Etrangle Overlord - 6.5/10 - Ms. Rosenberg has been killed. She was accused of assassinating the king, but we know that isn't true. That’s okay, though; she simply goes to Hell and decides to take it over.

The story is actually quite fun. It has those zany Disgaea vibes mixed with musical scores, giving it a fun, bouncy feel with some cute moments thrown in. As we progress, we get to see her exact her revenge in the best way possible.

The gameplay is where I’m split. It features a fun, party-like system where you have to take down enemies in an arena style stadium to complete different objectives. While it's cool and offers unique ways to battle baddies, it starts to feel a bit boring around the 6–8 hour mark. The combat mostly consists of pressing one button mixed with a special move, and that’s about it.

I think it's a fun game for a shorter playthrough, featuring entertaining cutscenes, but it lacks the depth I had hoped to see. If you can rent it or pick it up for a low price, it’s worth a play just for the vibes alone.

Video Review - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6t_A_LyruI

Etrange is a wonderful, whimsical and fantastical experience that says what it wants to and then cleanly exits center stage without overstaying it's welcome, from start to finish it manages to engage with the simple and satisfying gameplay, entertain with the fully voiced scenes between characters, and captivate with it's story and optional cutscenes, it harkens back to a time before games were sandboxes filled with as big an assortment of various guff as possible for the player to kill time with, instead guiding you through it's cute overworld with seperate stages that each present their own challenge to overcome, it runs great and you can even play it with your friends, the only thing that'd put off is the price and somewhat fairly so, still concision is a quality all it's own and having played through and three stared every stage, I think it's fair enough.

Etrange as a game is a success.

The titular ojou-sama Étrange and her hilarious personality consistently shine, but this game delights in other ways too. I love the entire cast, even as it grew pretty big over the course of the story. Very charming. While the musical numbers are often short and don't have the most lively camera/character blocking, they're still fun, just one of many areas where the creators' soul is evident. I feared that the shallow combat would make it hard to appreciate everything worth appreciating, but the stages actually remain chock-full of different gimmicks, objectives, enemies, and bosses. So the action experience shows effort nonetheless; those conveyor belts put an unexpected wrinkle in the button-mashing. The last few stages had a notable difficulty spike, prompting me to care more about my party, upgrades, and basic positioning.

It's a great time overall. Even though the price might be too steep for some of the production values, it's quite polished, and I had no technical issues whatsoever.