The Use of Life

“Narrative and gameplay are deceptively simple, but have enough depth to last you until you reach all four endings.”

“It was a challenging game and the progression was a delight to explore and tinker with; abilities, stats, and even choices throughout the story can change your character’s gameplay style in a significant way. Every encounter was fresh, fun, and nail-biting.”

“The dodge mechanic is simply amazing and fun to master, making me remember Expedition 33 in a lovely 2D dance of sprites timed to the beat.”

“The OST of this game is amazing; almost every track is great.”

“The variety is alright with a couple of emotional pieces and the battle music is quite pleasant with the fast variation during enemy rage phases not being a mere sped-up remake but a completely different rendition of the same song, giving a sense of urgency.”

“This game is beautiful: the music, the art, the story—it all makes for one of the best RPG experiences I've ever played.”

“The art style is great, very clean and consistent throughout the game.”

“The art style is lovely and fits amazingly with everything, overall 9/10 definitely check it out.”

“The artwork, especially character sprites, are amazing, even if a bit inconsistent in art style sometimes (for example, Goshe vs Misha differences in appearance despite being the same species).”

“The game has multiple character classes with combinations allowing for multiple advanced character classes alongside multiple endings for good replay value.”

“The combat gameplay and RPG elements have strong appeal and replayability; the combat is incredibly satisfying and makes you feel powerful yet not unstoppable. Difficulty settings have a good slide between challenge and accessibility.”

“Each of the two main routes also has some smaller characters throughout chapters with some continuity that gives you some unique insight and replayability.”

“This game made me cry and any game that makes me cry I list extremely highly since in order to make someone cry through writing alone that is a feat in of itself.”

“The cast is well written, and it's hard not to get attached to your companions, leading to some very heartfelt conclusions (from tearjerking to shocking to wholesome and then some).”

“A really good choose your own adventure sort of game where choices really feel like they matter through the whole game, and actually made me cry a few times (just got my first ending on writing this, may go back to get others to read what the dev has to say) - the only drawback is it is not a forgiving or easy game, you will need to be on your toes with the arrow defenses or the enemies will beat you up easily (but if you just want to do story, that's what easy mode is for, yet even that can be challenging, just keep that in mind).”

“I like the character designs; they are different from most games I play, and the design direction actually impacts the game because the characters constantly refer to the different races and how they impact the world they are in.”

“Great story and character development.”

“Story has promise as well; character development seemed to be at the forefront of the developers' minds.”

“It isn't afraid to bring some levity in, or to bring some cuteness to this journey of horrific revenge, and skillfully uses the humor so you're never in too dark a place.”

“Still, I think it's really funny I watched my boyfriend try to do the extreme hoard fight in chapter 1, over and over, use up all his retry chances, and then be sent to the start of the chapter... maybe it ain't so bad of a mechanic after all... (but yeah, generally, I think most reasonable people won't have an issue with it, given how many retries you get, plus it resetting with each chapter's short rest, plus getting 10 on each chapter boss, I just find it odd it's even there in the first place).”

“And the game over transition screen is extremely unintentionally funny with how low-budget it looks.”