Recent reviews by Mythily

Whatever happened during development, it is making me really doubt on whether to recommend this game or not.
Content: (Rough guess) 70% visual novel, 30% gameplay.
What's good:
The gameplay excluding some timed/puzzle sections. The combat is a mix of bullet hell and soulslike. It can be challenging at times and changing your "build" can make fights easier - I would say even mandatory in some. Most if not all battles can be skipped if it isn't to your liking, which is good (for the wrong reasons, refer below)
The story and most of the characters. Starts slow, you don't know (much) more than the MC. It is a complex and deep story, nothing is as straightforward as it seems.
Characters have their own personalities, stories and past. There are forgettable characters, but only a few.

Not so good and bad:
Timed puzzles - obnoxious and/or annoying due to certain mechanics: infinite enemy spawning with timed traps while the entire section is timed as well, and a bad camera angle for bullet hell sections (again, timed for whatever reason).
Controls - Some keys can't be changed, like the movement keys. I'm used to ESDF so this is a problem, albeit minor.
The audio or dub (Cantonese and Mandarin). There are far too many lines not dubbed, this includes in the main story. The Japanese dub which came later is more complete for whatever reason but I prefer the original dub.
The subs, the quality plummets the further you go in the story. You can still sort of "guess" what should be there but this lack of effort with a lacking dub is unacceptable.

It is really a shame, a good story with interesting characters, overall good gameplay got ruined by a lacking dub and sub. Since the main focus of this game is the novel part, that's where my focus lies when giving it a rating.

7 - Being generous here because I liked the story a lot and replayed the game once. All the endings (8) can be achieved in one playthrough (good).

Steam still doesn't have a neutral rating. Because I enjoyed the game enough aside from the flaws, I'm thumbing it up.

The main selling point is the story, which is what the game excels at and it does a better job when compared to the series which came later.

Then there is the gameplay. There is a big emphasis on stealth, even more so during encounters with infected. Just going guns blazing will get you killed, patience is key. This is great for someone who likes to recognize patterns, but not for people who want to turn their brains off and kill everything they see.

What I don't get is why did this game need the overused wallhack mechanic? This doesn't add anything to the gameplay, I consider this borderline cheating. You already have an advantage with the 3rd person camera, the wallhack on top was not necessary. Modern gaming at it's finest I guess. The game also gives "hints" far too frequently to the point it is annoying (who tf do they think this game is aimed at? definitely not toddlers). That's another thing you can turn off but it is enabled by default.

The game has a ton of "accessibility" settings, some I don't agree with in any game, but I digress.

Graphics: Good modern graphics. The default film grain is horrible, even to the point of nauseating, I don't know how they thought this was fine. Fortunately you can reduce this in the settings.

I'm summarizing the last part: mechanics and controls. There are unfixed bugs in the game with interactible objects. There is a chance that the game will refuse to do an action which means you have to restart the checkpoint until it works. It can be once or multiple times.
The controls for KBM are very mid. Switching weapons or tools is a nuisance that took a while to get used to.

The review is already longer than I wanted it to be, so I'll end it here. My conclusion is that, like most triple A, this isn't worth the full price. It has too many flaws for that.

Time it took me to complete a full playthrough (base + DLC) on hard: 35 hours.

Barely gets a pass. Kept afloat because I'm a MiA fan and because mods exist. I recommend watching the anime or reading the manga before buying this. If you buy it do it on a big sale.

The worst KBM controls I've seen so far (worse than most JRPG ports I can remember at least) and most of them can't be changed. I had to rebind keys in my keyboard software.

The game is full of bugs that can go in many directions like killing you, being able to ignore physics, getting you stuck somewhere with the only option of reloading a save...

The rest is subjective and again, it gets a pass because I like the MiA universe. Without that, it's probably mid at best. Your time is better spent elsewhere (like watching/reading the anime/manga).

If you do buy the game and want to play it, do some research into modding. It is almost necessary in my opinion.

I got interested in the game because I wanted to see more after watching the anime adaption Zestiria the X (which I recommend watching if you don't want to spend 50 hours on this game. There are major differences though. Both have good and bad parts story/character wise).
So why is this mixed? The character interactions and parts of the story save this tales game from being bad.

The combat is atrocious in all kinds of ways.
The AI is inconsistent and will get mauled by bosses over and over again on higher difficulties.
The bosses themselves leave a lot to be desired. Balance is all over the place.
The ONLY thing I liked about the combat is the way equipment works, I had more enjoyment making good combinations than the combat itself.
Don't buy this for the combat, you'll be disappointed. Definitely the worst combat out of any tales game I've played so far.

This might not be the same for everyone but my experience with this port was bad. Crash fest bad. Don't ALT+TAB this game.
Save before going to another area, the crash demon could be just around the corner when you don't expect it.
Seriously, what's wrong with this port? Most unstable JRPG port I've played so far and I've played plenty.
*rant over*

Use your own judgement whether to buy this game or not. Definitely play Berseria and Vesperia first if you're looking for a tales game.

You'll enjoy it a lot more with friends. None of mine are interested anymore, unfortunately.

And of course mods make the game even better.

It's a good thing this game has great mod support, otherwise I never had 2k hours playtime. That's why it still gets a thumbs up. On the edge of a thumb down:

Can't recommend it for the base game anymore, anyone who played the earlier alpha's will likely agree. The game had it's "golden age", which is now probably gone forever. Devs are indecisive, they change core mechanics every alpha. No wonder this game is still in alpha.
..

There are two reasons why I would go for all achievements in any game.
1. It's (relatively) easy to get all of them, usually need to play once through the entire game.
2. The game has a significant meaning to me. I'll go for it, even if it's painful.

Which one could OMORI be?

Buy the game, you'll see for yourself :)
(Don't focus on getting achievements on your first run)
...
Good thing nobody saw me crying for about 10 minutes, that would've been embarrassing.
This brought back a painful moment of the past I would rather forget.

One ending, I'll always remember. I didn't expect it in a Neptunia game, at all.
Prepare for the feels :P
If you like that ending, I suggest looking at death end request. Has a similar dark setting as this ending does.
Unfortunately, people won't accept dark endings in these kind of games and as a result, the sequel suffered from it.

Other than that, I did enjoy this. Lots of endings.

DLCs:
Additional Content Pack 1 - Worth it, will make one achievement easier. (level cap 99>399)
Additional Content Pack 2 - Depends, if you really want to grind and be OP. (level cap 399>699)
Additional Content Pack 3 - Same as above, but more. (level cap 699>999)
Histy's Rescue Plans - Yes, will reduce grind significantly. Just don't enable Super EXP UP on your first playthrough.
Nepgear's Beam Zapper ZERO - No. Gives you an OP sword straight away. Balance thrown out of the window.
Deluxe Pack - Doesn't affect gameplay. Art book, soundtrack and wallpapers.
Mini/Giant island - Not required. Just get Histy's Rescue Plans instead.
Lily-ad dungeon - Reduces grinding. Recommended if you want all endings, but I did it without this.
Shares quest - Not worth it tbh. ACP 1 while not mentioned is required, because the bosses you have to defeat are just way too strong. Just spam colosseum battles.
I don't have the other DLCs I didn't mention here. It doesn't seem they have a big impact, I guess if you are a Neptunia fan you can get those as well.

Fortunately, all achievements can be obtained without DLCs.

Don't let the negative reviews fool you.

I was sceptical about it first, but I decided to stick with it. That is likely the issue why people give it a negative review. This DLC takes some time to really get going. The time limit might seem annoying/discouraging at first but once you know what to do you can use it to your advantage.

TLDR, don't give up. Stick with it and you'll likely enjoy it nearly as much as the vanilla game. I did.

Not much to say about this, looks good on Firis.
The costumes I like the most is either this or snow bright.

Effect: +50% proficiency

Really helps mitigating the rather annoying process of getting everything to gold/platinum.