Beloved Rapture Steam Charts & Stats

I'm a big fan of RPGs. And the time period that I grew up in was during the Genesis / SNES era. Yes, the plots weren't as detailed or as good as today's stories, they had a certain charm to them with the environments and the way the characters were presented. Some games moved more quickly than others, while others were more methodical and were a slower burn. For the past few years, indie developers have been working hard to recover that 16-32 bit magic. Enter in Beloved Rapture. Beloved Rapture is an old school inspired game that follows Johan as he seeks revenge for his village getting burnt and razed to the ground as well as his mother's murder. It's very reminiscent of narrative heavy narrative games, with games like Lunar being brought up as a point of comparison. And I can kind of see it: It has some very likable characters and the writing, in general, flows in a competent manner. However, the last few hours felt like an exposition dump and parts were rushed through in order to meet a release date. Furthermore, the writing isn't as memorable as Lunar's. Again, it's competent. Gameplay runs on its own version of the ATB -- so turn based combat. It's a very classic style and fits with the retro inspired roots. The first few hours of gameplay are brutal. Thank goodness there's a spot to grind in the beginning or it would be unplayabe: monsters hit hard and take less damage regardless of source. Defending helps as it reduces damage as well as recovers some health. I'm not certain of the math in the game: it takes multiple levels before the enemies start to deal manageable damage as well as to deal with it. The game can't seem to make up its mind if it values physical or magical attacks as the damage rarely different from each other until the end of the game. Gold is also rare, so it's difficult to save up for gear and items as there are very few grinding spots. The game definitely wants the player to experiment with the equipment instead of relying on stronger equipment to work through the story. On the plus side, with each level up characters get 4 stat points to distribute as they wish. The main stat to improve is speed as it is the main way to keep up with monsters and magic to have some sort of magic resistance. I admit it was nice to have some freedom to customize the characters. Graphically, the game is beautiful. It's hard to believe that it was built in an old game maker engine. And back in the day, mentioning anything like that would be an insult to the game and developer. These guys definitely know how to make it sing as all of the sprites are well animated. There are various areas such as the snowy mountains, the beach, and the bustling streets of Alexandria. It's fairly clear what everything is. I did encounter some graphic bugs as transitioning screens late in the game led to Johan's sprite disappearing until i changed directions, as well as some of the boundaries not being well programmed which led to some weird and strangely non-game-breaking situations. I found the music to be rather enjoyable, though nothing really stuck out to me. Beloved Rapture isn't a game I can super easily recommend for everyone. It's definitely geared for adults who grew up on the old gaming classics because the game is rough until the last 2 chapters. Yet it's hard to deny the passion that went into the game. It flows rather quickly once the plot gets moving and kept me engage the bulk of my play time. I can easily imagine their next game being even better than this one. Old school fans should definitely check this game out and see if they jive with it.

If I had no self-control, I would spend all day, every day playing this game

Recommend buying and playing. My earlier review was my own fault, I was using a beta option in the game settings, and was running into issues. Those issues have resolved.

This review will have spoilers for certain plot points in Beloved Rapture, as well as character names. For my general thoughts, I mostly agree with the other positive reviews of the game (great artstyle, solid UI, a few bugs and glitches, but nothing that made me wanna stop playing). I recommend this game to people who like old school RPGs and stories about fantasy, young adults, trauma and gays. Yes, we love the gays. 🥳 I wanna use my review of Beloved Rapture to point out some things that I haven't seen mentioned in (many) other reviews. The combat is definitely fun, using the classic ATB combat system. The problem I experienced is that the characters are very unbalanced. Aiden is by far the strongest character, and that's all mostly because of his very high Speed stat. Speed is very important in the ATB combat system, because it decides how fast a character gets to act. Putting most of your bonus stat points into Speed is pretty much an easy way to win the game, and Aiden exemplifies this the most. The problem is that all other characters pale in comparison to him. Aiden has very even stats across the board, but they're all on the higher end. He's the fastest, the second best mage, yet somehow also has the highest natural HP stat, the second highest MP stat and ALSO has a high Attack stat. This makes sense from a story perspective, but leads to hilariously unbalanced combat. Crysta with her HUGE Magic stat is definitely the second best character, being the only character to be a proper healer, too. Johan is a good physical damage dealer, but his low HP and middling Magic and Defense stat makes him struggle staying alive later in the game. Karuka and Lance suffer from joining late in the game, which gives the player less time to customize their stats. Whenever I had them in my party, I would often just use their 50/50 gambling mechanics to get high damage, or use them as my dedicated item users. As mentioned by others, the writing is competent. I would personally even call it good, despite the rushed ending. The main problem I experienced with the writing is that some plot points either never happen or just get completely shoved to the sideline. Despite being pretty important to the plot through Johan, Zach's character becomes incredibly irrelevant after Chapter 1. As a character he did what he had to do and didn't overstay his welcome, but he was severely underutilized. Even at the end of the game, where it looks like he's gonna step up and be active in the plot again, the game just...forgets about that. This could definitely have to do with the time constraints that led to the aforementioned rushed ending; it's just unfortunate that his character was the one that seemed to suffer the most from that. Besides Zach, the main characters felt fun and real (and angsty, which was intentional according to the dev). I hope the future DLC/story content focuses on Crysta a bit more, though. I kept waiting the entire game for her backstory. We get 1 minute of her talking about her past, only for the game to move immediately on. This seemed intentional, so I hope she gets some future spotlight. My personal biggest gripe with the writing is that not 1, not 2, but 3 grown, adult men wanna make sweet love to this barely 18 year old boy. It's definitely not illegal, and the fantasy world + Johan's maturity alleviate the age gap issues a bit, but it definitely made me feel uncomfortable at some points. Lastly I wanna mention that I did get softlocked at one point. During the final dungeon, you have to collect Golden Keys and Astral Shards to progress through doors. Most of these doors lead to optional goodies and a late-game shop, so it kinda turns into a "choose your goodies" kinda deal. The problem is that I eventually ran out of Astral Shards, while I needed 1 more to progress the plot. I had used all of mine up on the optional goodie doors, expecting that the game would give me enough Astral Shards to actually finish the game. It's possible that I missed an Astral Shard somewhere, but I ran all over the place for 15 minutes trying to find that damn shard, and I never found it, so I had to reset to the last auto-save, which happened right before I entered the dungeon. Unsure if this is an oversight, or if I am just truly, truly blind. 😅 This game is endearing and I still had a fun time playing it, but I did wanna mention my personal gripes that I hope don't rear their heads in the devs' future projects. 😌 Thanks for the overall very fun game, Rapturous Studio!

A beautiful game about love, loss, friendship, and the things our parents do for us or to us. Highly recommend. No glitching problems. Although I wish I would have played on the 'easier' level since the default is fairly hard enough to where you're going to have to use items. The game gets easier once you have more companions, but the first few levels were difficult.

!!Spoilers Below!! Gameplay Pros - The Defend action being very good, with the healing capabilities justifying its usage. Even designed in a way to prevent softlocks in some regard if one were to run out of healing items (or without buying/gathering them). - Allocating stats after every level up. Not exactly as substantial as what weapon upgrades provide, but still a nice addition. - Relicas also being a nice addition that makes the player consider to attack/cast spells, whilst also needing a means to consider MP usage. With Karuka, Power Tonics, Angel Feathers requiring timing when it comes to using them before the usage of certain Relicas. Admittedly I did not use Dragon Scales considering that it's luck based. - There are instances where the player can grind as an option (however in specific points). Currency or EXP. However, despite the option being there, it is a slog to go through. Thankfully, it is not necessary to over-level... gold grinding is pretty nice though for upgrades. - Characters cycling is pretty great. It does however wish there were more instances to where you can form a party... except for Johan and Aiden of course. Gameplay Cons - It tends to crash... quite a few times. With or without the Wait option during battles. - Little means to check the data of enemies in-battle, as a means to plan on-the-fly. Otherwise it is trial-and-error in seeing what works and doesn't work. Sure there is a bestiary, however this only helps on second encounters and not the first. - Archery mini-game is rather finicky to aim, despite the highlighting. As if there can be legitimate grievances with the game and not the player alone. - The map needs a means to mark rather significant places of interest. Such as vendors, the smithy, etc. This is especially the case for Alexandria and how dense it is. Preferably, Alexandria should have its own detailed map. Story Pros - Makes it very clear in the prologue that there are and will be homosexual overtones within the plot. Not being a homophobe or anything, but it openly lets the player know what they're getting into. To where they can choose to continue or not, without having to be betrayed investing too much in the story for something they may not be ready for. - Paced reasonably well. Oscillating between climactic and breather moments. - Johan, Aiden, and Lance having reasonably good character arcs. Karuka's being decent. Crysta's admittedly being the weakest, but by no means bad. - Decent lore within, and not too excessively deep to where it may interfere with the flow of the plot. - Isolde (imo) being the best antagonist in the game in regards to owning up to her atrocities and evil, and relishes in them. Not saying the other antagonists aren't good of course. I think what helps is that with both sides of the conflict, Cretus' actions are for a perceived greater good despite the vile actions yet Isolde is clearly evil and the plot does not try to justify her... also her action against Drago atop the castle balcony was awesome. - Johan's and Aiden's romance isn't too bad at all. Albeit it's missing a few more dialogue moments between them to make it feel very genuine. Albeit, when considering that the game isn't exactly a romance, the love between them and how it grows is serviceable considering the writing genre. It's also pretty cool how you can tell Johan's preferred gender rather subtly, especially when it comes to his thoughts of Zach and his reactions with Aiden. - Beautiful sprite-work. Legit. - Music is pretty great too. Was never sick of listening to the battle theme, which is a triumph. Story Cons - The plot seems to paced in a way where there's an expected sequel... but then plans change or things start to run out of time and it has to wrap up at the end. In other words, the last chapters feels a little rushed. - Johan's flip to the side of the antagonists happens too fast and abrupt, that I wonder if the plot would have benefit with him being a seer to not only understand Cretus through "showing and not telling" of the constant barrage of vengeance from the dead, but also why he'd change sides. If not that, then to see Johan's gradual loss of sanity the longer he's in Astra. - Crysta seems to have a very underdeveloped plot arc. We know of her motivations near the end, however we see very little in the plot relating to her compared to the other playable characters. Even Zach has a more developed arc and he's barely on-screen. - Cannot skip cutscenes. This makes especially worse when the game crashes, especially after a long cutscene. - The dialogue needs to use a little less "..." or ellipses. Would be fine sparingly, but oftentimes it breaks the flow of the dialogue and makes the portrayal seem unnatural. Either way, considering the pros and despite the cons, I enjoyed the game. Definitely flawed, but a decent experience nonetheless.

I really want to say I enjoyed the game. I REALLY want to say that, because when I looked at the reviews and the trailers, people were really putting this game on. I'll start with the things I liked Pros: - OST is fantastic. You guys checked all the boxes when it came to nostalgic JRPG music. - This is a 2-part (Get to that in the Cons), but the combat system is very reminiscent of old school turned-based JRPG - Animation and artwork is so cool! Cons: - I hated that I had to wait for an enemy to finish their attack before I could use the action menu interface for the combat system - This game has so many bugs. There's a common one I see all the time where if you're in sprint mode and you enter a new screen, it looks like you "run in place," but then you spontaneously appear somewhere else on the screen - The game crashes A TON. It crashed so much, I made it habit to save after every single fight, or if I was opening a chest, I would save then there. - The map system is cool, but it's vague. What it doesn't offer is a clear pin-point location. I was walking away/towards destinations that I wanted to go to, but I couldn't tell if I was at the correct spot. Maybe that's a part of the excitement of the game for some folks? For me that didn't work out. I think it's flawed. - Why can't I teleport or jump to other previous locations? If I wanted to backtrack or find a shopkeeper, I want to be able to do that. At one point in the game, I noticed there was a big space of time/questing where you didn't have an opportunity to upgrade your stuff, and at that time of the game, that's ALL I wanted to do. - The ending left me so disappointed and fatigued. I felt like I had played the game for so long, and was left with an underwhelming ending. It did not feel right for it to be closing time, until I saw the credits scene. - I was so far in the game thinking it was going to get good, but it never did and kept fishing for it. When I realized it was never going to get there for me, I just wanted to finish the game and check it off my list. Is the game great? Nah, but if they fixed a few of the UI, bugs, and prevented the game from crashing it would definitely make it decent. Overall I'm going to give this game a thumbs up, because I want the developers to make this game better and I want to see it thrive. 5/10 for the game.