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chuckroIn a change of pace, you are actually playing as the world's guardian/creator deity, who has been trapped in human form by damage to his spirit tree. In a flip from the usual jrpg script, instead of needing to kill god, you need to help god kill a human with a magic sword who's trying to destroy the world.
There are many gimmick bits returning from other Exe-Create games: Magic is linked to three elements, and you need to equip accessories to learn ones other than your own. Weapons randomly include special qualities and you can upgrade / transfer them (and the IAP includes a Barrel Busters game that provides random weapons). There are standard sidequests, and also a number of fairies and maids to recruit for a special town. There are limit breaks and unison attacks.
The characters are standard anime tropes and we end up with “the hero and his harem” as the party. I think a story about a creator god and his sub-deities trying to regain their sealed-off powers to fight an evil-empowered human is totally a workable thing, and I'm perfectly fine with a 3/1 gender ratio in my party. But the fact that two of the three women are constantly shown agonizing about their attraction to the clueless male character (and the third makes it clear she could have him if she ever wanted) detracts from all of that. We could have more real character development; or we could have a better-paced plot; but instead of either we have more scenes of Minerva trying to grapple with her schoolgirl crush on Izayoi.
The story-intense presence of Maidame Curie both breaks the internal structure of the story (when the main plot centers on an internal-universe threat, why keep dragging in random plot points about people from other worlds?) and breaks my immersion into the game, because seriously, what's the obsession with maids? This game is about spirits, which usually manifest as fairies and need to be found and rescued, etc etc. Why did we also need the random maids to show up in every town and be anime caricatures? (The answer is likely that one of the creators has a maid fetish, but I suppose a terrible sense of humor could also be at fault.)
Overall: It really is maddening that EXE-Create manages to do the most fun things with their battle/magic systems (and build on them with each new game), but their characterization tends to be insultingly inane and sexist. I played more than half of this, but lost interest and couldn't get myself to go back.
There are many gimmick bits returning from other Exe-Create games: Magic is linked to three elements, and you need to equip accessories to learn ones other than your own. Weapons randomly include special qualities and you can upgrade / transfer them (and the IAP includes a Barrel Busters game that provides random weapons). There are standard sidequests, and also a number of fairies and maids to recruit for a special town. There are limit breaks and unison attacks.
The characters are standard anime tropes and we end up with “the hero and his harem” as the party. I think a story about a creator god and his sub-deities trying to regain their sealed-off powers to fight an evil-empowered human is totally a workable thing, and I'm perfectly fine with a 3/1 gender ratio in my party. But the fact that two of the three women are constantly shown agonizing about their attraction to the clueless male character (and the third makes it clear she could have him if she ever wanted) detracts from all of that. We could have more real character development; or we could have a better-paced plot; but instead of either we have more scenes of Minerva trying to grapple with her schoolgirl crush on Izayoi.
The story-intense presence of Maidame Curie both breaks the internal structure of the story (when the main plot centers on an internal-universe threat, why keep dragging in random plot points about people from other worlds?) and breaks my immersion into the game, because seriously, what's the obsession with maids? This game is about spirits, which usually manifest as fairies and need to be found and rescued, etc etc. Why did we also need the random maids to show up in every town and be anime caricatures? (The answer is likely that one of the creators has a maid fetish, but I suppose a terrible sense of humor could also be at fault.)
Overall: It really is maddening that EXE-Create manages to do the most fun things with their battle/magic systems (and build on them with each new game), but their characterization tends to be insultingly inane and sexist. I played more than half of this, but lost interest and couldn't get myself to go back.
