Finished Tri-ace's new PS4/Vita dungeon crawler Exist Archive. Just gonna re-post what I wrote in the gaf thread:
Definitely liked it in the end. I liked the writing, felt more like an adult game than written for games/anime/teenagers. There's not a ton of plot and a chunk of it is optional/hidden in crystals spread around re-runs of old dungeons, but you get enough of the plot through the main game run it's interesting, you get who the characters are and their stories, and the end is mostly satisfying. Then if you want, you can flesh out some of the story by finding it in optional content.
Game is a pure dungeon crawler. At first the dungeon crawling kind of sucks, but around mid-game when you get the rest of the platforming movement abilities and can actually start exploring the dungeons, crawling gets fun. I think they really should've had that stuff unlocked from the start.
Battle system is very good. A lot of options, but a little repetitive, since once you find a few good tactics, you basically use them for every fight in the game against the same 6 or 7 enemies. The difficulty curve reminds me a lot of Resonance of Fate, it's hard until you finally figure out the most efficient way to play after 20-30 hours and then it's pretty easy.
Character growth systems are alright. Loot is solid, characters skill growth is not meaty enough.
Art/Music and everything is nice.
Also want to give extra praise for the voice acting here. Some of the best in a couple of years. Koyasu's Yamatoga is one of his best roles (and that's saying a lot considering how much he does) and a really great character thanks to 50% the writing and 50% Koyasu's very nuanced delivery. Yamatoga is probably the most interesting character in the entire game and Koyasu's performance is a lot of that. The rest of the characters gave strong performances as well, which combined with the great 2d character art and more adult writing made it like a good radio drama.
The story/writing being good is really what made the game, because otherwise the gameplay would be too repetitive and budget-limited and I probably would have stopped caring after a dozen hours. So it's nice that Tri-Ace, whose usually not known for good writing outside Valkyrie Profile, did a good job here.
Game's biggest problem is that it feels like a $20-40 PSN/Steam game. The budget really held the game back in variety. The whole game is 30 hours+ of going through the same few stages (with different layouts), fighting the same 6-7 enemies (with re-skins/colors), to the same 10 or so music tracks, and there aren't a ton of skills that actually do much noticeable. It's too bad the game bombed, because a bigger budget, bigger content sequel with some of the oddball game design choices taken care of could be great and closer to Valkyrie Profile. As is, this is sort of like the bite-sized Valkyrie Profile.
Solid 8/10
