Nights of Azure

A bold experiment from Gust into the action game genre, but unfortunately did not go well. I had this game sitting in my collection for years now and decided to finally give it a try. I knew since the beginning this game was not really well received and I also did not play it until now because it did not interest me that much, but as a Gust games fan I always thought trying out their other titles that are not Atelier would be an interesting experience. Nights of Azure is very mediocre overall. Nothing really stands out and I simply could not force myself to keep playing anymore after 5 hours of gameplay. The story is very bland and not interesting, the characters are boring, graphics are average and the side quests are super generic. Gameplay is good and is hack and slash with summoning demons system. Soundtrack is great and the setting of the game is interesting, but the potential was greatly wasted with dull dungeons designs and repetitive structure. PC performance is good, but the port quality is very barebones, requiring some additional tweaks in the registry and controller reconfiguration. I'd say this game was an experiment and had very low budget at the time. Even though …

Surprisingly better than you would expect but can be dull too if you are hyped for some reason. Starts painfully slow however it's one of those games where you want to play more when you get closer to the ending. True ending was kinda obvious but the journey was fun, a bit repetitive though. It's definitely fine for hack'n'slash itch. Worth alone for the music, though it's expensive without a discount. Also, probably runs better on Linux than Windows. It's a Playstation port and they forgot to add a quit button. Alt+F4 or equivalent shortcut will be necessary. Overall, it's a 6/10 game. Fun though.

I read the reviews that the controls were broken. I expected to be in pain but I didn't expect this much pain. It's just... unplayable on Steam Deck. I played Nights of Azure 2 on Switch with horrendous framerate but otherwise no issues but for Nights of Azure 1 on Steam... the controls are so painful, nothing makes sense, not even with custom community layouts. There is no way to play this game with a controller. And it is supposed to be a console game, it released on PS3, PS4 and Vita as well as PC. It's a horrendous experience. Absolutely awful. I knew the game was going to be trashy and grindy, I played and finished the sequel after all, I knew what I was getting into, but I didn't expect to suffer this much with the original anyway.

A guilty pleasure game for me because it slightly reminds me of Castlevania: Curse of Darkness on PS2. However, I'd rather go back and play that old PS2 game instead of redownloading Nights of Azure. The game overall is simply sub-par and lacking polish in many areas. My nearly 120 hours of play time is mainly because of grinding achievements, which has 1 single achievement that is designed to extend play time and nothing more as you repeat the same, "Kill X amount of Y enemies" 300 times (That's not a joke). I'd give it a pass if the characters were better, but they are extremely forgettable IMO. Maybe try the game out if it's super cheap one day and you think you'll like the combat, but otherwise there are plenty of other action games to commit to.

Yeah I'm a guy. This was a fun ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. i gotta replay it sometime. Nobody has this game unless they're really deep into anime rpgs. just trust me.

The game's not bad at all, my favorite things were the summoning mechanics, the character designs, and the OST, and the fanservice. The thing I hated most were the very grindy achievements, and that last arena boss. I'd rate this game 7/10