Stray Children

Being among the dozens of people who played moon I was really excited to hear it had a spiritual successor in Stray Children. moon was a very unique PS1 game with a distinctive visual style that really defied categorisation. At first glance, Stray Children definitely looks the part. This would not look out of place on the PS1 and I don't mean that in a bad way; it's great to see games like this releasing in the modern day. Each character is uniquely designed and full of personality. Exploring the world is a joy and they even include parts of the main hub area of moon in the opening acts of Stray Children as a cool throwback reference. Unfortunately, Stray Children suffers from a series of poor design decisions when you actually start playing it. Unlike moon, this game does have combat. It's a bit closer to a traditional RPG in that you fight monsters to gain experience, level up and increase your stats. It works like a typical turn-based RPG but there are a lot of real-time mechanics within battles. Apparently Stray Children takes inspiration from Undertale, but I haven't played that game so my frame of reference is Paper Mario. Like in that game you can increase your attack power…

[url=https://medium.com/the-pile/stray-children-god-the-absent-father-5eb2b98c51fa]Full review here.[/url] Excerpt: [i]Stray Children[/i] is a beautiful game. Its beauty crept up on me until I couldn’t look away from it, as did its subtle themes questioning the idea of a parent, a father, a model for living, and the heartbreak of learning that maybe there is no meaning to life. Not one that another person can give you anyway. For all the games out there advertising themselves as a Ghibli experience on cutesy aesthetics alone, this is one of the few that I think captures the twinned peaks of the warmth of humanity and the inescapable sadness of being alive, with a feeling much like those moments in a Ghibli film where there is only silence, characters and audience alike sitting in the shadows of the two distant looming truths. It’s irreverent, it’s melancholic, it’s fun, and it’s heartbreaking. I love Kenken. I hope I get to see him again. Open sesame.

This game has a lot of the cool stuff from Moon, the world is really charming and the aesthetic is golden, but the battle system is terrible. It might make more sense in Japanese, but half the battles feel like pick a path if you aren't using violence. I distinctly remember the horrible chicken boss where you had to guess which chicken sound goes in what order, and messing it up at any point meant starting from the first one. It's a really cool idea, but it was executed in such a poor poor way. There are very little hints to gain by actually using the in game guide book on olders after you find their corpse, it just sucks because I don't want to use violence and that makes every fight TERRIBLE. im talking 25 turn SLOGS just looking for the right set of options to win. This game has so many good things outside of the battles, it feels like they were shoved into a narrative that didn't need them. I'm going to finish the game because it's a follow up to Moon and I genuinely like everything else in the game, but I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW MUCH YOU NEED A GUIDE FOR THE BATTLES. Like even with good hints the options feel random and you can & will lose progress in a fight for guessing wro…

After playing through this game... wow... I have no words. I'm glad I actually spared almost every Older I could encounter in this game and experienced it all from start to finish. Even if some parts are just straight up cryptic, trust me when I say that every penny you spend on this game is worth it. It's not an Undertale clone, FAR from it. If you're going to jump into this game, I suggest having this guide open whenever you get on to play it, since it helped me quite a lot. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/538459-stray-children/faqs/82237 9/10 Modern Classic What more could I say except everything that'll spoil what the game has to offer.

I'm going to start by saying this: You don't [i]need[/i] to have played this game's spiritual predecessor, Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, to appreciate Stray Children - But I do think it adds something, especially if you go right from Moon into this. Stray Children is a fun and good and insightful game on its own, but there's an extra layer of conversation being had between the two games that the player won't even see if they don't know the themes of Moon. It's not necessary, but it does add richness to the experience As for Stray Children itself It's a very unique game. It's very story-heavy, which makes it difficult to speak to too much without spoiling it, but it lives up to its pedigree - there's both surreal weirdness and charm for days. The combat systems add a lot to the game - each fight involves defending via a sort of bullet-hell dodging section, and either attacking through a timing challenge or trying to tap into the enemy's emotions with the right sequence of responses. There are hints throughout the game about what the sequence to tap into emotions are, and figuring them out is honestly a very fun puzzle. Either way, as much as I enjoyed the peaceful, lumbering pace of m…

a narrative-heavy game with beautiful visuals and strong writing. as others have noted, this is a very linear RPG, which is often stated as an issue, but that's only an issue if you dislike linearity (does it make sense to criticize a steak for not being chicken?). the gameplay can be frustrating, although i do think this is a bit overstated as a complaint. personally, i was lost for a bit in the first community you fall into after the Dragon Quest parody stuff because [spoiler]i struggled a bit with the paths hidden by the perspective, but i eventually figured it out without consulting a guide[/spoiler] other than that, there were no spots where i felt lost on how to progress to the next areas. of course, there's also the battles themselves. you can win by fighting or by talking. fighting is straight-forward, but talking can be difficult. i'd say 3/4ths of the time, you can find enough hints to be able to find the correct sequence of phrases to say to save the Older. but the other 1/4th can be obscurant, requiring guessing and rote memorization, specific items you may have missed, or a combination of both. it still may be worth trying to save these more tedious Olders, but i wou…