Starting playing and I can't stop. It's a fun dungeon crawler that has pretty unforgiving mechanics but a lot of cool customization and classes to mess around with.
I started my journey by escorting some sheep back to the main hub of the game for my first quest to prove myself an able adventurer. Easy enough. However, one sheep ran away from the pack and I was tasked with going to find it deeper in the forest that they usually frequent.
I started with a team of me, UF, Spring, Maniac, and Floyd. I chose Expert difficulty which is a step down from Heroic but a step up from Basic. And then there's Picnic mode that's the easiest of them all.
Of course as soon as I start, I quickly realize how in over my head I was and the brutal learning curve of this game. Around four battles into the first small labyrinth, I get a total party wipe because of bad composition and ridiculous Muscle Fly enemies that one-shot you with their Tackle move. My character in particular was the squishiest of them all and I had to restart from scratch since I hadn't saved. You lose random items and half your money upon every wipe.
Started over.
This time I took 911 with me instead of Spring to shield the party and things went much smoother. Spring in particular is a character that needs a lot of setup to get going with their ludicrous mechanical Drive Blade. Managing his overheat mechanics is essential and at the time, I didn't have an efficient means of sustain to keep him going.
I beat the first little area and completed the quest. After a little bit of grinding, Maniac proved to be my main source of binding, which involves restraining certain body parts of the enemy so they are unable to act. Invaluable in this game and can trivialize certain encounters. I often found myself swapping me out for for Random while Omar came in for Floyd at times for ailments and debuffs. I rarely removed UF and Maniac because they were too good.
After learning a little bit and customizing the group so that everyone fulfills a certain role, I progressed through the next dungeon and came upon an event. I investigated a plant that dripped a mysterious liquid. The liquid turned out to be extremely nauseating if you're exposed to great amounts and an entire load got dumped on my party from a tree above. We constantly lost health and TP (basically MP) in small amounts because the group was flipping out due to the egregious odor. I had to unequip most of my party so they could "wash" their equipment....and of course I get attacked during it. Omar and Maniac were the only ones that didn't have to wash and of course they're in the back row so they don't get hit as often. My entire frontline gets decimated and then Omar gets mollywhopped alongside Maniac. GAME OVER. Bullshit.
I'm mad.
I blitzkrieg through the dungeon and avoid the event. I make it to the boss of the labyrinth which is a **** plant monster Marlboro type thing and proceed to engage in a 15 minute battle because the damn thing had 40,000 HP or some ****. Once again, thank God for Maniac who basically made it so that the boss couldn't do **** the entire time with some lucky binds. Defeated the 1st boss. Yay. Now, on to the next labyrinth.
Music in this game is great too:
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The Ronin class is all about damage. It maintains multiple "stances" like Nioh that specializes in attack, defense, and speed accordingly. Squishiest **** class in the game, I swear. A glass cannon for sure.
The Highlander is a Dark Knight of sorts. It sacrifices HP to deal more damage and has buffs that make the party do more damage. Getting kills with it heals the party so it's a good damage dealer too albeit kinda slow.
The Arcanist binds the enemy and heals at the same time with its debilitating "circles". Barely has any offensive capability but is a great support.
The Ninja is a debilitating master. It kinda just sits and terrorizes the enemies with sleep, paralyze, blind, shadow clones, binds...you name it. It even does full damage from the back row when customized properly. There's not a lot this class can't do but it doesn't have the burst/DPS or defensive capabilities of other classes.
The Protector defends the party with party-wide shield skills that tanks attacks. This class is the enabler that lets a lot of the other classes get going without worry of them getting one-shotted.
The Shogun is a tactical commander of sorts that orders the party and gives them buffs as a result. It can turn the tide of battle by directing certain attacks at a particular party member, ordering the entire party to attack an enemy in retaliation, and may dual-wield to strike twice with "echo" slashes.
The Imperial is a mechanical unit that uses its massive Drive Blade to deal ridiculous damage. However, its Drive ability causes the weapon to overheat and you can't use the ability again until you cool down the weapon to where it is able to be used again. THE best damage dealer so far and is kinda tanky...but is very, very slow.
The Hero does every goddamn thing. It heals, it has a mirage that spawns a ghost character that may absorb attacks for the group, it offensively and defensively buffs, it has AoE attacks, it's fast, has good atk power, good weapon/armor options, and then it can tank too.
And that's not even half of the classes. There's supposedly a Vampire class that can make your character look almost exactly like Castlevania's Dracula.