I tried the first one a few years back and it seemed right up my alley as far as art style and gameplay but I gave up after finding my fourth character because all four of them had personalities and dialogue that were grating on me. I like jrpgs and I can’t remember another one I bailed on explicitly because I found the dialogue annoying.
When I looked through reviews they seemed mostly positive, and even for the critical reviews that did share my complaint it was mostly an afterthought to other concerns that were not a big deal to me personally. If anyone felt similarly and also tried out the sequel I’d really like to know if it’s any better in that regard because I really wanted to like the first one.
No, I feel you. I did finish the game and enjoyed it overall, but the dialogue and writing was jarring. I’m not sure what exactly it was, but I was particularly annoyed by the characters being such clichés and the dialogue in the cutscenes being soooo slow (overused animations, dramatic pauses in every sentence, …).
Being clichés was exactly it, I would find all of the other things perfectly tolerable if the characters had depth. I think three of the four introductions I saw just felt like “this character has actual values that you, the player, will totally align with” but completely hamfisted. If the protagonists are going to be the good guys then a story making that clear should be enough, rather than having “being the good guy” be an entire personality at the very start. (The exception to that came across as a generic oonga boonga beast woman, so having her dialogue be the least taxing for me to read was not exactly reason for optimism.)
I expected they’re all going to be given more depth as the story advances but I didn’t feel excited to wait around to see if that makes them less annoying, especially with four more intro stories remaining.
If you’ve played the second game I would like an opinion on if that one has a better cast.
I have not played 2 yet but plan to when I can catch a decent sale. From what I read, the writing is better and there also seem to be some QoL features might help with the pacing of the dialogue and cutscenes.
I tried the first one a few years back and it seemed right up my alley as far as art style and gameplay but I gave up after finding my fourth character because all four of them had personalities and dialogue that were grating on me. I like jrpgs and I can’t remember another one I bailed on explicitly because I found the dialogue annoying.
When I looked through reviews they seemed mostly positive, and even for the critical reviews that did share my complaint it was mostly an afterthought to other concerns that were not a big deal to me personally. If anyone felt similarly and also tried out the sequel I’d really like to know if it’s any better in that regard because I really wanted to like the first one.
No, I feel you. I did finish the game and enjoyed it overall, but the dialogue and writing was jarring. I’m not sure what exactly it was, but I was particularly annoyed by the characters being such clichés and the dialogue in the cutscenes being soooo slow (overused animations, dramatic pauses in every sentence, …).
Being clichés was exactly it, I would find all of the other things perfectly tolerable if the characters had depth. I think three of the four introductions I saw just felt like “this character has actual values that you, the player, will totally align with” but completely hamfisted. If the protagonists are going to be the good guys then a story making that clear should be enough, rather than having “being the good guy” be an entire personality at the very start. (The exception to that came across as a generic oonga boonga beast woman, so having her dialogue be the least taxing for me to read was not exactly reason for optimism.)
I expected they’re all going to be given more depth as the story advances but I didn’t feel excited to wait around to see if that makes them less annoying, especially with four more intro stories remaining.
If you’ve played the second game I would like an opinion on if that one has a better cast.
I have not played 2 yet but plan to when I can catch a decent sale. From what I read, the writing is better and there also seem to be some QoL features might help with the pacing of the dialogue and cutscenes.