Have you ever wondered what Earthbound would have been like if it was designed by Tim Burton after watching an Anime marathon?
Well, wonder no longer, because this game tried to capture just that. Basic plot of the game is that the purposefully personality-less main character Ari gets his shadow possessed by the Demon King Stan, who is stripped of all his powers, and, with you as his bitch, must help him get them back.
You may be asking yourself 'Why, if it sounds so totally awesome, do nerds not fawn over it on every corner of the internet, like they do Earthbound, or Tim Burton?
In this case, there is a single game-ruining silver bullet:
The combat itself is kind of weird to start. The characters can either take turns to attack the enemies, or wait til multiple characters are ready, and attack at the same time, for a damage boost, plus you can mess with the order of the game's combat to get more turns per character per battle.
Now, you may say, 'Why, that doesn't sound completely retarded at all!' But you'd be wrong. Not because the above is a terrible idea, in fact it'd probably be pretty rad if done right.
Some genius decided, that when the main character gets knocked out--Insta Game Over which is a terrible idea that makes no goddamn sense, since you have an item that can cure KO for ANY OTHER CHARACTER in the game, but I guess falling on your shadow kills it or something. I don't know, I'm not the mental giant who made that decision.
Well, then, you might say, I'll just try to keep him from being attacked, and keep him at high health, by making my other characters meatshields. Which might work, if that every boss battle in the game has at least 5 separate enemies who all have a tendancy to attack Ari more than his fair share, causing him to die, and get a game over. Also, he's the only healer the party has for a good chunk of the game, AND he has the best attacks. So, you get a choice between being able to kill the boss, or living.
OK, well, this is annoying, so I'll just grind, right? Wrong again! The exp payouts from enemies decreases as you level up, such that it makes it almost impossible to get more than a level above what you're 'supposed' to be at for that area, or get enough HP or good spells to clean out the rest of the enemies with the boss so they don't decide to gangrape Ari.
One saving grace is that they do at least see fit to give you a warning before each annoyingly unskippable pre-boss cutscene, and as long as you don't leave the dungeon no more enemies should be spawning, which is nice, since you're gonna be loading a lot.
All of this is a complete shame, because, if not for that glaring, soulcrushing flaw, this game would be awesome. The writing is funny, the plot is weird, and the art direction is amazing. Every character is interesting, and every enemy is cracked out and bizarre.
But no. This game was condemned to $20 Wal-Mart game bin distribution, due to one godawful design decision that saps your will to get any further in the game.
So, is this game worth playing? Yes, but just keep in mind, you're gonna be swearing up a storm against bosses, so make sure to save beforehand. --Mac