Grand Soul Story

Ah man what to say about this gem. Firstly, I found this game just randomly browsing for a JRPG. This is one of those rare games you find and say "Hey this game looks interesting, let me try it out" and turns out to be a special experience you didn't expect or ask for at all. So much to appreciate about this game, from the visual aesthetics, to the music, to the little easter eggs the game likes to sprinkle if you pay attention. It really is a special game and one of the best I've played this year. The only con I have is NO SWITCH RELEASE YET and one of the companions doesn't get enough development as the others and is sidelined (It's possible I might have missed something). His name rhymes with Willy.

Interesting game, but it falls apart hard at the end. I don't want to spoil anything, but the ending is so bad it retroactively makes the entire story worse. Some interesting characters, and unfortunately the main character is not at all worthy of being in their company - their appearance, personality, and even gender are never established. There's some weird roughness at the end of the game, with the way to get good ending for a specific but important plot not at all obvious - I thought I've done everything in the game but have no clue how to make that part turn out well. Other jank, too - locked doors with no keys, keys that don't open any doors, and a big reveal upon beating the bonus boss that, ugh, you'll wish you hadn't gone through the effort. All in all, not worth your time.

Good game with interesting characters. The fights are quite hard but it forces you to strategize.

Just got an ending for this game at 16 hours, and I have to say...this game is something special. The standouts are the writing, exploration, and quest design. Quests are usually designed in ways that you can take different routes, avoid enemies, and make different decisions that lead to different outcomes. Dialogue/NPC interactions were probably the highlight, where the game just manages to write them in a way that makes you WANT to interact with whatever you can, just to see the interaction. The game taking place in a mixed setting with modern, high crime, spiritual aspects collide really lends itself well to a variety of personalities, and this game really makes it work. Humor is on point where it needs to be, and the intrigue of a certain aspect of the game was done really well. Characters have their events/story spread out throughout the game. The game doesn't make them missable really, but some of them can be easily if the player chooses to do so. Again even these (especially final character quests) come with choices to make, with no outcome negatively blindsiding you. And the exploration, for a 2D JRPG, is probably some of the best I've seen. This ties in with both th…

Pretty surprised at how awesome this game turned out to be. Interesting story, unique characters that have their own stuff going on, and satisfying difficulty (especially early on) that doesn't become tedious because of the limited encounters. Multiple endings, not sure how many, but I got 2 and enjoyed both. A few small bugs, but nothing too annoying AS LONG AS YOU KEEP MULTIPLE SAVES. I cannot stress this enough. Fortunately, I save in a different slot every time I save. If I had not, I would have had to start all over due to a particular bug. Still, as long as you keep this in mind, you shouldn't have any issues enjoying what this game has to offer. I look forward to playing this devs next title.

I like this throwback to JRPGs of old. The story is good overall, although too epic for the length of the game. It's possible I skipped some content but I doubt it. The larger story is told through anecdotal quests and writings encountered as you travel. Many RPGs do something similar (an Elder Scrolls constant) but I felt like the plot glossed over some of the connections between the main conflicts. They clearly are connected. Still, I like where the story goes. It provides choices and those choices do end up having some impact on the story. The world feels real in a few ways, like how people from multiple cultures are thrown together in a world of war and chaos and not always in harmony. The backdrop is a post-apocalyptic dictatorship where corruption is rampant. Some of the choices you make along the way offer allow you to imitate this corruption yourself. The combat is pretty standard turn-based JRPG stuff with its own twist. Special abilities require points in two categories to use. Those get exhausted pretty quickly so you have to heal them at least as often as hit points, if not more often. So you have hit points, action points and spell points (the last two are guesses o…