So I just finished @horrorvale after playing it, like, all week, and oh my god, what a fantastic game. I just wanna gush about it for a li'l bit, hopefully convince any of you that have been sleeping on this one to also give it a go~
Like, first of all, it’s just so much my kind of game. The aesthetic is that perfect kind of cheerfully-spooky setting that I absolutely love. The spooky area in any game is always my favourite, so if you build an entire game out of that, I’m gonna like it all the more. It’s just the kind of thing where my own characters would thrive. From the environments to the characters populating them, I just vibe with the whole setting~
Oh, and what would a great setting be without great music? Like, I bought the soundtrack to this game because I wanted to keep hearing it even when not playing it (and you can too!), which should say a lot. Really loved the way the different battles against different kinds of enemies used different variations of the music. Gosh, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s say there was one particular boss where suddenly there were lyrics added to the music that really enhanced an already cool fight.
And when I said it’s my kind of game, I mean that in a playable sense as well! It’s a turn-based RPG, which is easily one of my favourite genres. The enemies are very visually well-presented, while the characters’ attacks are vibrantly animated, and the theme typing is really fun. Like, if you’re going to use a type chart mechanic, don’t just do the basic water/fire/earth/wind stuff. Theme it up! And this game’s seven types are Bone, Flesh, Blood, Nature, Ectoplasm, Lightning, and Sugar. Like, that alone ought to be a selling point. And even with all that, it’s a really strong RPG. Battles are all static encounters, so if you want to avoid a fight for whatever reason, oftentimes you can. Not that I recommend doing so, since it really follows that design philosophy I deeply appreciate: if you are doing every battle as you encounter them, you will probably be at the basic ideal level for encounters. It really gets that pacing right, so that bosses feel challenging but not unfair. It’s really good at making bosses exciting experiences (see previous paragraph re:gushing about a particular boss)
So, all that, and how about that story, too? Well, it’s as basic as rescuing your missing dog. It’s as deep as the meaning of death and what happens to souls when they die. It’s a fun little romp through the Underworld with some really likeable characters (and even the few unlikeable characters usually turn out to not be the worst ever). It’s a very wide world, even though the game takes place in just one little valley on a single continent out of four. You really get the sense there’s so much more out there beyond your own story. It’s a lot! It’s worth exploring and doing all those sidequests to expand both the characters’ growth and your understanding of the world. Or, lemme put it this way: I beat the final boss and finished the main story and all sidequests, and still only had 80% completion in the bestiary, and I’m completely baffled how that’s possible~
And, of course, just to be fair, I will note a couple things i didn’t like! There’s not many, I promise. But mostly the things that frustrated me were the non-combat gameplay segments. There’s a few points where, in order to advance the story, you have to do these segments where you pilot a ship of some kind and avoid obstacles while having a limited number of hits you can take, or an autoscrolling area where you have to navigate a maze while not getting caught or hit. These were genuinely the most frustrating parts of the game, not the least reason of which is that, even though they let you save immediately beforehand, losing on these segments still triggers a normal game over and kicks you back to the title screen. It interrupts the flow a bit, and I just don’t like that kind of trial-and-error, memorise-a-pattern kind of gameplay. Those bits were much worse to me than any boss battle. That’s about all I disliked, though!
Anyways, I guess I should wrap it up and… well, probably I’ll open the game again and go hunting for those post-game bits of content! Just… this quickly became one of my favourite games. Everything from the settings and characters to the art style and all of it, it’s going to be one of those things that will always occupy some small corner of my mind from now on. There’s just so much of this world and characters that could be expanded on and explored, both in sequel games and fan works, I’m just incredibly there for it. In fact, I hear they’re working on a side-story with Mothman as we speak~
