Bloomtown: A Different Story

Instantly one of my favorite games ever. As someone who loves exploring open worlds but has trouble with motion sickness in 3D games, I loved poking around this rich 2D isometric world. The turn-based combat wasn't too complicated, and overworld activities can easily mitigate difficulty. There were only very minor bugs (e.g. quests not updating in journal), but nothing that prevented progress. The characters' stories are meaningful, relatable, and relevant to modern anxieties. I simultaneously felt the magic of childhood imagination while also the weight of serious real-world issues, and was reminded how much less control and power one has as a child. This game allows for me to escape into a world where I can actually become more powerful and able to right injustices to help people.

The main character calls a dog a turdpopper. This game is excellent.

I see a lot of reviews compare this to series called Persona. I've not played any Persona so I'm going at this from a fresh set of eyes. The concept of the game is is based off a group of 13 year old teenagers living through a Summer holiday, visiting your Grandpa in the quaint semi-rural town of Bloomtown. The gameplay splits between investigating the strange happenings real town and delving into a nightmare version to defeat demons that are causing said happenings. It gives off a lot of vibes of shows like Stranger Things or Twin Peaks or a Stephen King novel. I can't give enough praise for the creativity. The artists and musicians really went above and beyond in delivering in their crafts. I'm sure there are reused assets in places, but there are so many little details crammed into the 10 areas of the town, from a plethora of random objects, to animals, insects, and people roaming around, that you never feel like you're walking along cut and paste streets. There is also a huge amount of animation motions on the character sprites, and every town event you engage in has a complete scene laid out for it. On the musical side, the battle themes are full rock songs complete with lyr…

cute graphics, I love the fighting music. Excited to play more

Short review after 100% the game on normal difficulty: a fun turn based RPG taking notes from Stardew Valley, Persona and Earth Bound. Pros: - Set in a small modern town in America instead of ancient ruins or castles like in other RPGs you get suburbs, forests, farms and parks which is a nice change of pace. The beautiful pixel art only enhances the exploration - Amazing sound effects (walking, fighting, farming, etc...) and music (battle music reminds me of Persona games and is my favorite track) - Great monster and boss design, the pixel art does not feel cheap like in some indie games - Decent main story (a sister and brother exploring a demonic presence in the rural town meeting friends and foes alike), a lot of side quests available and most of them are pretty decent (not many fetch quests) - This game combines multiple game mechanics (farming, social skill learning and job/tasks similar but smaller in scope to lets say Stardew Valley) - Decent combat system (standard side view turn based combat, your characters use both melee and ranged weapons for back lines and magic split between offensive, support and de-buffing). You can also capture the demons you fight and use…

BloomTown is a turn-based RPG in which you play as a group of kids who get demon powers to take out other demons with. And honestly, it is pretty darn good. I don't play games with turn-based combat all that often and usually don't like it either but it felt pretty good in this. Plus, most of the other content really made up for it anyway. The art style and look of this game is phenomenal. The pixel art is so well done with some of the best sprites I have ever seen. The characters, all the different demons and especially the bosses and one off fights that look amazing. Each section of the town and their underside counterparts are well done with different feels despite the reused assets. It was just a fun world to explore overall and the art really helped that. Combat is simple but fun. Knowing the way status effects and such work together is about as complicated as it gets but I don't think it really needed to be more complicated than that. Resistances made fights with groups of different demons varied and interesting even if AOE spells really just rained supreme. The boss fights were honestly a mixed bag with two of them being really good and the other two being pretty boring if…