Game:

Fuga: Melodies of Steel (2021)

Duration: 2:15:58

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Couldn't have been any more distrusting, eh Blitz? The one thing that the children did to you, despite you being used to fear and solitude, showed you compassion. That move and the final Taranis AI reveal, of it being just a revenge/psycho plot, kind of makes me fear that the writers dropped the ball at the end. And what's up with the final 2 library things? The Juno stuff. Preparing to lore dump me in the end?

So as I'm already in a moody mood, better write down all the bad stuff in this game, probably next stream will finish this, unless the last chapter is like a bazillion hours long.

Previously already touched on the repetitive gameplay. It surprisingly stayed fresh a long time, but in the end became stale. There's not enough end game variety, just higher tier enemies. Give more varied unique encounters, like mini bosses or unique gimmicks. Anything. Didn't help that the worst enemy: the drill, featured in this chapter for like 3-4 times. Double trouble even. Forcing injury is the worst. And as it turns out healing depression is also super bad. Having to select the right conversation option to heal them. Such a bad solution. Like do I have to select the mid option 4 times before it does something? With 20ap this is insufferable.

Difficulty is weird also. Like what were casual players supposed to do when they decided not to do all the dangerous routes, or investing AP into fishing or filling the wish board instead of relationships? Do they just abandon the game in the middle? Sure seems like that. Even when I've basically perfected everything(discounting the ranks of the battles), the enemies still feel like bullet sponges. I fear how many people must've abandoned the game all together, because they used the cannon and used easy paths and in the end shot themselves in the leg. This just seems like bad game design. Giving players options to sacrifice the children and in the end all you get is an even tougher fight in the future. Literally maiming yourself, unless you become a "gamer" and find the most optimized things. And given 0 amount of info about anything, that's not that easy. For example: does higher level foods actually do anything? I don't think so. Does EXP food actually give any extra noticeable EXP? I'm starting to think otherwise.

One more example. The Blitz fight. Did Blitz stop attacking, because he had few HP or I did? I think that fight was designed to use consumables. But I can't really buy consumables anywhere. So I had to be lucky to have any remaining? Again it wasn't a problem for me, but for people that didn't try hard this game, if they didn't have an optimal setup or were out of consumables, what then? Impossible to continue? Bad design.

As a game, it falls flat with giving player sufficient instructions on how they should proceed. Given how linear and difficult it is, it just feels wrong. The writing isn't that good either. Not enough story snippets between all that slog of fights. Should've been given more. Comparing Hades for example, that ended up giving a lot of lore nibbles, because you die so fast, giving ample time to seek out new stuff. But here every chapter is such a slog to get through and in the end there isn't that much to go for. Sure finally finding the family was sweet. But even that was short, and a large part before that was just unimpressive. Just some enemies that are introduced when you fight them, you kill them, and that's it. Kind of useless, if we can't get invested into those characters.

I've played a ton of games, so for me it was easy getting this far without any problems. But I don't think I was the main target group for this game. It seems like a more casual player base would've loved it more, if it wasn't hindered by bad design decisions. The cute nature of this game and the interesting heavy premise seem like a perfect mix for some casual anime enjoyer.

Just found out that they're making a sequel. Not sure how I feel about it. If it has a better game behind it, might play. If not, I don't know if the story is strong enough to carry it.

Though of course the game isn't over yet. Maybe the ending will blow me away and I'll have to keep my head down in embarrassment for writing this.

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