99 Spirits Reviews

I... Love... This... Game! This is so cool. It's a wonderful combination of a RPG and a Visual Novel, that has you play a female role and save her home. I have yet to finish it, which demonstrates the complexity of the plot and how long it is. As I've mentioned in a previous review, I love RPGs that get me hooked on the story and VNs with more than one ending. This game has BOTH. Not only does it have both, it has side quests left, right and centre. Not only that, it has tons of achievements, some to do with the story, some not and an achievement for finding all of the endings. My only gripe with this game, is the grinding. Which is what's currently holding me up in the game play.

[b]To start with, this game is NOT FOR EVERYONE, far from it. You SHOULD try out the demo before buying it.[/b] The game is about a swords(wo)man, Hanabusa, who fights evil spirits on her journey to restore a blade that is imbues with powers from differents gods and ultimately find out the source for the mass of spirits that have been rampaging lately. How the fighting happens is quite a different aproach from what you'd expect and also is the catch of the game. When you fight the spirits, you will find out that they are practically invincible to your attacks, by attacking you'll gather energy that you can use to not actually damage the spirits, but to gather information about the spirit you are facing. What do you do with the information then? You'll have to find out the spirits actual form in order to be able to defeat it. Sounds crazy all right. When you enter combat you will have no idea what you are facing, apart from the knowledge of "this zone has these and those", you start off with a round of attacks, hopefully filling up your energy (or gem as the game calls them), when it's filled, you then spend it to gather info, the information gained will be hints about what the actual form of the spirit is, when you think you have enought information you can try to name the spirit, thus revealing the true form, and only then your attacks will start hurting the spirit. Naturally, you can skip the information gathering and just throw guesses, usually the spirits do a rather mean counter attack if you try to call them out and are wrong. All this is done with simple controls, you either atttack, or defend, both gather energy for their respective gems, during the action round, you'll have the chance to deflect attacks from the monster and counter attack, in a reaction game fashion. It gets repetive, fast, no doubt about that, but the challenge and fun is the little guessing game you have to do with the spirits. Eventually that will get to you too, and you wish it would be easier and faster, well luck is with you! Not too far into the game you actually will be able to start boosting numerous aspects of the fights, making them a ton smoother at which point the game really starts to slowly turn towards a more story telling type of a game with some action as the side dish. Thanks to the cast of quite charming characters, it's not a bad thing at all. Really, play the demo if you are curious, some will hate it, some will love it. I personally find it quite an entertaining experience. Oh and remember to save often if you end up getting the game, I've had a couple crashes when facing certain spirits and there are no autosaves. Pros +Loveable characters +Story +Soundtrack +Guessing the spirits can prove to be great fun for some +Original audio Cons -Repetive gameplay -Soundtrack (too much is too much, no matter if you like the music or not) -English audio made me want to tear my ears off -No autosaves of anykind.

If you're looking for an RPG with a nice visual style and combat designed to keep you in focus then this game may be your ticket. It has a visually appealing style and interesting set of mechanics in combat that help keep you going and the story is fairly interesting with plenty of stuff on the side. Also there is a lot of content outside the main story (blocked areas, scavenging and you can gamble for moniez) Would recommend for an RPG nut or someone who knows Japanese because the game has 2 versions (one English version and the original full Japanese version)

Definitely a neat experience, the process of identifying spirits is interesting but winds up becoming simple, could do for a little more variety. Combat starts off simple but later the game adds a monster collecting aspect to increase the complexity. Overall a good game.

Underated gem. People complain about the battles being repetitive, as if all J-RPG weren't like that... Good story, fun characters, cool mix of turn-based battles, timed block and word guessing, and an awesome boss theme.

I'm a sucker for anything set in the Heian period and it had MYTHOLOGY in it so of course I had to buy it. The story and writing is....fine? I genuinely fell in love with the characters and the cute lil' monsters. Gameplay-wise, the difficulty spike during the last few chapters was surprising but possibly not going to be a big issue for the grinders out there. Didn't finish it because the combat system felt less and less engaging as I went on. I think it had something to do with the same-y monsters toward the ending

Lovely artwork, great music, unfortunately gameplay gets monotonous real quick. Decent bang for the buck if you can get it for cheap, though.

Oh, wow, what can I say about this game that has not already been said? The story, the music, the artwork, the combat system combining puzzle solving elements as well as quick reaction timing... I don't know where to start! The story is much deeper than it first appears on the surface, the characters are all pretty cool--from the Gokon sword weilding heroine Hanabusa, to her foxy companion Komiya and all the gods in between. The artwork is very simple but surprisingly detailed, much like the paintings created in Japan's past--not quite as epic as Okami's art, but not bad for a still picture RPG! I love the music, though it may get repetitive for some people, as it tends to loop quite often--especially in the longer battles. The combat is just as I described it: puzzle solving combined with split second reactions of the player to beat the living tar out of TONS of demon beasties called Tsukumogami and the forces of darkness. The mythology of ancient Japan, artwork harkening back to the paintings of the time, a really neat combat system equals--to me--a pretty cool game! Give it a try! One note: SAVE OFTEN! Sometimes, the game crashes in battle, completely freezing up for... I dunno, some reason I don't know of. Usually I can get it functioning by leaving it running for 10-15 minutes and not touching it, but sometimes a restart is necessary.

A very charming game that decides on a theme and runs with it. The focus is on the "tsukumogami" (a type of yōkai that possesses a specific object) and the main story involves finding a way to stop the chaos they create, primarily by visiting a number of ancient gods. The game really goes all-in on the "traditional Japanese" aesthetic, which is reinforced with the focus on different types of yōkai, shrine gods, and (in the original) the gameplay focus on Japanese writing. This incredibly focused aesthetic adds a lot of charm to the game!! Most importantly, it's a faithful localization that doesn't try to downplay any of this intentional theming. Gameplay mainly involves RPG-like combat where you must decipher the possessed object through hints before you are able to attack. After the deciphering, the combat portion is fairly plain other than timing your parries and using a tsukumogami power or two. Outside of combat, gameplay involves simply walking around interacting with things, while occasionally using tsukumogami powers to clear obstacles. The overall gameplay is fairly simple all things considered, but I feel it is nice enough, since the real weight of this game is mainly carried by its atmosphere, characters, and environment. (Note: As someone who only played in Casual Mode, I can say the game really benefitted from the addition of that mode and how it provides a much smoother experience. It really helps the focus of the game stay on the story and world as opposed to having potentially tedious gameplay elements distract from it. The story is really able to shine now and so I would recommend Casual Mode as the default gameplay experience.) The overall tone of the story has a very serious dramatic feel, which is always cool. In addition, there are a lot of moments in-between the crucial story beats for the characters to mess around and have some silly interactions. You can tell the one who made the game had a lot of fun designing and developing all the different characters you can encounter, as they all have a lot of personality to them despite the relative brevity of these silly in-betweens. I guess it only makes sense that the game eventually got visual novel DLCs that focus more on playing around with the characters outside of the context of a serious plot (something I always enjoy seeing creators do). In essence, while the game is not perfect, you can tell there was a lot of heart and a lot of thought put into creating this world, which contributes to making it an special and enjoyable experience.

Sound and visuals are good, the story is great The gameplay, however, is special. With a semi-turn based puzzle combat system featuring rpg elements, this makes a really good game. Minor bugs and the required knowledge of English and some eastern culture may keep a lot of people from enjoying it, though. 6/10