I like to point out this is probably one of my favorite games, but really fuck dragons.
Its from the same creators as Odin Sphere, Vanilla Ware. So you can expect the same shitty English voices and beautiful graphics. Luckily this game also lets you change voices. It doesn't make it any better but at least you don't have to understand the squeaking of the characters. Anyways the story is about a girl called Lillet Blan (everyone is named after wines) who goes to a magic tower school to learn magic. Its fairly lighthearted and the characters grow on you as you try and solve the mystery.
As you first enter the school you get acquainted to some characters. You start learning magic and the headmaster Gammel Dore, teaches you Glamour, magic of natural order. Fairies and life. You get thrown into combat and stuff. Get to that later as that's where the main gripes of this game comes from. You eventually move on and start getting to know the Necromancy professor. While talking to her, the two of you notice the Sorcery professor, a devil, sneaking around the room. After learning a bit of Necromancy from her later that night you realize the soul container of the archmage of the tower was stolen from the Necromancy professor's room and she was killed. The archmage was released and killed everyone in the tower. But before you were killed, when the bell rang on the 5th day you were sent back in time to the first day. Oh shit.
Oh shit indeed. Now you run off to Gammel Dore and he listens to your story, but the Sorcery professor dismisses all the accusations and he tests you to see if he believes your story. When you were transported back in time, you managed to keep everything you learned and held onto all the grimoires you accquired. After passing his test, he lets a remark slip about "how the archmage's apprentice the Alchemy professor feels about him being locked up in a soul container." So now you have a new suspect. You go talk to him and learn about the archmage who tells you about the archmage making a deal with the devil Grimlet and had to be sealed. While Gammel Dore and the Necromancy professor try to seal the archmage, they failed and was killed. The devil grimlet appeared and took the archmage's soul and killed everyone in the tower. The Sorcery professor saves you and keeps you alive long enough until the bell of the 5th night and once again you get transported back.
Now you have to keep figuring out what happened, who is the real enemy, why time keeps going back, etc. There are a lot of twists and turns and the story is very enjoyable. The conversations usually involve huge pictures of the characters talking amongst each other on the screen. The character designs are amazing. Here's a short list of the characters you'll meet.
Lillet Blan - That's you! You're the main character and you are out to solve the mystery of the tower. You are named after the french wine, Lillet Blanc.
Margarita Surprise - Shes your first friend, and one that eventually betrays you in one of the many time loops. She was rescued by Chartreuse and brought to the tower. She's named after the cocktail, Margarita.
Bartido Ballentyne - An Alchemy student learning after Chartreuse. He's not very important to the story but Lillet sorta has a crush on him at first but loses it pretty quickly. He is named after the whisky, Ballentine's.
Hiram Menthe - He is a Necromancy student and friends with Bartido. He's not very important to the story but he's a goody-two-shoes that keeps running off to tell the professors when you do something secretive in one of the time loops and you have to keep kicking his butt over and over.
He is named after the french wine, Hiram Walker.
Amoretta Virgine - She's one of those dead sounding chicks in every game. She's supposedly the "niece" of Advocat, and when you first meet her, shes being molested by him and you save her. She goes "Thank you, I really hate it when he does that." THE FUCK? Anyways its only mentioned once that shes his niece but shes not. She's actually a homunculus with the soul of an angel created by Chartreuse. Her existing tempts every devil in the tower. In the game you develop a lesbian relationship with her. She's named after Amaretto.
Gammel Dore - Headmaster and Galmour professor. He was the one who sealed the archmage Calvaros and the devil Grimlet inside the tower. He dies in almost every time loop and is a pretty shitty magician despite all his achievements in the past. Aging sucks I guess. He's named after Gammel Dansk.
Opalneria Rain - Necromancy professor. She is the keeper of Calvaros' soul container. She has a one sided love for Chartreuse. She is named after Opal Nera.
Advocat - Sorcery professor. He is a devil summoned by Gammel Dore. Even though he acts like a good guy, he doesn't actively help people which he claims because he is a devil. He is named after Advocaat.
Chartreuse Grande - Alchemy Professor. Nothing much about him. He is named after Chartreuse.
Calvaros - The archmage sealed in the tower. Named after Calvados.
Whew glad to get all that out. So yes most characters are pretty important as you find out about stuff. Sometimes you think you're doing alright in your time loop then all of a sudden someone dies and something gets mixed up. So you try again. But each time you go back you learn a little more and get a few grimoires. But because you managed to keep the grimoires other characters who needed it to do things in the previous time loops couldn't and thus changes your future time loops forever. Its fun and interesting to play.
And now we get to the biggest flaw in the game. Combat. The game has a lot of potential, but pretty much failed hardcore. Its an RTS game, you mine mana crystals to summon runes and familiars from your grimoires. As you learn more grimoires you learn more familiars and more power ups. Each school of magic counters one school and is weak to another. So its like rock paper scissors, except for dragons which is like a gun.
Glamour is natural order and life. Its probably the weakest of the four schools of magic. Your workers are elves which can heal. Fairies costs a lot of mana compared to how easily they die. They are ranged and flying but they travel so slow that you can't really run and shoot and they end up dying all the time. Unicorns are fairly good tanks but their mana cost is so high that you're better off getting something like demons which is nearly the same price but twice as powerful. The super unit is the Morning Star. Its fairy cheap and it a flying unit. Its an astral which means most units can't hit them and when they do they do reduced damage. This is strongest astral unit in the game with a huge aoe splash attack. But everytime they attack they need to create stars. Each star costs 10 mana so the price for this unit quickly becomes expensive. They're like reavers in SC. The advantage of Glamour is all their units can hit astrals and they don't do any reduced damage to them. Glamour is strong against Necromancy because it is life.
Necromancy are all spirits and undead. Almost every unit are astrals. Its as weak as Glamour but has the advantage of being astral and having a few strong units. They have the cheapest workers and they are able to fly so mining crystals for them is easier. Their starting unit are the phantoms. They are sword wielding spirits that have a decent attack and defense. These can mow down masses of enemies if they can't hit astrals. But if they can these drop like flies. They're kinda like dark templars of SC. Their mid tier is skull mages. They can only hit astrals and they hit like a truck. But they can only hit astrals so they're useless the this game. The super unit is Charon, a unit transporter that flies very fast. Necromancy sucks. Necromancy is good against Sorcery because they don't have flesh and temptations for the devils to pick on.
Sorcery is devils and demons. This is the best school of magic. Imps are your workers. They are able to fight and they're cheap to make. They are like ghouls of WC3. The first tier of units are demons. These are probably the strongest non super unit in the game. They have high defense high attack high movement speed. They can fight claw to claw against most super units in the game and they're not that expensive to make at all. The next tier up is Grimalkins. They are cat familiars that casts sleep and mana burn. They don't have any attacks but sleep can take out most super units in one click. When slept they cannot act for about 30 seconds and can still take damage until they die. Mana burn would almost instantly kill any caster in a single click. A very powerful unit. Then the super unit. Dragons. These don't cost a lot about the price of two and a half demons, but can take on about 6-7 demons at a time. They have a huge aoe breath attack that does damage all around them. Anything caught in the aoe would die almost instantly. They have the highest hp, defense, attack. Sorcery is good against Alchemy for reasons I cannot remember.
Alchemy are homunculus and unnatural order. Alchemy is fairly weak but they are very annoying. Their workers are blobs that can cast a stacking slow. The first tier are homunculus which has two skills. Flare which allows all physical attacks to hit astrals in the area for the duration. The second skill is psychic storm. This is like Psionic wave from SC, except there are no friendly fire and more than one storm stacks. There was a dragon coming at me and I was alchemy with no units. So I tried my luck and sent about 5 homunculus and spammed psychic storm on the dragon. It was dead in literally 3 seconds. Luckily the NPC doesn't abuse this. Golem is the next tier up. Its slow it has a long range that out ranges towers. It sucks. Chimera is their super unit. Its almost exactly like the dragon. Same price but lower damage defense and health. It also loses health every second when its summoned until it dies. It sucks compared to the dragon. Alchemy is good against Glamour because it is unnatural order.
It looks good and has high potential but the problem is, that you can make dragons as your first unit, send them in and wipe out the enemy. A dragon is unkillable. And sending 2-3 means you beat the level. Why would you want to make anything else but dragons? As long as you have a few homunculus casting flare they can take on astrals no problem. Sometimes for the hell of it I don't use any super units and I have to spend 3x as long to beat a level. Each level is exactly the same. I know I complained about Odin Sphere being repetitive, but this literally is the same every battle. There is only one map in the game. You will fight on that map for many many times. Each time you fight you will start off with 1 mana crystal mine and 1 rune. The enemy has runes scattered all over the map and the don't need to mine mana to summon units. Units appear in 3 ways. First way is over time they will come and attack you. Second way is when you attack one of their runes a wave of enemies will appear if you don't kill that wave they will attack your base. The last way is when you are attacking their rune, they will attack your base. So, if you attack right when they are attacking and your attack fails you will get 3 waves of enemies and lose the game.
But that won't happen because dragons don't die. Here's the strategy for almost every game. As soon as the game starts you'll usually have couple hundred if not thousand mana to start off. A dragon spawn rune costs 200 to make 100 to upgrade and a dragon costs 500. As soon as the game starts summon a rune summon a dragon and send it out to attack. As your dragon is heading off use the mana you mined to summon a second dragon. By the time your dragon is tearing up their base your second one will spawn and wipe out the wave that attacks your base. Then you send that one out and summon another. By the time you have your third dragon you should have taken out most of their runes. Just keep repeating that and the game is over. Just watch out for Grimalkins sleeping your dragon. They usually can't kill it within 30 seconds but just in case your dragon might die.
Its a good game, but the combat portion of it is completely horrible. It has a lot of potential to be good, but instead it just uses the same boring battle every time as a filler between events. If the combat can be tied into the events like Odin Sphere then it would be a good game. Look at SC. All the combat has something to do with the events. Why can't this game do it as well? Its not like its too much work. Look how small and short the game is. You can probably finish this in a few days, and most people can finish within a week. My play through took about 8 hours total.Overall, story is good, combat sucks. If you can overlook the shitty combat the game itself is very fun. Too short though but the characters really grow on you.
