Anyone tried this? Is it any good?
I've played a couple hours. It isn't good, but it isn't bad. For any people like me that have impeccable taste and have nothing to play and no backlog it is better than nothing. Far better than all the blatant non-rpgs advertised as rpgs, or non-rpg games.
It plays like a mix between real rpgs and something like the FFT games and those of that ilk. No chargen, very lite-char dev, combat slightly better and slightly more challenging than your average RTwP game.
Story - its 100% passive like a jrpg or FFT type game. The storyclowns should be happy with it, or I should say - I'd be surprised if storyclowns weren't happy with it.
Chardev - you have four empty slots, and you can purchase about 7 to 8 active abilities and 3 passive abilities. A row (about 4) of active abilities costs 20 points to unlock one of them. The second row, each ability costs 60 points to unlock. Each of the 3 passives cost 40 points to unlock. Once unlocking something, you can add or remove from your four slot bar as you wish outside of combat missions. So two active two passive, one active three passive, four active, etc.
Very lite, very bad, very modern, very pro-games should be made for children and stupids. The codex will probably love it and say its almost as good as Pokeman or the greatest rpgs like Metal Gear and Zelda.
Itemization - Comparably lite as most codex loved games - but not bad considering. You have four slots, one for a weapon, one for armor, and two for other trinket/relic/armor pieces. Almost all are restricted. Weapons and armor are very class restricted, like in jrpgs. They two choices after armor and weapon can be interesting, like boots that add two Action points (going from 8 to 10, where base attacks cost 3 AP, and some armor lowers AP). Its not nearly as good as something like you'd find in Dark Eye games, or most D&D games, but isn't nearly as bad as it could have been.
Exploration - Combat missions have exploration areas with some looting (both items and consumables). You usually have some side goals like find 5/5 pieces of lore. Or use a specific ability like taunt. The areas are small, and smashable objects flash on their own, whereas you usually have to go near something to see if it can be interacted with. Or a btter way to say it is an icon pops up if you get near enough to something. There is no "highlight" key that I know about.
Combat - it isn't bad but isn't good either so far. A big part of it is using a resource called willpower, which gives you two extra AP and some other bonuses for that round. You replenish AP by resting between missions, but at campsites you need a consumable to rest and it only gives you one willpower back. So it isn't just shit - you do have manage it and think forward, but at least in the early game not especially so. The rest of combat is standard AP based TB. Not as bad as any RTwP system outside of Aarklash, but its also no ToEE or Blackguards.
You open new areas (usually a campsite then a town/mission area or town with a mission area). The towns are like in FFT where sometimes there is a blacksmith, alchemist, or blackmarket, and an Inn. The Inn costs a lot of money to stay at, usually similar to an item upgrade at the early part. The first town I got to didn't have a blackmarket. The second one did. So some towns may missing blacksmiths, alchemists, or inns? I don't know.
Honestly, it isn't that bad. Shitty chardev hurts my butt greatly so I am not being completely fair because of it, but fuck them for having really shitty childlike chardev.
The most honest comparison I could make of this game is like a lite Shadowrun Returns (the first one), with the lite having a decent emphasis, and mixed with some FFT shit instead of how a real rpg would do it.
That's it. Since I broke my expulsion for the blobber thread and have just bought and played this, figured I'd answer before re-expelling myself.