Games worth discovering

A cute budget JRPG | First Impressions - Sephirothic Stories

1K View2023-03-08

Sephirothic Stories is a mobile game developed by KEMCO, a well known JRPG developer for the mobile platform, and it is another addition to their fast growing roster. As a japanese role-playing game, it features a turn-based combat experience, exploration with some unique mechanics, and a cute art-style.

The game immediately kicks off to our gameplay and story without any background explanation or lore introduction, and immediately acquaints us with Chibi looking 3D characters Harold and Izzy, and eventually other friendly characters as well. The world is populated by both humans and anthropomorphic animals alike, with Izzy being a humanoid lizard as an example.

The story starts off with a rescue mission of sorts involving mysterious never before seen powerful monsters that roam the land. It's pretty generic, nothing that I’ve never seen before type of kind of deal that I bet after a while it will just blur with other similarly themed JRPG memories that I’ve played.

The gameplay of Sephirothic Stories is about navigating through various PS1-era looking levels filled with randomized spawn of enemies, and trying to go to the next destination or beat the next monster to advance the story. Bumping with monsters initiates a turn-based battle combat with a typical system of using attack, skills, or items. However one defining mechanic is the Focus system where you can set up a specific combination of skills that you can regularly use.

The random monsters that respawn every time you enter an area are just standing in place, so you can easily avoid them if you want to, as long as they're not directly blocking the path. However the game’s movement controls are so clunky that you’ll often find it challenging to avoid these static enemies, unwittingly adding another layer to the difficulty.

Players can switch off to any character in the player's party at will, to take advantage of each of everyone’s individual skills and talents to help players explore. While roaming in hostile territory, there is a Murk Meter that slowly increases, filling this up will force their party to retreat to the village to recuperate, adding an exhaustion element that will force players to manage their time and very carefully.

I have a bit of a mixed feeling for Sephirothic Stories. Unique gameplay elements like the Focus system and the character-centric exploration mechanics have made a positive first impression on my initial experience while clunky controls and generic storytelling have been the negative impressions so far.

Mentioned games