Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch

It's good, but lost some of its storytelling from the first game. It was cut a lot of the companion interactions which is unfortunate and the rogue-like model while original for the strategy grid game, is not the best formula. Part of the reason these games are fun is building the characters up. When that resets everytime, yet your characters classes are relatively the same, you're just doing the same build over and over and over again. What the game does improve on is the graphics. I liked the drawn character art a lot, and not needing to run around the camp for hours was nice. But they almost went too far in the other direction. That said, the story is -okay- and the gameplay is decent. Its not difficult though, especially once you learn which builds are super powerful. Would've been a great full-length game.

I am happy to report that the second game in the series did not try to suck all the fun out of my gaming! If you are coming here straight after finishing (or trying to finish) the first game, you will find they share the same setting and basic combat system, some of the characters, but little else. This game lacks the comprehensive (and very long) story arc, but the combat system has been refined and balanced and is generally much better. I found the adjustments in the settings that suited me, and I enjoyably played through this game many times. This game has you do hours-long runs over and over (i.e. Dark Dungeon). After about ten runs, it started to get monotonous. That was still over 80 hours of game play for me. There is still enough back story to tie the theme together, make the transition from the first game, and set the tone for this game. I definitely got my money's worth out of this one!

TL;DR: A tactical roguelite with excellent combat, a strong narrative, and meaningful progression that successfully translates the Lost Eidolons formula into a new genre. The setting, themes, art direction, character designs, and music are all excellent. The darker fantasy aesthetic returns while carving out its own identity. There is plenty links to the first game, with a swap to an anime aesthetic. The narrative involves amnesia and adds to the roguelite structure. Its lore is tightly connected to the first game while telling a more focused story with a smaller cast of characters. Partnership levels return and give relationships meaningful long-term progression. An open-world camp is swapped for a selection skin which allows quick navigation between interactions to reduce downtimes. The roguelite elements are well implemented. Head out on expeditions with a party of five characters, encounter random events that can reward or punish along the way. Characters have unique interactions during these events that help mitigate some of the randomness. Acquire relics that dramatically alter builds and strategies. Characters do not regain health between battles, which forces carefully …

I enjoyed this game. The writing and story is good, and it fills a niche I haven't seen anywhere else. A rogue-like fire emblem-type game. But as an experienced player in the genre, both fire emblem and rogue-likes, the game is too easy. Yes, there are difficulty modifiers you can add, but none of them makes the game more interesting. It's mostly just numerical buffs and making certain things you use less effective. And the few actually unique modifiers are way too punishing to be enjoyable. If you're into that, be my guest, but punishing myself that way is not for me. It only took me three or four runs to beat the last boss for the first time, after which I lost interest in the game. I haven't even unlocked half the stuff in the game yet(story, classes, characters etc.), and I doubt I will. However, I've seen that other people have struggled with the game, so if you're not a fire emblem veteran like me you probably won't have the same experience I did. For the enjoyment I got, I feel it's slightly overpriced. But if you like fire emblem and rogue-likes, I'd still suggest you give it a shot. Especially if you can get it on sale.

fun game, a good take on a turn based rogue lite, just dont try to get all the acheivments, the trials are wildly unfair and unbalanced in the effects while giving enemies a stat boost on top of it (idk why they forced the difficulty up when you already have effects that basically make some equipment unsuable or get punished for picking a good roll) 8/10 imo, but drops down to a 5 on 100% cause its just a miserable experince

Played this about 20-30 hours (offline on deck lost me some for my record) and it has a lot of pros but also a lot of cons. First off, it is a legitimate rogue-like strategy RPG in a similar vein of Fire Emblem and props to the dev team for that. However, ultimately the TL:DR is that the balance is wildly all over the place and the battles can get quite tedious, especially when you start scaling up the difficulty (as you are supposed to do) and for boss battles. Pros: - Wealth of progression options that truly do make all of your characters stronger over time - Forgiving system, with the ability to wind back time (to an extent) and by default no serious setbacks if a character dies in a battle (they come back the next battle) - Deep lore + dialogue - Multiple characters to find and recruit - Bond system between characters is both lore based plus also gives combat bonuses in meaningful ways - Many events and options during runs that unlock over time, which help the replayability - Runs great on the Steam Deck Cons: - Combat gets amazingly tedious where any given fight might be your 5 characters vs 20 enemies - Boss fights are so frustrating that they nearly ruin the who…