disappointment. All the ingredients for something great are there, but the story is an absolute nothingburger that wastes all that potential. It fails to convey anything but general platitudes (that are arguably harmful) that aren’t even consistently displayed through the characters’ actions.

All of the issues we see in the game? False flag terrorism, refugee crises, human trafficking, crypto-fascists? These are just a backdrop for what is a run of the mill JRPG story where a group of plucky young people seek to defeat god (or a god-like figure in this case). You're not fighting a global system. You're fighting the boogieman. What message does it convey about the real world where these things are very real and very relevant?

Also there's an achievement to NOT pet the dog. What did they mean by this?

Pros;
- The pixel art and the cutscene art is truly wonderful
- Performance is extremely solid and smooth
- Some of the music tracks are excellent
- The lord & worldbuilding is very interesting

Cons;
- The writing for both the events of the story & dialogue is extremely poor which really shows given how much potential the worldbuilding & lore give the story. How characters interact with each other and respond to situations feels incredibly unnatural as well as contrived.
- For a game with the "Choices Matter" tag, choice really does not matter at all in this game. You may get a single line of dialogue change but no new information or different outcome is possible which really undercuts whenever you can make a choice.
- Combat has a lot of ludo-narrative dissonance. You play as a sniper yet there are few sniping sections and combat tends to be a direct head on event at point blank range.
- How to save is poorly explained and it is far too easy to accidentally close the game without saving

Summary;
The lore gives the story a lot of potential it does almost nothing with in a game that feels like a direct to streaming TV show that is getting cancelled after one season. It sounds harsh, but this game barely delivers on the basics listed on the store page.

I'll be quick: this game is boring. It promises feelings and moral choises but fails to deliver them. Just a mediocre RPG.

love

Very interesting mechanically and thematically, especially for a jrpg. Good story, colorful cast, nice artstyle, atmospheric soundtrack. Made for a unique and memorable tone, pretty good experience overall.

"horrors of war"
"choices matter"
Then after a fight, "oh he's just unconscious" after being shot repeatedly in the head.
Also no choices except "this is bad!" or "this is not good, I think."

⠀

A nice nuanced story and decent pixel art, but very little actual game play. Terrible interface, though. Every little thing takes half a second too long for comfort. And no way to change the keybinding.

Recommended if you want a story about the horrors and uncertainties of war from the perspective of everyday people. And if you don't mind to read a lot and do very little else. And press the X key a lot. A lot!

Honestly a very good game with a compelling story. There are multiple endings to be aware of. It isn't very long, so I'm not sure that it is worth it at full price, but on a good sale definitely worth picking up. The game is really easy. Near the end some combat sections can seem annoying as you will wait for each text block if you buff your whole party, especially with Ivan who gives each person 3 buffs. No complaints other than that! Considering playing through again!

Still rather early in the game, but so far it's quite good. The combat system isn't too cumbersome. The characters interesting and the art style simply great. I highly recommend for fans of story driven rpg.

I utterly ADORE this game. It's characters? FANTASTIC. Music? STUNNING. Lore? HORRIFYING. It's everything I wanted and more. The literal only downside is that when the characters get buffed/debuffed in fights, it takes a while. Other than that, I love how everything is done. The way it moves things along quickly while still being long is just perfect. I couldn't stop myself and stayed up all night, all 11.2 hours, to finish the game. Thank you for finishing this game!

Shortish rpg with interesting mechanics and party members.
Straight forward puzzles except the very last one that made me search for a walkthrough.
It has different outcomes depending on what you choose so there is also a little bit of replayability.

i love all the different countries and languages you encounter

The best modern-day RPG ever made, and one of the best RPGs ever made, period. Would have been worth it at twice the price.

Great game

about 14 hours for a playthrough. Good story, nice cut scene art and music. Combat and puzzles are more of a means to get through to the next story bit and not terribly difficult. Nice way to spend a weekend.

10 hours ish game with a very quaint story, decently written and likeable characters, combat becomes more of a chore near the end, but overall a game with charm; art is omega good