Gem of a game, It has a charming story with a lovable cast of characters with a really fun combat/progression loop. If you enjoy games like FF tactics, fire emblem or darkest dungeon this game is a must play!

I want to like this game, but I don't. I've bounced off a few times.

In the early game, there's not much there in terms of tactics. Battle areas are small and feel cramped. Your mercenaries start with identical equipment; first they have Bad Sword, and eventually upgrade to Bad Sword +1 after you collect enough iron scraps on the adventure maps. Monsters can usually move further than you can, and usually have more range, so there's definitely a feeling of needing to take a few hits in order to end things decisively rather than trying to win through conservative play. It's also very much a turn-based kiting game; creatures can freely engage and disengage (i.e. run past your fighters to kill your mage), so you end up acclimating to this weird pattern of movement where characters are just running around on the basis of who can cast what at what range - there's not much sense of formation.

As I said, I've bounced off this a few times. Combat aside, management feels like an exercise in irritation. I don't like how much money it costs and how many steps are involved in healing my characters and keeping their moods high. I don't like how incredibly slow the natural healing process is, and I don't like that adventurers take a mood hit when they get magically healed - feels like a very weird design decision. Overall, management of the team feels boring and slow - I'm constantly looking at a roster of adventurers that can't do anything because they're either chopping wood, drunk, sad, and hurt.

Therefore, I hire more mercs: now I don't like having to decide whether I should hire the mage with a penalty to wisdom or the fighter who is cowardly and has a penalty to endurance (because that's all that the RNG decided to give me this time.)

So yeah, the gameplay loop is something of a chore for me, but the icing on the cake is the dialog, which is competently written but painfully childish. It feels like bring trapped in a D-list shonen anime. "WaaaaAAAAHHH! Oh no, she's scary when she's angry!" "Why you, I'll show you scary!!!" There are like 15 NPCs in your camp who are all these ridiculous anime caricatures and I effing hate it.

The anime art style itself is not bad, but it's also not good, and it's always sort of in the middle of the screen, like a teenager's art book that you can't look away from.

Overall, this feels like the sort of thing I would have found on Newgrounds ages ago. It's not junk - it really isn't - but I think there's a reason that this game is a niche success rather than a minor mainstream success. And it's not for me.

It's good stuff. The mechanics and writing are a lot deeper than they first appear.