Making a game which takes inspiration from the "new life in another world" genre isn't something I would have run often into, at least when it comes to RPG Maker games. Therefore Isekai Anthology felt both refreshing and amusing to play, especially since it doesn't take itself too seriously (I chuckled a little at the main character's hopes for more character development).
The story and premise for the game are relatively light - become a legendary manager and make sure that the café produces enough money so that isn't closed down - but provides a sound basis the combination of different game elements: gathering, crafting, combat and exploration. The story is partly told with comics, which is quite an interesting idea and goes with the anime/manga-esque genre, and I found the characters to be quite amusing and in a way "tastefully cliché": not too overdone but yet recognisable stereotypes from the genre.
One of my favourite things in the game was its mapping. Both indoor and outdoor maps are not overly large yet not too small, either, and thanks to good decoration, they look pleasing and are interesting to explore. I also liked how the gathering and crafting system had been implemented to the game: as the UI clearly shows which objects are harvestable, there is little need for blindly clicking on every cave decoration etc., and the crafting system was simple enough not to become a chore yet offered a nice variety of craftable items (and ways to obtain the ingredients). All in all, I found the café management part to be a nice addition to the typical JRPG dungeon crawling and battles, and it could be interesting to see how that aspect develops further in the future versions.
If there was one aspect of the game which I didn't enjoy, it was combat. Most of the battles felt too easy and could be solved by spamming the Attack button because the enemies hit for very little damage; the only exception for this were the ghosts with the Thunder spell. The worst offenders are probably the bees: they usually come in large packs, do 1-10 points of damage but also require 2-3 hits to defeat, which means that the battles can last a couple of minutes but offer little to no challenge.
While the addition of elemental weakness system adds a bit more tactical depth into the battles, there didn't seem to be any other way to discover an enemy's weakness besides blindly trying everything, and I found it confusing how different level (and colour) enemies could have different weaknesses.
Part of the criticism towards battle system can probably be explained with the game's other flaw, namely lack of polish. The game had some minor bugs, glitches and typos, and for instance, Hiroto's skills seemed to be straight copies of the default Hero class skills whereas the other characters had custom skill sequences for their spells.
The lack of polish is somewhat understandable due to the creator becoming ill during the contest period, however, and most of the bugs should be quite easy to fix.
Unfortunately due to real-life complications I was unable to play through the game more than once, but I spent a couple of hours running around and trying out various things. In the end, I feel like the demo shows promise. If combat is developed further and various small tweaks are done after the IGMC contest period is over, I feel that Isekai Anthology could become a very interesting game, especially to fans of the isekai genre.
Pros:
+ relatively unique and amusing idea for an RPG Maker game
+ good mapping
+ crafting system which is simple enough but not dull
+ creative way of telling the story via comics
Cons:
- tedious combat
- lack of polish
Final verdict: 3/5 - While I might not be able to unconditionally recommend the game due to my issues with the combat system and such, I found it amusing and had mostly fun playing it. Hopefully it will be developed further!