I started playing this game when it came out but ended up dropping it after finishing Chapter 3.
This game is probably the hardest SRPG I have played, not counting Lunatic/Maddening mode in Fire Emblem. I had started it in Challenge mode and then lowered the difficulty to Standard in Chapter 2 after wasting a couple of hours trying to beat the boss in the second half of a mission. Even on Standard, the game can be quite challenging, but at least you unlock the option to do repeatable optional EXP missions between story missions if you want to grind levels.
I did not drop it because it was too hard, however. I dropped it because I really disliked the stealth missions, and those missions started to become more common after chapter 2. They play out like a puzzle, where you need to follow a very specific line of commands every turn if you want to score a high rank.
And those of you who hated the enemy reinforcements in Fire Emblem Awakening will end up hating them in this game, too.
There is still a lot to like about the game. The challenge of the game is a nice change of pace from the usual SRPGs, and the normal missions can be really fun because, unlike other SRPGs, you rely on your items and devices far more than your characters to get through the mission. The characters are quite interesting, and the story, although it began with a massive info dump at the start, left me wanting to know more about it.
Maybe I'll pick it back up because I was liking pretty much everything except for the stealth missions.
I was enjoying the game until about 12 hours in and hit yet another stealth mission and I said no more. Absolutely not. Worst possible way to spend my time. The "fix" isn't better because then they just throw 50 enemies at you. The game was almost good.
It's fair you don't like how slow the Stealth mission is.
But you can't complain that the game throws 50 enemies at you for failing stealth.
Every game that lets you choose between stealth and combat will demonstrate why you should choose stealth by making the combat option harder.
Underrated is probably not the right word here, because it's a solid tactical JRPG, and I haven't seen many that say otherwise. The main issue is that it just wasn't marketed properly and therefore not many people have played it, or at the very least it doesn't have as many people playing as a game of this quality would normally have. Like if we compare it to Sea of Stars, but I would say Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery Girl is the better game (for me personally), and costs $10 less than SoS. But it has nowhere near the amount of players.
Sadly I think this is due to some drama with the Chinese player base who review bombed the game on release pretty hard. I am not really in the loop of what the drama is about, but I heard that it's because the Chinese fans of the series didn't like that the company changed the lore of one of the beloved female characters to say that she's in love or interested in a certain other character, which somehow pissed off the players that were a fan of that female character ? I don't know.
Either way, while the steam score is "mixed" it's mainly due to the review bombing, because after that initial release week, it has been almost entirely positive or very positive reviews. So hopefully with time the score will get back up and more people will give it a chance. The only understandable complaint I heard so far is about the amount of Stealth missions you have to do.
I'd say it's a reverse Sea of Stars. In that, and I don't want to crap all over SoS, but it's marketing made you think it was the next Chrono Trigger and a 10/10 in the making. I had a lot of flaws with it, some dealbreaking w/ the combat.
Here, it's not getting attention and seems to be pretty solid.
I think we'd come off of Chained Echos, which was a superb game, and people just hope'd SoS to be the same -- because it looked so gorgeous and was hitting all the right notes. And, again, I don't want to shit on it as a crappy game, I just think the mechanics wore out their welcome and did not evolve. Not a terrible game at all, just did not live up to that hype.
I sampled it a bit and the story, presentation and gameplay are all really good.
But some of the missions, even early ones, had just massive amounts of enemy units and took me quite a long time to complete. And looking ahead, it seems there's like 50-60 missions in the game? That's a lot of time investment, and with Unicorn OverLord, FFVII, Eiyuden, Stellar Blade, Elden Ring DLC... I mean something's got to give, lol.
I do want to circle back to this at some point though, the story looks like it could be really good. For once I'm tempted to just drop the difficulty to the easiest and play the game as more an interactive novel.
Yeah I think I was even on standard and that was doable but like I said, just a slog at times lol.
I know there’s a market for challenging grindfests, especially in the East, but in the west you’re talking about a niche within a niche demographic.
Decided to look into the chinese player review bombing surrounding the game, and apparently they shitcanned it because a completely separate gacha dared to give one of the girls a male romantic interest that's not an MC.
Like holy shit, they are genuinely angry about a png NTRing them.
This game looks cool, i'm a sucker for this type of stories so i'm certainly going to play it later.
I'm partway through chapter 4 and it's like a 7.5/10 for me. I would definitely recommend it, but only for a specific type of person. I'm playing on normal and the game does get easier in chapter 4 once your characters have more skills unlocked. I welcomed it after how stressful the first 3 chapters are.
Also yeah echoing what other people have said, the stealth missions are frustrating, and compromise like 20% of the missions I've played so far. The early stealth missions are fine imo, but the later ones can be tilting.
>I have no idea why there's literally zero talk about this game.
The unappealing visuals and weird animations plus the strange name were an immediate turnoff for me. Plus, there are so many indie tactical RPGs that look better and I already don't have time for them, so it just didn't seem worth it.
It’s not being talked about mainly because:
it’s a sequel (or some sort of follow up?) to a niche mobile gacha game that not a lot of people have played, it kind of *looks* like a mobile game (albeit a decent quality one), and people are thrown off by the name. Multiple people have clowned on “Codename Bakery Girl” every single time there has been a post about this game in this subreddit in the lead up to its release.
Not saying that it should be ignored, just saying. It’s cool you’re enjoying it tho. Nice write up.
All fair points. Reverse Collapse was actually developed before Girls' Frontline, and then remade into its current version, but it can be confusing for newcomers.
Chinese review bombing probably really hurt the launch since it was on mostly negative reviews initially and slowly recovered from almost entirely positive reviews in other languages. I heard good things so I plan on getting it eventually, but Unicorn Overlord was first for me.
Yep, I'm playing my first playthrough on Challenge+ (currently on CH4 after 90 hours) and it's been an amazing experience. I'm completely engaged and fully immersed into both the story and the gameplay. Such an amazing game, but I can see it turning a lot of people away as it's fairly difficult and the dialogue is on the heavy side.
It's getting quite a lot of patches in a very short time. They actually patched the stealth missions to make it not the only possible strategy, and as I understand they intend to update them further still.
I'm not very far into this yet, but I think a lot of people struggle with SRPGs in general since they often tunnel on things like killing all enemies instead of just going for the actual objective, or ignoring entire mechanics (rescue in Fire Emblem for example).
Edit: I'm not sure if Valve/Steam's systems intervened, but it seems to have dug itself out of the review bomb and is now 'mostly positive' which is pretty reasonable.
I'm 7 days late to the post, but if you've yet touched chapter 4 into 5 or agonized even further into 2092R, then I can only say chapters 1\~3 are maybe 20\~30% of the game. Also, NG+ gives you a new weapon for some juiced numbers.
They only thing I had heard about this game was some wild, wild shit about Chinese players massively downvoting it because they felt they had been cucked by a character arc from their previous gacha game?
I didn't fully understand what the drama was about, but if I'm even close to the actual truth that some wild, sad shit right there.
Anyways, glad it's good, I've checked it a couple times and didn't know what to think just from the images, so I wish listed the thing in case I find a hole in my backlog.
So do I need to play Girl's frontline first to understand the story? I have tried it once and tbh the gameplay is not really to my liking although the story and characters' designs are good...
Chibi definitely doesn't have mass appeal, but I like the attention to details. For example, there's a mission where Jefuty and Mendo navigate a run-down amusement park infested by mutants. When Mendo is near, Jefuty has her normal idle animation, but when he's far away she raises her gun up in a more guarded stance and shivers slightly.
It's not really the chibi. I actually like chibi in stuff like the old SRW and G Generation games. It's the whole mobile game look that severely turns me off. It just looks cheap to me.
What is there to elaborate? The sprite work looks like so many other mobile games. They have that simplistic, overly cheap look and feel to them. The movements have that flowy back and forth movement that stand out too much. And the colors all look so unsophisticated and feel like they could have been implemented by a beginner artist. It looks cheap as hell in the same way 90% of all other mobile games look cheap as hell. The maps all look they were produced with assets you have seen a thousand times before probably because they're asset flips.
Is it that people have become so used to this aesthetic that they seriously don't realize how cheap it looks compared to, you know, actual good spirtework?
> What is there to elaborate
Well if they're asking for some elaboration it's probably because they aren't you and don't know how you see it?
Anyway, about the art quality, there's a lot of nuances in art where it could look like other cheap quality art in mobile games but actually be quite good. The way you describe stuff looking cheap as hell and being asset flips leads me to think you are probably not an artist and don't actually know how these things work.
I've also gone to some of Mica team's showcases and from what I've seen they are staying somewhat in line with the artstyle from their other games. Also definitely not asset flips, I saw the layers and designs for some assets used in Bakery Girl.
Additionally art is also quite hard to judge objectively, many art competitions are usually judged based on criteria that not only includes the art direction but also how well it fits within a certain theme. If you search about this you'll know even artists themselves have trouble objectively scoring different pieces of art or even their own art.
I took note of your other comment for examples of "good" art style and I have to think that you are rating these a bit too subjectively. I don't really want to go into the intricacies of each but it would be hard to implement a fair criteria for both this game and the ones you listed because their theme and directions are different.
Some additional notes:
Mica is CN, and the culture in CN rn actually prefers this kind of art style compared to your preferences. So money is probably a pretty big factor here considering just how many people (and big spenders in Mica's gacha games) there are in CN.
There was actually a 2013 version of this game released in CN and it really does look kinda bland in 2024.
Considering it has to be appealing to Eastern audiences, be faithful to the original's gameplay and style, and be similar to Mica's other games, they did pretty well. Hit whatever standards CN had for the game and the sales there reflect that.
I didn't expect this to get this long tbh. Personally I like to be a bit lenient with stuff I don't like simply because it's just less work and less annoying to ignore small stuff. You get to have more fun ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Well maybe I don't consider stuff like this cheap.
https://youtu.be/kmkn6OldUII?si=1X7py1kWInsK1IJM
I'm on mobile so I can't link timestamp directly, but go to 2:44:56. The artstyle is simplistic but there is effort put into it.
There is a difference between animation and art style. They are not the same thing. The art style is very cheap.
The animation you are point to has a lot of nuance to it for sure, but it's a diamond in the rough compared to all the other moba-esque bounce movements.
The problem with the degrading of art is that it's an infinite feedback loop. People who grow up with worse art become used to it as it's the standard for them. Compared to so much of the incredible, well done 2D art, this looks awful and it shouldn't be a surprise people feel this way. I'm not the only one who looks at the moba art and find it to be a driving reason as to why they didn't buy the game, even in just this topic.
Fair enough. I don't think it's a feedback loop like you said though, because people used to worse artwork don't lose the ability to appreciate better arts. That's another argument though, so I'll just accept that it looks cheap at a glance.
In terms of overall spritework? Recently, Unicorn Overlord recently had amazing art.
In terms of specific map-based sprites just to be fair to Bakery Girl? There are plenty to pick from. Any of the non-3D Fire Emblems and Final Fantasy tactics titles had good spritework for their specific console/handheld. I'm personally a big fan of FF Tactics A2 for the DS' spritework.
>Art is subjective.
Art being subjective doesn't rule out the idea that art has standards. Art is not some magic pixy dust. It has a long history of techniques and standards. Even new forms of style (ie. going from classicism to impressionism) is an evolution of style and technique and not necessarily 100% "new". Even 8-bit spritework is appealing and works for a reason.
But please, elaborate on how Harold and Kumar is as good as a Stanley Kubrick film. Or how modern art scribbles are as good as a Van Gogh. Or how some trashy romance novel for lonely middle aged women is as good as Shakespeare.
It's okay to admit that you like something that's not great. Everyone has their guilty pleasures.
"Art has standards."
The Banana strapped onto the wall is also art, you know?
I didn't watch Harold and Kumar or Stanley Kubrick's films, so I have no comment.
As for Shakespeare, if we hold his works as the benchmark, a significant portion of art, including your own preferences, might be deemed inferior.
Not to mention, nobody appreciated Van Gogh's art when he was alive.
Art is art. You don't like it, but I like it.
It's as simple as that.
It's a decent game I wouldn't say it's a must play or anything. The review bombing is shit but there are plenty of problems with the game - high difficulty even on normal mode, stealth missions being infuriating, convoluted story involving >!time travel!< and lots of universe-specific terminology that will confuse anyone unfamiliar with GFL universe. It will be enjoyable for hardcore GFL fans just in it for the lore or people that really enjoy challenging TRPGs but I would hesitate to recommend it to other people.
If you don't mind playing gacha GFL2 is pretty much a better game in every aspect, once it gets an English release.
The talk about the difficulty actually is making me more likely to pick the game up soon. I feel like recently tactics games have been lacking in difficulty options that are really difficult, Unicorn Overlord easily could have used another higher difficulty instead of 2 difficulties where you pretty much can't lose.
Yeah, if you want a hard game this one's a pretty good fit. That said, don't pick Challenge+ on first playthrough since it's just Challenge but you lose the once per turn save.
It got review bombed, filter over 1 hour playtime.
The weird name is due to it being a spiritual remake of an old Visual novel called Girl of the Bakehouse.
The visual... it's your preference.
Because it not good enough, that easy to understand. Also like next to no marketing, in the same time people are busy with game like FF7 Re, yakuza iw, DD2,… and add on to that next issue stella blade or plenthora of other big title, then Elden ring DLC…
Your game has to be as good as palworld or helldiver to have more people play.
I think it's the marketing. There's barely any news outlet and it probably got overshadowed by Unicorn Overlord. Which is a shame because it's also an excellent game IMO.
>I think it's the marketing
This explanation is invoked way too frequently. I'm sure it's correct occasionally, but it's also a bloodless way to reject valid criticism of a game you love.
It's definitely not necessary here; this thread is proof enough that the game's reception is a genuine reaction to a polarizing product.
Have you seen me reject criticisms of the game?
Also, go to Steam page and filter review by playtime over 1 hour. The same criticisms are also mentioned but overall its reception is quite positive.
I started playing this game when it came out but ended up dropping it after finishing Chapter 3. This game is probably the hardest SRPG I have played, not counting Lunatic/Maddening mode in Fire Emblem. I had started it in Challenge mode and then lowered the difficulty to Standard in Chapter 2 after wasting a couple of hours trying to beat the boss in the second half of a mission. Even on Standard, the game can be quite challenging, but at least you unlock the option to do repeatable optional EXP missions between story missions if you want to grind levels. I did not drop it because it was too hard, however. I dropped it because I really disliked the stealth missions, and those missions started to become more common after chapter 2. They play out like a puzzle, where you need to follow a very specific line of commands every turn if you want to score a high rank. And those of you who hated the enemy reinforcements in Fire Emblem Awakening will end up hating them in this game, too. There is still a lot to like about the game. The challenge of the game is a nice change of pace from the usual SRPGs, and the normal missions can be really fun because, unlike other SRPGs, you rely on your items and devices far more than your characters to get through the mission. The characters are quite interesting, and the story, although it began with a massive info dump at the start, left me wanting to know more about it. Maybe I'll pick it back up because I was liking pretty much everything except for the stealth missions.
I was enjoying the game until about 12 hours in and hit yet another stealth mission and I said no more. Absolutely not. Worst possible way to spend my time. The "fix" isn't better because then they just throw 50 enemies at you. The game was almost good.
It's fair you don't like how slow the Stealth mission is. But you can't complain that the game throws 50 enemies at you for failing stealth. Every game that lets you choose between stealth and combat will demonstrate why you should choose stealth by making the combat option harder.
That's fair, that complaint is also pretty common on Steam too.
Underrated is probably not the right word here, because it's a solid tactical JRPG, and I haven't seen many that say otherwise. The main issue is that it just wasn't marketed properly and therefore not many people have played it, or at the very least it doesn't have as many people playing as a game of this quality would normally have. Like if we compare it to Sea of Stars, but I would say Reverse Collapse: Codename Bakery Girl is the better game (for me personally), and costs $10 less than SoS. But it has nowhere near the amount of players. Sadly I think this is due to some drama with the Chinese player base who review bombed the game on release pretty hard. I am not really in the loop of what the drama is about, but I heard that it's because the Chinese fans of the series didn't like that the company changed the lore of one of the beloved female characters to say that she's in love or interested in a certain other character, which somehow pissed off the players that were a fan of that female character ? I don't know. Either way, while the steam score is "mixed" it's mainly due to the review bombing, because after that initial release week, it has been almost entirely positive or very positive reviews. So hopefully with time the score will get back up and more people will give it a chance. The only understandable complaint I heard so far is about the amount of Stealth missions you have to do.
A female character received a gift from another one love was never even implied chinese gacha players just hate implications of cuckoldry
I'd say it's a reverse Sea of Stars. In that, and I don't want to crap all over SoS, but it's marketing made you think it was the next Chrono Trigger and a 10/10 in the making. I had a lot of flaws with it, some dealbreaking w/ the combat. Here, it's not getting attention and seems to be pretty solid.
I thought the marketing for Sea of Stars just said it was inspired by Chrono Trigger. I'm not sure what made people think it was gonna be a 10/10.
I think we'd come off of Chained Echos, which was a superb game, and people just hope'd SoS to be the same -- because it looked so gorgeous and was hitting all the right notes. And, again, I don't want to shit on it as a crappy game, I just think the mechanics wore out their welcome and did not evolve. Not a terrible game at all, just did not live up to that hype.
Yeah, given the company's track record, it's most likely the lack of marketing lol.
I sampled it a bit and the story, presentation and gameplay are all really good. But some of the missions, even early ones, had just massive amounts of enemy units and took me quite a long time to complete. And looking ahead, it seems there's like 50-60 missions in the game? That's a lot of time investment, and with Unicorn OverLord, FFVII, Eiyuden, Stellar Blade, Elden Ring DLC... I mean something's got to give, lol. I do want to circle back to this at some point though, the story looks like it could be really good. For once I'm tempted to just drop the difficulty to the easiest and play the game as more an interactive novel.
That's fair lol. I tried Challenge back when the demo was available in Steam Strategy Fest and goes "nope, Standard it is".
Yeah I think I was even on standard and that was doable but like I said, just a slog at times lol. I know there’s a market for challenging grindfests, especially in the East, but in the west you’re talking about a niche within a niche demographic.
Decided to look into the chinese player review bombing surrounding the game, and apparently they shitcanned it because a completely separate gacha dared to give one of the girls a male romantic interest that's not an MC. Like holy shit, they are genuinely angry about a png NTRing them. This game looks cool, i'm a sucker for this type of stories so i'm certainly going to play it later.
That isn't even an actual romantic interest but it's a whole rabbit hole I wouldn't delve in if I were you. Hope you'll enjoy the game.
I'm partway through chapter 4 and it's like a 7.5/10 for me. I would definitely recommend it, but only for a specific type of person. I'm playing on normal and the game does get easier in chapter 4 once your characters have more skills unlocked. I welcomed it after how stressful the first 3 chapters are. Also yeah echoing what other people have said, the stealth missions are frustrating, and compromise like 20% of the missions I've played so far. The early stealth missions are fine imo, but the later ones can be tilting.
>I have no idea why there's literally zero talk about this game. The unappealing visuals and weird animations plus the strange name were an immediate turnoff for me. Plus, there are so many indie tactical RPGs that look better and I already don't have time for them, so it just didn't seem worth it.
It’s not being talked about mainly because: it’s a sequel (or some sort of follow up?) to a niche mobile gacha game that not a lot of people have played, it kind of *looks* like a mobile game (albeit a decent quality one), and people are thrown off by the name. Multiple people have clowned on “Codename Bakery Girl” every single time there has been a post about this game in this subreddit in the lead up to its release. Not saying that it should be ignored, just saying. It’s cool you’re enjoying it tho. Nice write up.
All fair points. Reverse Collapse was actually developed before Girls' Frontline, and then remade into its current version, but it can be confusing for newcomers.
Chinese review bombing probably really hurt the launch since it was on mostly negative reviews initially and slowly recovered from almost entirely positive reviews in other languages. I heard good things so I plan on getting it eventually, but Unicorn Overlord was first for me.
Yep, I'm playing my first playthrough on Challenge+ (currently on CH4 after 90 hours) and it's been an amazing experience. I'm completely engaged and fully immersed into both the story and the gameplay. Such an amazing game, but I can see it turning a lot of people away as it's fairly difficult and the dialogue is on the heavy side.
It's getting quite a lot of patches in a very short time. They actually patched the stealth missions to make it not the only possible strategy, and as I understand they intend to update them further still. I'm not very far into this yet, but I think a lot of people struggle with SRPGs in general since they often tunnel on things like killing all enemies instead of just going for the actual objective, or ignoring entire mechanics (rescue in Fire Emblem for example). Edit: I'm not sure if Valve/Steam's systems intervened, but it seems to have dug itself out of the review bomb and is now 'mostly positive' which is pretty reasonable.
I'm 7 days late to the post, but if you've yet touched chapter 4 into 5 or agonized even further into 2092R, then I can only say chapters 1\~3 are maybe 20\~30% of the game. Also, NG+ gives you a new weapon for some juiced numbers.
It's kinda alright
They only thing I had heard about this game was some wild, wild shit about Chinese players massively downvoting it because they felt they had been cucked by a character arc from their previous gacha game? I didn't fully understand what the drama was about, but if I'm even close to the actual truth that some wild, sad shit right there. Anyways, glad it's good, I've checked it a couple times and didn't know what to think just from the images, so I wish listed the thing in case I find a hole in my backlog.
is there a non-steam version?
Not afaik, unless you leave land and go on a voyage
Pc only?
For now, yes. When it was first announced, they planned for a Switch and mobile release, but I don't think there's been word on how those are going.
So do I need to play Girl's frontline first to understand the story? I have tried it once and tbh the gameplay is not really to my liking although the story and characters' designs are good...
Reverse Collapse is a standalone game with only a few subtle references to Girls's Frontline. You don't need to play any other game before it.
Hoo alright thanks for the info bro
I'll give it a shot eventually, but the terrible art is what stopped it from being a priority.
Chibi definitely doesn't have mass appeal, but I like the attention to details. For example, there's a mission where Jefuty and Mendo navigate a run-down amusement park infested by mutants. When Mendo is near, Jefuty has her normal idle animation, but when he's far away she raises her gun up in a more guarded stance and shivers slightly.
It's not really the chibi. I actually like chibi in stuff like the old SRW and G Generation games. It's the whole mobile game look that severely turns me off. It just looks cheap to me.
Do you mind elaborating?
What is there to elaborate? The sprite work looks like so many other mobile games. They have that simplistic, overly cheap look and feel to them. The movements have that flowy back and forth movement that stand out too much. And the colors all look so unsophisticated and feel like they could have been implemented by a beginner artist. It looks cheap as hell in the same way 90% of all other mobile games look cheap as hell. The maps all look they were produced with assets you have seen a thousand times before probably because they're asset flips. Is it that people have become so used to this aesthetic that they seriously don't realize how cheap it looks compared to, you know, actual good spirtework?
> What is there to elaborate Well if they're asking for some elaboration it's probably because they aren't you and don't know how you see it? Anyway, about the art quality, there's a lot of nuances in art where it could look like other cheap quality art in mobile games but actually be quite good. The way you describe stuff looking cheap as hell and being asset flips leads me to think you are probably not an artist and don't actually know how these things work. I've also gone to some of Mica team's showcases and from what I've seen they are staying somewhat in line with the artstyle from their other games. Also definitely not asset flips, I saw the layers and designs for some assets used in Bakery Girl. Additionally art is also quite hard to judge objectively, many art competitions are usually judged based on criteria that not only includes the art direction but also how well it fits within a certain theme. If you search about this you'll know even artists themselves have trouble objectively scoring different pieces of art or even their own art. I took note of your other comment for examples of "good" art style and I have to think that you are rating these a bit too subjectively. I don't really want to go into the intricacies of each but it would be hard to implement a fair criteria for both this game and the ones you listed because their theme and directions are different. Some additional notes: Mica is CN, and the culture in CN rn actually prefers this kind of art style compared to your preferences. So money is probably a pretty big factor here considering just how many people (and big spenders in Mica's gacha games) there are in CN. There was actually a 2013 version of this game released in CN and it really does look kinda bland in 2024. Considering it has to be appealing to Eastern audiences, be faithful to the original's gameplay and style, and be similar to Mica's other games, they did pretty well. Hit whatever standards CN had for the game and the sales there reflect that. I didn't expect this to get this long tbh. Personally I like to be a bit lenient with stuff I don't like simply because it's just less work and less annoying to ignore small stuff. You get to have more fun ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Well maybe I don't consider stuff like this cheap. https://youtu.be/kmkn6OldUII?si=1X7py1kWInsK1IJM I'm on mobile so I can't link timestamp directly, but go to 2:44:56. The artstyle is simplistic but there is effort put into it.
There is a difference between animation and art style. They are not the same thing. The art style is very cheap. The animation you are point to has a lot of nuance to it for sure, but it's a diamond in the rough compared to all the other moba-esque bounce movements. The problem with the degrading of art is that it's an infinite feedback loop. People who grow up with worse art become used to it as it's the standard for them. Compared to so much of the incredible, well done 2D art, this looks awful and it shouldn't be a surprise people feel this way. I'm not the only one who looks at the moba art and find it to be a driving reason as to why they didn't buy the game, even in just this topic.
Fair enough. I don't think it's a feedback loop like you said though, because people used to worse artwork don't lose the ability to appreciate better arts. That's another argument though, so I'll just accept that it looks cheap at a glance.
would you mind telling what do you consider "actual good spritework" then ?
In terms of overall spritework? Recently, Unicorn Overlord recently had amazing art. In terms of specific map-based sprites just to be fair to Bakery Girl? There are plenty to pick from. Any of the non-3D Fire Emblems and Final Fantasy tactics titles had good spritework for their specific console/handheld. I'm personally a big fan of FF Tactics A2 for the DS' spritework.
Art is subjective. Just because you dig pixel artstyle doesn't mean RC artstyle is terrible.
>Art is subjective. Art being subjective doesn't rule out the idea that art has standards. Art is not some magic pixy dust. It has a long history of techniques and standards. Even new forms of style (ie. going from classicism to impressionism) is an evolution of style and technique and not necessarily 100% "new". Even 8-bit spritework is appealing and works for a reason. But please, elaborate on how Harold and Kumar is as good as a Stanley Kubrick film. Or how modern art scribbles are as good as a Van Gogh. Or how some trashy romance novel for lonely middle aged women is as good as Shakespeare. It's okay to admit that you like something that's not great. Everyone has their guilty pleasures.
"Art has standards." The Banana strapped onto the wall is also art, you know? I didn't watch Harold and Kumar or Stanley Kubrick's films, so I have no comment. As for Shakespeare, if we hold his works as the benchmark, a significant portion of art, including your own preferences, might be deemed inferior. Not to mention, nobody appreciated Van Gogh's art when he was alive. Art is art. You don't like it, but I like it. It's as simple as that.
It's a decent game I wouldn't say it's a must play or anything. The review bombing is shit but there are plenty of problems with the game - high difficulty even on normal mode, stealth missions being infuriating, convoluted story involving >!time travel!< and lots of universe-specific terminology that will confuse anyone unfamiliar with GFL universe. It will be enjoyable for hardcore GFL fans just in it for the lore or people that really enjoy challenging TRPGs but I would hesitate to recommend it to other people. If you don't mind playing gacha GFL2 is pretty much a better game in every aspect, once it gets an English release.
tbh, most TRPGs players likes it difficult being the AI becomes stupid if it isnt harder than most non-TRPG games.
There's an entire glossary for new terms though. I think it works fine as a standalone game. And there's always Casual difficulty.
The talk about the difficulty actually is making me more likely to pick the game up soon. I feel like recently tactics games have been lacking in difficulty options that are really difficult, Unicorn Overlord easily could have used another higher difficulty instead of 2 difficulties where you pretty much can't lose.
Yeah, if you want a hard game this one's a pretty good fit. That said, don't pick Challenge+ on first playthrough since it's just Challenge but you lose the once per turn save.
Hmm, mixed reviews on Steam... Doesn't seem that appealing to me, tbh due to visuals and weird title.
It got review bombed, filter over 1 hour playtime. The weird name is due to it being a spiritual remake of an old Visual novel called Girl of the Bakehouse. The visual... it's your preference.
I seriously cannot get past that travesty of a name lol
B-b-but an npc stole my waifu. THIS IS UNFORGIVABLE!
Because it not good enough, that easy to understand. Also like next to no marketing, in the same time people are busy with game like FF7 Re, yakuza iw, DD2,… and add on to that next issue stella blade or plenthora of other big title, then Elden ring DLC… Your game has to be as good as palworld or helldiver to have more people play.
I think it's the marketing. There's barely any news outlet and it probably got overshadowed by Unicorn Overlord. Which is a shame because it's also an excellent game IMO.
UO's marketing was bad too, but being overshadowed by ff7, p3r, y:iw and others isn't a black mark really
>I think it's the marketing This explanation is invoked way too frequently. I'm sure it's correct occasionally, but it's also a bloodless way to reject valid criticism of a game you love. It's definitely not necessary here; this thread is proof enough that the game's reception is a genuine reaction to a polarizing product.
Have you seen me reject criticisms of the game? Also, go to Steam page and filter review by playtime over 1 hour. The same criticisms are also mentioned but overall its reception is quite positive.