- Genre: RPG
- Spoiler Free Review: Story-wise yes, some aspects of progression and mechanics are kind of spoiled. Picture are not spoiler free.
- Time Played: 24 Hours
- Too Short/Long: It goes on just a little long. It could just be because each battle is pretty methodical, but I felt like the last couple chapters kinda dragged the game out a little bit.
- Soundtrack: Amazing soundtrack. It has some great music for both the rhythm sections, and more dramatic moments. Honestly great soundtrack all around.
- Pleased/Disappointed: Despite what I may say below, I did really enjoy the game.
- Why I played: I wanted to experience some Turned Based Cyberpunk Action, and it looks really cool.
- Did I cry: I did a little bit here and there. Mostly when the music hit at the right moments.
- Jank: HIGH Level of Jank, this game made me consider the fact I needed a jank category. To be fair, after considering some moments in recent games like Prince of Persia and Omochapon as a whole helped lock it in.
- Difficulty: This game also made me consider a difficulty category. I'm sure I'll talk about it later, but it's worth noting how difficult I thought a game was in general. This one, for a turn-based rpg, was pretty difficult.
- Recommend to others: I probably would, but I would have to tell anyone who is interested to make sure you give gifts to people in the early chapters, or otherwise as soon as you can, and also you can buy weapons from some shops, and also maybe be willing to mess with the difficulty settings. Also the game can be janky. Also every chapter is a point of no return so to speak. But I WOULD recommend it.
While I have finished a few games since Tunic, most of them are relatively short, or in the case of Phantom Rose, a game played in many short bursts, off to the side of another activity. I've probably played 30+ more games this month, trying to find something to captivate me. Maybe it's just because I was so engrossed in Tunic while playing that, I just couldn't get into the groove for something else that required any thought on my end.
You could say, this game was the key to unlocking that which was closed off to new games for the past few weeks. Keylocker has a lot of style, a lot of really good art, a unique look, a unique sound, a lot of ways to captivate the senses, and for the most part I'm into it. There are a lot of character designs I really like. There are some that... aren't quite my style, but there is definitely a good variety and because of the world they built, I guess it would be hard to put anything in there and say it doesn't fit.
That said, while I did overall enjoy the story, as it's an important aspect of an RPG, I did find it seemed to be trying just a little too hard to be entirely original as a narrative. It did make pop-culture references, and it also managed to hit a lot of traditional cyberpunk tropes, despite it's otherwise wholly unique world, but I feel like something was lost in trying to make it too unique. Maybe I'm dumb, but things were just hard to follow sometimes.
It doesn't help that I feel like the last two chapters of the game, which are also the shortest, have the biggest sections of exposition and info dumping. And the lore is there for sure, it's just hard to parse after 15-20 hours of being baby fed information about the world. I definitely think it could have done a better job at feeding you the information throughout the game, and maybe then they could have trimmed up the last few chapters and made it all a little bit more coherent.
It doesn't help that I feel like the last two chapters of the game, which are also the shortest, have the biggest sections of exposition and info dumping. And the lore is there for sure, it's just hard to parse after 15-20 hours of being baby fed information about the world. I definitely think it could have done a better job at feeding you the information throughout the game, and maybe then they could have trimmed up the last few chapters and made it all a little bit more coherent.
The main combat system is a pretty unique take on a more tactical combat that I really like. It takes a little bit to get used to the ebb and flow, I didn't entirely understand it most of the first chapter, or atleas the prologue chapter but I eventually caught on and realized what I was supposed to be doing. I also really like the different classes, and if you pick just right, like I just so happened to, you can have coverage of all classes between your three party members. Essentially there are only 4 classes so it's not that hard to do. Only one selection of 6 total you get 0 input on. Technically your second class for characters is like a higher ranked combo class, which is pretty cool, but it basically is the combination of your two picked. For the main character I started with Samurai and then picked Daimyo, which just meant I was a Samurai + Juggernaut. But it's pretty cool they get unique art for their new class.
In regards to not really understanding the combat at first, I wish I could say that was the only thing. Not that I love when a game really holds your hand when it comes to basic mechanics, but Keylocker could have used just a little more handholding, a little more telling you about... things. Like some more sample of why you are supposed to do things in combat, and maybe telling you about the gifting/dating mechanic, or that there are multiple tabs in certain shops. The UI is pretty unconventional, it works for the style of the game, and I don't hate it, but sometimes it's needlessly clunky, or gets in the way of itself. It wasn't til the final chapter of the game I realized I was missing out on something because I looked up if there was multiple endings, and saw that there are, and some will do something different for whoever your relationship is the highest with. Well I guess I had an inkling before hand, because there were a couple sections where someone asked "Is there someone important to you?" But I only had one selection, so I thought that was all I got.
The whole game I could have had tons of people I had relationships with. I had wondered why none of the NPCs I had met ever went into the "Acquaintances" tab, but only found out after loading an early save for testing purposes that they only get entered into that tab of the menu if you give them a gift. Which I never did, so that tab never changed for me. I'm a little salty about it because I don't think the game ever told me about it. I was just supposed to see there was an alternate interaction button, but I was never looking at that part of the screen when I interacted with people. I just used the normal interaction button, not the special different button. Same goes for not seeing the alternate tabs in the shops. Nothing mentions you can flip tabs. I could have accidently flipped it by hitting something in that menu, but that's the only way I would have known, just by pressing random buttons in the shop menu.
Which brings me to another aspect. Despite my complaints, it is impressive that basically two people made the game, don't get me wrong. A few other people contributed but by large and far it seems it was mostly two people. That said, I found it funny that in the credits, there is a "QA Tester" and that QA tester is basically just the main developer of the game. That... is not how it works. You can't QA test your own work. I mean, don't get me wrong, anyone can go over their own work, but saying you were the QA tester would be like saying you graded your own paper in school and gave yourself an A+, or your did your own annual review and gave yourself a 20% raise.
In regards to not really understanding the combat at first, I wish I could say that was the only thing. Not that I love when a game really holds your hand when it comes to basic mechanics, but Keylocker could have used just a little more handholding, a little more telling you about... things. Like some more sample of why you are supposed to do things in combat, and maybe telling you about the gifting/dating mechanic, or that there are multiple tabs in certain shops. The UI is pretty unconventional, it works for the style of the game, and I don't hate it, but sometimes it's needlessly clunky, or gets in the way of itself. It wasn't til the final chapter of the game I realized I was missing out on something because I looked up if there was multiple endings, and saw that there are, and some will do something different for whoever your relationship is the highest with. Well I guess I had an inkling before hand, because there were a couple sections where someone asked "Is there someone important to you?" But I only had one selection, so I thought that was all I got.
The whole game I could have had tons of people I had relationships with. I had wondered why none of the NPCs I had met ever went into the "Acquaintances" tab, but only found out after loading an early save for testing purposes that they only get entered into that tab of the menu if you give them a gift. Which I never did, so that tab never changed for me. I'm a little salty about it because I don't think the game ever told me about it. I was just supposed to see there was an alternate interaction button, but I was never looking at that part of the screen when I interacted with people. I just used the normal interaction button, not the special different button. Same goes for not seeing the alternate tabs in the shops. Nothing mentions you can flip tabs. I could have accidently flipped it by hitting something in that menu, but that's the only way I would have known, just by pressing random buttons in the shop menu.
Which brings me to another aspect. Despite my complaints, it is impressive that basically two people made the game, don't get me wrong. A few other people contributed but by large and far it seems it was mostly two people. That said, I found it funny that in the credits, there is a "QA Tester" and that QA tester is basically just the main developer of the game. That... is not how it works. You can't QA test your own work. I mean, don't get me wrong, anyone can go over their own work, but saying you were the QA tester would be like saying you graded your own paper in school and gave yourself an A+, or your did your own annual review and gave yourself a 20% raise.
I play a bunch of indie games with small teams and a certain amount of jank is to be expected, but I think it's better just to own you didn't have anyone test the game then to say you yourself tested the game. It only riles me up so much because for a game that has so many aspects that are timing based, the game is just so rough around the edges with it. It's not well optimized, which is something becoming all too common, but the game shouldn't be pushing the boundaries of even what the Switch is capable of but it just lags and hitches so much. If there is anything more than a few sprites on screen you get some pretty bad frame rate drops, which is certainly one thing, but the game randomly hiccupping at basically any given time really hurts when everything is timing based. Some of the input challenges outside of combat are really tough. Almost every move in combat requires a timed button press, even defense, and the game doesn't make it easier with it's stuttering.
I also personally think these timed inputs could offer just a little bit more tolerance. I'm not excellent at music games, but I play a lot of them, and usually I can do perfectly on the easiest modes, pretty good on medium difficulties and only struggling with medium-hard stuff. But their Guitar Hero-esque rhythm sections are brutal on the easiest difficulty. Technically I don't know if you can actually fail them, so maybe I'm just expecting to much of both the game and myself, but I felt like I needed to perform at least moderately well before I wanted to let the song play to completion, but it demanded perfection at even the easiest difficulty and for a mix-genre game, I feel like you have to go at least a little easier for any game play that isn't the primary mechanic. I played on the standard difficulty for the rest of the game, but I had to adjust the timing to be slower and even then I struggled. The combat also demands perfection as you are expected to essentially get "perfect" timing most of the time, otherwise your attacks barely do any damage and you're hit for the majority of your health. My weaker character endurance wise - due to his class selections was almost guaranteed to get 1-hit ko'd by anything other than weak minion enemies. The game is not forgiving, and maybe it's worth it to just play on the easy mode to experience it without the frustration. Though, it almost always allows you to immediately retry any challenge of the game, so, it is forgiving in that way, you're never losing and good deal of progress.
Which leads me to another thing I can commend though, it has a save system that basically keeps all your prior save, so no juggling save slots if you're worried about not getting back to a previous one if you need to. Another thing I can commend the game for is it's variety. The standard combat offers a lot of different challenges, and throughout the game, it mixes up who you can use which will determine what abilities you have access to, requiring you to change up your tactics, but there is also the main music-rhythm mini game you play a handful of times, a sort of shmup-like section you do another handful of times that is pretty fun. I like when games hit multiple genres a lot.
I also personally think these timed inputs could offer just a little bit more tolerance. I'm not excellent at music games, but I play a lot of them, and usually I can do perfectly on the easiest modes, pretty good on medium difficulties and only struggling with medium-hard stuff. But their Guitar Hero-esque rhythm sections are brutal on the easiest difficulty. Technically I don't know if you can actually fail them, so maybe I'm just expecting to much of both the game and myself, but I felt like I needed to perform at least moderately well before I wanted to let the song play to completion, but it demanded perfection at even the easiest difficulty and for a mix-genre game, I feel like you have to go at least a little easier for any game play that isn't the primary mechanic. I played on the standard difficulty for the rest of the game, but I had to adjust the timing to be slower and even then I struggled. The combat also demands perfection as you are expected to essentially get "perfect" timing most of the time, otherwise your attacks barely do any damage and you're hit for the majority of your health. My weaker character endurance wise - due to his class selections was almost guaranteed to get 1-hit ko'd by anything other than weak minion enemies. The game is not forgiving, and maybe it's worth it to just play on the easy mode to experience it without the frustration. Though, it almost always allows you to immediately retry any challenge of the game, so, it is forgiving in that way, you're never losing and good deal of progress.
Which leads me to another thing I can commend though, it has a save system that basically keeps all your prior save, so no juggling save slots if you're worried about not getting back to a previous one if you need to. Another thing I can commend the game for is it's variety. The standard combat offers a lot of different challenges, and throughout the game, it mixes up who you can use which will determine what abilities you have access to, requiring you to change up your tactics, but there is also the main music-rhythm mini game you play a handful of times, a sort of shmup-like section you do another handful of times that is pretty fun. I like when games hit multiple genres a lot.
I feel like I had more to say prior to actually getting a moment to sit down and write this post, as I finished it yesterday and was thinking about it a lot today, but I guess I have already said quite a lot. It's mostly complaints, but that's just how I do, because I view things critically and know what could have been better. I did really like it though.
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