Recent reviews by Hugoos

I have been waiting for this game since I played the demo, back then I just entered my paper puzzle phase after playing the DEG demo. The Artisan of Glimmith is a logic game with region division puzzles in the style of logic paper puzzles with handmade puzzles. It is by Lunarch Studios who also made Islands of Insight, which was a pretty good game with good handmade logic puzzles, but bogged down a bit with a multiplayer aspect that never really found its purpose in that game.

This game cuts the parts that didn't work in Islands of Insight and focuses on where its strengths lay, in the handcrafted logic puzzle levels with different combinations of rules and not a lot of extra fluff. I've been really enjoying the game so far, it's pretty relaxing, until you find a level 6 or 7 puzzle, then it's time to sweat.

You can feel how each level is handcrafted by professional setters, there are a lot of different ideas being explored even within the same puzzle type.

For new players: This is game 13 in an ongoing series, Don't start here, go look up Trails in the Sky (First Chapter) or the remake Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, although this game includes a term library that updates as you go which gives some background on events of all previous 12 games, word of warning that it will spoil what came before.

I'll try to avoid giving specific plot details here but talk about aspects of the structure and length.

Really liked this one, it's better than Daybreak 2 but slightly worse than Daybreak 1. It's quite slow I would really call this the setup game to rule all setup games. It really takes a while to get going but the further you get the more interesting long-awaited lore implications get revealed for the main meta-story.

I appreciated each mini-chapter being around 10 hours, that made it more piece-meal despite being quite long clocking in at roughly 191 hours for my full-NPC run. Which makes it the 4th longest Trails game before Daybreak I, Cold Steel III and Cold Steel IV.

Act I is a bit of a drag sadly, being a bit monotone, but later in the game there is more variety.

I really enjoyed the localization, thought it was well-written and consistent in terminology with characters having a good "voice" as in, way of speaking making them uniquely identifiable. The voice acting was also good with Damien Haas again giving a stellar performance as Van and also voice actors from previous games reprising their roles.

The battle system is more refined and slightly more fun than the last game, though the optional dungeon was a bit worse.

Music was again great, got a couple of new favorites.

Game ran well at max settings 144 fps with DLSS, but I had to decrease the resolution for DLSS a bit to make my fans not drown out the sound of the game after a certain point nearing 100 hours in for some reason.

I'd probably rate it at the upper-tier of Trails, a slow Act I dragging it down a bit.

Looking forward to see what's in the store next!

I've been in a bit of a paper puzzle phase after playing DEG a while back. I was doing Shikaku in the latest Puzzle Communication Nikoli and the same day this demo gets released. This is a logic game with region division puzzles in the style of logic paper puzzles with handmade puzzles. It is by Lunarch Studios who made Islands of Insight earlier, which was a pretty good game with good handmade logic puzzles, but bogged down a bit with a multiplayer aspect that never really found its purpose in that game.

This game cuts the parts that didn't work in Islands of Insight and focuses on where its strengths lay, in the handcrafted logic puzzle levels with different combinations of rules and not a lot of extra fluff. I finished the demo and I really enjoyed what is there already, the game also has hidden levels which I thought were fun to search for.

Some small QoL I was missing was that I couldn't find an option to go above 60 fps in the game. This has been implemented now.

Goes to the top of my wishlist.

100% the demo. Really liked this one, very addicting, I like how you need to search for the tutorial areas to solve different puzzle types. It does have some really challenging puzzles. I've been writing in crosses rather than using the in-game marker because it's much clearer which cells cannot be filled. Controls could use some work, accidentally deleting all your notes, even if you can take them back is quite stressful. Looking forward to the full game.

Fun little Roottrees-like, not as good or long as "The Roottrees Are Dead" but I liked it well enough to recommend it. Certainly worth it if you enjoy these kind of deduction mysteries. I hope the developer considers making more of these.

For context playing Genshin, Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero. I just beat Phantom X up to the current end of content (just before the 2nd palace boss). Phantom X is most similar to Star Rail.

I enjoyed Phantom X much more than I was expecting. The quality is very similar to the Hoyo gachas. The gacha leveling and pulling is almost 1:1 with the Hoyo games, however this one begs a lot more with FOMO packs where you have only a couple of days to buy them. After getting further in they stopped doing it so much, the last one was a "congratulatory" pack for clearing the first palace.

It also has a greater focus on community with guilds and mild competition between PVE rankings of players. These things are of course not really fair as they about who has the biggest wallets (p2w).

The actual game is A-rank Persona 5 if the original was a S+-rank game. The quality is higher than expected and I enjoyed doing the palaces. I think the first palace was better than the 2nd one as the 2nd one has a lot of repetition and easier puzzles. The palaces have a lot of repeated rooms with a slightly different placing of stuff inside them, it doesn't come close to the original Persona 5's hand crafted dungeons but they are enjoyable enough.

Combat is exactly what you would expect of the Persona 5 combat modified to work in a gacha setting.

There are Confidants and City Life but they are compartmentalized into their own section where you can use 5 units of time per real life day (barring using limited items to restore) you can spend time with your confidants, do part-time jobs and clubs.

Of course it doesn't reach the original Persona 5's heights, but I enjoyed it enough that I'll be adding it to the pile of daily gacha's for now.

Pretty fun so far, the different gathering and crafting jobs I've tried feel quite samey at the start, I hope it diversifies more later other than being reskins of the same minigame. There seems to be a lot of content/maps and it's quite addicting. There are some Animal Crossing and city building elements which are interesting and a larger open world which reminds me of Breath of the Wild a bit. I'm sure if you liked the 3DS game you will like this too.

It's a pretty good puzzle game, but some of the randomness and grinding annoyed me to no end in the endgame. Like you might just want to do one more run before bed, but then you find something you need and the conditions are right, but all it requires is an indeterminate amount of rng until you get what you want. And in other games I would just shut the game down and do it on another day, but this game having no auto saves makes it impossible. Then the game kinda forces you to spend potentially hours (plural) or try to get the conditions right again on a next run. It just felt like the game did not respect my time nearing the end for various reasons.

It was still very good for the first 80 hours or so, but the final 20 hours or so just makes me end on a sour note.

Edit about 60 hours in: Sitting here with goosebumps, this game is absolutely amazing, this honestly might be their best work if things continue on this trajectory. Imagine what a mashup between Danganronpa and Zero Escape would look like and you get this game. It is filled with intrigue and mystery and there's never a dull moment in the story. It always moves in surprising ways, so you'll never get complacent. At the same time, it keeps you on the edge of your seat, eagerly awaiting what unexpected place the story will go next. And while all this is going on you are trying hard to unravel the mysteries in your head before the answers are revealed by the game. Highly recommended.

Original:

Great so far, if I'm being honest the gameplay didn't appeal to me on first glance. Since it's a game by Kodaka (Danganronpa) and Uchikoshi (Ever/AI: The Somnium Files, Zero escape), I got it anyway since I enjoy both of their games.

I was hyped when they announced their new studio Too Kyo Games, but so far it hadn't produced anything that really reached up to the standards of the older games by them that I enjoyed.

This game though, so far is pushing those buttons. I'm not very far in, but the game reminds me so much of Danganronpa, it feels like I'm right back home. I'm interesting to see how Uchikoshi's patented writing will emerge eventually.

The elephant of the room for me was the gameplay, this not being a killing game, Ace Attorney-like detective, but a strategy rpg. I went into the game with the mindset that I might have to trudge through those srpg sections to get to the writing I enjoy, but so far it's agreeing much more with me than I had imagined. The game does still have a lot of writing, so it's not like you are only doing fighting, there often is a lot of talking in between like a visual novel, it's very similar to Danganronpa.

So, I think this might finally become the Magnum Opus I was expecting out of Too Kyo when I heard about the new studio.

There was a moment just now when I realized the events and video galleries didn't contain just 12 on each page, but it could scroll down and it actually contains 80 on each page, which get me hyped with the game actually being much more massive than I had imagined. A quick count got me to roughly 2x as many event scenes as Danganronpa V3 and 4x as many videos.

If you want to see more out of these creatives working together, please support the game so this won't become Too Kyo's last game.

Enjoy it after two hours, I haven't beaten Lingo 1 yet, but this one eases you into it more with the new mechanics. Quite challenging already trying to find where to go next.

After 15 hours, I'm starting to get quite addicted now, just one more puzzle. I feel like I might just be scratching the surface of what this game is.

After 18 hours, slowly going insane.