Ephemeral Fantasia: Some games just should never have existed.

Mama. I know you wanted a review that you could read through. With no cussing and [CENSORED]. I tried, but I still gotta do this.

I made a commitment to give this game another try. And at least this time, I got past that first stupid mini game (yes, I know it's optional, but it's the principle of the thing. There's principalities in this.)

What I Liked

The game does have some really good music.

I also appreciated that it wasn't afraid to be straight up realistic with the script. Nothing's toned down.

You could tell that the developers were trying to tell a good story.

What I Didn't Like

That rhythm mini game, which is all over the place. Back as a kid I couldn't figure this [CENSORED] out for the [CENSORED] of me. As an adult it finally clicked: these [CENSORED]'s programmed the controls to behave like you're actually working a guitar, holding down frets and picking strings. NOT intuitive when you're dealing with a controller that has absolutely no ergonomics for that kind of thing.

Battles are repeatedly finding you surrounded with the enemy taking turn after turn, yet even at maximum level you're hitting pitiful damage in return. You can use Dirge to convince them to run, but it shouldn't be that like that in the first place.

A lot of running around a poorly designed map.

When you can warp, it warps you to some random place in the map tile, not where your destination is, forcing you to hoof it.

When you do have to hoof it, they made perfect sure that it's not easy to get to the destination despite being on the same tile. Trees, walls and shrubs perfectly blocking your way.

Encounter rate is silly high. Since the battles are garbage it makes it even more annoying here than in Beyond the Beyond.

Character development is severely lacking. As if it mattered here.

Time limits (they're not "hard", but they're still frustrating).

This game is just irredeemable. I made more progress this time around, but it's just not a game worth anyone's time, even if you are a glutton for punishment and a card carrying member of the get rekt crew.