This is the most “classic” Japanese RPG I have played during the fest. You get to choose one of three characters: a stern and passionate for her combat training spear-lady Pyra, a bit shy and timid archer Atlas, and a prideful and arrogant elemental master Sage. The battle system is the standard turn-based one and the characters are exactly what it says on the thin: Pyra is a pyr-o melee tank, Atlas’ forte is agility and evasion rate and Sage’s spell set is pretty versatile.

Albeit different in details, all their stories come to the same progression: prepair for the final combat exam, investigate the situation with dangerous monsters near the town, go on a special mission with their mentor, and then things go wrong. A single story takes roughly 2 hours.

This game is made by two persons, Mottzy and Drass_Ray, and I see this is a labor of love. The art style is gorgeous and reminds of Octopath Traveler, combining pixel art character sprites with 3D assets with pixel-art textures. Despite the simplicity of the main story, the writing is solid and there are first drafts of actual lore available. There are no puzzles yet, but some extra mechanics, like shooting mechanisms with a bow, add some variety to the usual map traversal routine. Overall, the game is pretty solid and it’s nice to see what small teams of developers are capable of (recall Chained Echoes, which has almost entirely been made by a single person!)

Still, there are things to be addressed. The UI design lacks character, it’s just “choose an option from blue-coloured menus like it’s FF6”. And the game is pretty buggy, sometimes triggering wrong dialogues and mixing up your save slots. Deleting save files before staring a new campaign is advised. I hope these issues are patched soon, and the game becomes even more likable.

Links:

• Steam page (demo still available)
• Website
• Trailer
• Another review by Davidvinc RPGs