one of the most memorable games i've ever played both for its well-written dialogues and its challenging gameplay. i'll write a bit of a review for anyone who's considering playing it (it's a long game).
the characters are endearing. the writing is great. the story never feels forced. it all has a very natural feel to it. one could make an anime adaptation. same thing with the humor: the writer never goes out of his/her way to be funny but manages to be humorous in an an intelligent, satirical way. it's still humor of the cute kind but always with a hint of irony. nothing that makes you laugh out loud but i loved it and in my opinion it's the signature of the game.
the combat is challenging and somehow manages to stay so throughout the game. not every boss was harder than the previous one but there have been many cases where i thought that an enemy was at the limit of what is beatable, yet the next was even more difficult and had me think even harder (i always choose the hardest difficulty stetting. i don't remember what it's called in this game, whether it's hard, hardest, nightmare or whatever).
this is achieved mostly by having the playable characters learn new skills, which you are forced to use to defeat more powerful enemies. as your characters become stronger, along with the enemies, they become richer and more difficult to exploit to the fullest.
my only complaint (literally this game's only flaw imo) is the sheer number of common enemies. you're encouraged to fight them all to increase your level and make sure you're leaving nothing behind, and it did get tedious. those fights are repetitive and usually easy.
they have their place as they offer a chance to test out your new skills and overall master the game in preparation for the bosses. they do a perfect job at this, but they're just too many and dealing with them felt too often like a chore that had to be done instead of a challenge and frankly a waste of time.
even for the story, if some of the weaker enemy groups were removed it would help make the playable characters feel more like heroes and less like exterminators.
the bosses on the other hand have kept me thinking and engaged throughout the game (however i downloaded this game on march 2023 and i think i remember reading about changes to an enemy when i checked the itch page after finishing the game).
in fact the final fight was the most difficult and had me thinking hard on whether to make the strongest knife for merel or the strongest axe for chisa. even though i thought chisa was more important for healing than dealing damage, what killed darkloft for me was foregoing merel's knife to give chisa the axe. i remember this from finishing the game early last summer and it's been a busy year for me; goes to show what a memorable game this has been, at least for me.
this brings me to resource management: i opened every chest and there wasn't enough of some materials to make all the equipment you'd like. this forces you to make choices. even the money is never quite as much as you'd like until the very end of the game as the most powerful weapons can't be bought. the main developer must have put a lot of thought into tweaking the prices, recipes and loot to make sure you can get enough for some but not all.
the art is good but it could be better. i think what attracts potential players the most are the cover art and screenshots and some improvements wouldn't hurt (those noses, for example). the landscape, the characters and the monsters are inspired but crude. both Unity, for the characters, and whoever drew the rest are talented and imaginative but were limited by either inexperience or lack of free time to polish their work. frankly, though, the art too is much more and better than should be expected of a free game made by as small team (or is it just Unity as far as the art goes? i'm forgetting the credits). btw i like how the characters change expressions as they talk, not just with their mouth and eyes but by moving their whole head. it may be a small touch but i feel as if the game would lose a lot without it.
thanks for reading.
TL;DR: if you like challenging turn-based RPGs this is game a must. you'll probably be pleasantly surprised by the characters and story too.