Okay, so I played this game over the weekend and now Iām gonna write a review of it and you canāt stop me. (Screenshots taken from their store page. Thanks to @katie-foxtail for reminding me this exists. I may add my own screenshots later when I have the time. Edit: I did.)
HEARTBEAT is a game with seemingly heavy Touhou influences that Iām like 95% sure was made by you Tumblrites out there. Like, the artstyle and dialog writing strongly reminds me of a certain someone whose works Iāve enjoyed in the past. I... I guess I could just cross-reference the names in the credits, but itās hard for me to keep track of peopleās names here so I donāt know whatās what.
Also they literally have a tumblr I guess.
Basically itās about a world where humans and all kinds of mythological creatures (known as Mogwai for whatever reason) live side by side, which has caused a lot of people to compare it to Pokemon. And to be fair, visually it owes a lot to Pokemon, and thereās an emphasis on humans in a modern-ish setting emotionally and spiritually bonding with their favorite Mogwai. However, unlike Pokemon, all the Mogwai can talk, and most can assume a human form, so you could also say that humans and mythological creatures living side-by-side is more Touhou than Pokemon. The Mogwai are people, not just beloved pets.
Anyway, itās a JRPG where most of your party are anthropomorphic monsters like Minotaurs or Cat Sith. Also everyone is a girl. Like, everyone in your party and also 90% of the important NPCs. Not in like a fanservice-y way, but itās just a casually female game. This is Touhou influence #2. I suppose itās also worth noting that a lot of the designs are rather androgynous: the artist clearly didnāt feel a need to make everyone āgirlyā just because theyāre women.
Also, and this is not at all a bad thing, this game is really really gay. Like, super gay. Again, in a casual, PG way.
I guess I should mention the plot and stuff. You play as Eve, a humanĀ āConjurerā who was born with the ability to form pacts with Mogwai, specifically her childhood friend Klein, the Cat Sith (Klein is a girl; always remember that everyone is a girl). Conjurers are a little rare but not unusual, and Eve is basically just an ordinary 20-something working part-time in her grandfatherās grocery store. The game starts with her being sent out on an errand, and ends with her fighting to save the world. You know, normal JRPG stuff. Itās like 15 hours to reach the ending, give or take.
What I will say though is that the atmosphere is deceptively idyllic. It feels extremely Pokemon at first, with everyone constantly talking about how cute the monsters are. And it feels like nothing could ever go wrong in this world, other than perhaps comical Team Rocket escapades. But as you get further in the game, you start to see more and more tensions rising to the surface, and the world isnāt quite as idyllic as you might have thought. I found that interesting.
In terms of just the writing though, the dialog and descriptions are consistently silly and whimsical. Good stuff. However, I note with some disappointment that after the initial demo a lot of the more outlandish dialog has been edited down to be comprehensible, which is a great loss. Still, thereās a great use of character voice all throughout, and I especially loved how they handled some the text messages characters will send you.
Mechanically itās closer to your standard turn-based JRPG than it is to Pokemon. Youāve got a party of four people at a time, and you take turns beating each other up in AGI order. Thereās, like, a super move meter but overall everything is kept pretty simple. Buffs and debuffs are extremely important, and the game will probably smash you if you donāt use them. On hard mode I had a difficult time beating the very first random encounter, and I ended up switching it down to normal after the 2nd boss. So... itās a game that can kick your teeth in, but thatās not a bad thing. It just means you need to pay attention to what youāre doing.
Random battles can get irritating, but it uses one of those relative EXP gain systems where you level up incredibly fast if youāre below the expected level, and incredibly slowly if youāre above, so you wonāt fall behind by skipping battles.
One thing I found interesting is that your party is constantly changing due to the plot, somewhat like FF4 or Grandia. Rather than gathering a huge group of people who you can switch between freely, you always have a four person party composed of whoever happens to be traveling with you at the moment. I like that, as it means youāre forced to use everyone, rather than just sticking to the ones youāve decided are theĀ ābestā by whatever metric youāre using. In particular, since each character has an innate element that they canāt change, youāre often forced to fight at an elemental disadvantage (thatās a good thing in my twisted mind). However, it also creates an annoyance because each character has their own field ability for solving puzzles (cutting down plants or seeing hidden paths, for example), and if youāre too eager to advance the plot you can lose them and miss out on optional sidequests.
Music is good. Each character has their own boss theme (Touhou strikes again!) and in general the boss themes got me pumped up. None of them are stuck in my head though. Itās hard for me to comment on music in any more detail than that, but I certainly didnāt want to replace it with something else. Thereās an amusingly musical tone to the error beeps when you try to do something you canāt do.
Overall, game is good. I like games, and I especially like it when Touhou fans move from creating fanworks to creating their own original stuff. I mean, technically I donāt know if the creators of this game were Touhou fans (that would require, like, research), but I believe in my heart that they are. Itās cool and I want to support them. HEARTBEAT is supposed to be out on Steam eventually, but you can also buy it now from the store page I linked at the top.
Some of myĀ friends are working on a really fun RPG calledĀ āHeartbeat!ā and the character designs are stellar. Plus its pretty fun! I had to do a 3D sprite of this guy.Ā
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The den while pretty and full of lovable characters is also dangerous that includes, but not limited to: Gigantic Cerberus's guarding gates, Mogs that attack...
Several hours late but its finally out, episode 23 of HEARTBEAT
Things are coming a head and we make our final preparations to enter the Den, let's do this. š¬Social Mediaš¬ š¦Twitter: https://twitter.com/DoctorDewott š”Twitc...
Iāll try to post video releases here see how many more people I can reach.
Finally after all this time we prepare to enter The Den, but not without a little fight to even things out.
