Easily one of the best RPG maker projects if a deep dark story is what you seek.

1) Gameplay:
This is something I both enjoyed and hated at the same time..

The game starts out rather easy, you can learn it's mechanics, which is fine. It becomes totally brutal halfway in though...

I love challenge and tactics, but this is challenging... in a wrong way - basically as game is heavy on text, usually before you fight an important boss battle - you will need to see the dialogues for 5-10 minutes. Afterwards starts the boss fight, where boss uses a trick or a strength you could NEVER predict, even if it was hinted somehow before, resulting in a complete failure as first try big time. The most frustrating was boss you had to poison.. I had no chance to do it first time, simply because at that point in the game support was rather useless. As for other bosses.. you actually had the chance if you got the 'stars align' kind of luck and managed to discover bosses trick before he putted it up, which mostly was keeping the table clear of all elements.. until bosses started to get void ability and it went crazy...

What is weird is that difficulty dropped a tonn when it got closer to last few chapters.. monsters gave too much exp and you pretty much overpowered most bosses with general equipment, not needing any tactics at all..

Balance is huge issue.. mages seem.. lacking to say the least... yan is a truly OP killing machine late game if built for critical with correct equipment.. get her to ~120 crit along with her self ability - results in ~90% crit chance with insane attack speed and attack which is VERY close to cap. Pretty much she dealt more dmg than other 3 characters.. well, 2, considering 1 mostly healed.

Overall I enjoyed the challenging aspects of the game, especially late game mini bosses.. but main bosses could realy use some tweaks.. instead of being random figure out what this boss does and swap into needed equip..

2) Sound:

Rather atmospheric, but the variety is lacking, considering game takes so much time >>

3) Graphics:

Not the strongest aspect of the game, just like blurred line it's mostly weak, but at least a lot of stuff is custom made, and there are rather pretty artworks as well.

4) Characters:

The best there can be - characters you can actually relate to, both the variety and depth of characters is impressive to say the least. Unlike most JRPG's.. ah, let's be honest - 99% of RPG's are based on rainbows and friendship as a virtue.
The only fact is - some characters lacked development, like Vene.. even though she was my favourite character, I could say she was rather flawed.. not in a way of personality, but in a way of contradicting herself big time.
But outside of a few minor flaws - that's one set of characters I will actually remember out of hundreds(if not thousands by now) of RPG's I completed.

5) Story:

Again a mixed opinion - it started out well, went better, then went downhill, then better again, then downhill again and the final wrap up was rather satisfying.. this is a rather weird summary, but I can't reveal much more without spoiling too much..
I guess I will still spoil a little though - antagonists were a bit lackluster when all was said and done. But that was part of the charm - in the end everyone is just a useless person, be it the protagonist, the antagonist or whoever else you look up to in this world.

Instead of viewing it as a typical black vs white type of story, it's better to view it as a story of a change in one's character. A dark story about the reality of feelings and growth of one as a person.


Overall: A lengthy(52 hours was my last save, and that's not counting I had to replay some battles, which easily puts it to 55-60 hours if we also add up the time for final battle + ending) RPG which packs you enough challenges to keep you entertained combat wise, a rather good pacing of leveling(you won't really have to grind if you are good), while offering a rather interesting world, story and a set of main characters, lifes of whom intervene in different ways.

You can rarely encounter an RPG aimed at mature auditory, which is not all about good beating evil and friendship, so it's a game I thoroughly enjoyed in the end. I would definitely pay for this instead of crappy RPG's we get nowadays.

I would probably rate it 4.5 in reality, but seeing how low it's current standing is - it deserves better, hence the 5. The flaws in gameplay are more than covered by breathtaking and mature story. The story knows what it wants to show and does it in an excellent game.
You also need to know what to expect when playing this not to end up disappointed. The main focus of the game is it's dark story - if you dislike the philosophy and serious themes overall - you likely won't enjoy it.
If you seek a superb custom gameplay - you also won't find it, there is a decent custom combat but it's not perfect to say the least.