Sakeretsu

Well, some of the achievements are glitched, the game itself acts weird when I launch it - sometimes being a blank screen, other times having no sound - and the game's combat is bad, since the best way to beat the game is to just grind and die over and over. But the atmosphere is cool...it's like a cursed gameboy game...I don't mind having it in my library.

An okay old-school Gameboy type of JRPG. The story is limited, the stats are weird, there are plenty of glitches and it is short game in theory, but the end game difficulty spike is stupid and just makes you grind like no tomorrow. Thumbs up for nostalgia, but not a very good game.

Interesting Game, I enjoyed it but I would not recommend it to someone else 4/10

Pro
Nice music
Gameboy Aesthetic
INteresting character designs

Con
Grinding was used as a method to pad the length
music gets repetitive.
Very Very short and little to no character interaction

Recommended, with slight reservations.

This game is quite charming and does exactly what it sets out to do: be a mediocre RPG that looks like a Gameboy game. If that is what you are looking for then you will probably enjoy it. Another plus is that the monster designs are different and refreshing, and the story is not about being a plucky teenager saving the world.

The gameplay itself is very lacking, though as I have already mentioned I think that is the intent. The options in combat are very simple, items are fairly powerful if they successfully hit, and the game even comes with a subpar pokemon-esque capture system where you can put an AI monster buddy to work... if they bother to move that turn. The flow of the game is your basic "level up on the first screen until enemies only do 1-2 damage per hit, then run to the boss."

The biggest negative that I have is that the stats don't seem to work as they are described in the game itself, and the game seems balanced around pumping Defense to high levels. For example, Power will increase your damage slightly as you level it, but you will always recover 10LP per successful rest despite the game telling you that the stat effects it (This was a bug and has since been fixed. Thanks devs!). Spirit doesn't seem to increase the chance that a Rest will be successful by much, if at all, which is a little frustrating when you've just spent 20-30 minutes grinding to see if you could get it to a workable rate. And that brings me to the Rest command itself, which is the only way to heal besides entering the hub screen. Because Rest is ineffective a majority of the time, you are better off not using it at all and simply powerleveling/rushing the boss.

All that said, it's still a cute and cheap game. Probably worth a look if you like this sort of old school aesthetic.

EDIT for Version 1.24: The Power stat was fixed the very day I posted this review. The dev(s?) seems very active and cares about their product, which is great. That said, the point about the Rest command still stands.

TL:DR; Decent game that's hurt by some questionable balancing decisions.

Pros:

• A clean, classic art style
  
  
• Great boss design
  
  
• Turn-based combat that feels fun to play
  
  
• Cool monster-catching mechanic
  
  
• Costs $4
  
  

• Simple story
  
  
• It would be nice if your companion monsters actually leveled up with you
  
  
• Can build your character the way you want
  
  
• 2 Hours long
  

• Very high encounter rate - This is a huge issue because the game doesn't have healing items/spells and instead intends for you to use the "rest" feature. The problem with resting is that it has such a low chance of working and heals for so little that it's basically useless. Increasing defense and power is supposed to mitigate this but rest hardly ever worked at 50 Defense for me. The encounter rate basically forces you to over level in order to survive the huge number of enemies you need to get through just to reach the boss.
  
  
[*] Extreme difficulty spike in the last section of the game - Enemy damage gets insanely high before the final boss and it seems like if you're not pumping tons of points into defense then there's no chance of surviving (which basically eliminates replay ability because only a max def. build is viable).