Little Hearts

At the current out of the box experience it's hard to recommend Little Hearts unless you really, really want to see what this SRPG Studio game has to offer - I played for the composer's work and the CGs, which were actually not too bad. You have to be prepared for a lot of work arounds if you want to play the localized English version. I personally had to download an earlier version (at time of review) since the 1.4 update doesn't launch with the localization file, and even the earlier version is filled with machine translation "Engrish" and spacing errors that occasionally push dialogue off or cause characters to speak out of order. The ending credits as well broke with this 1.3 version, so I eventually had to switch to playing the original Japanese language. As for the strategy game itself, though it has moments of strategy, it ultimately is more fun as an exercise to break (though Little Hearts is not a game you necessarily play for ball-busting difficulty if you read up). There's not too much characters, but each of them have their niche and personal weapon such that no one is truly bench warming. If you know anything about Fire Emblem warp/rescue shenanigans though, the mid and late game can definitely get really wacky. It's kept in check somewhat by needing the 'focus' status to use the more powerful staves, weapons, and skills; the existence of the Concentrate staff and it's relatively low rank makes like 5 characters prime Concentrate bots to fuel the other Focus hungry units, though. Beating the game gets you a NG+ mode with access to some otherwise unobtainable weapons and items in a chapter select; I can't comment on how much it affects the fun factor. The story, viewed through the "localization", is hard to follow, but you could make the gist of the story beats... It's a fairly standard fantasy plot that would fit at home with an earnest Fire Emblem rom hack. I'm sure there's more comprehensible pronouns that could've made it, at least...

First of all, a disclaimer before I begin the review: Do not mind the 80 hrs on record I have here, the game isn't quite that long, I just left it open sometimes in the background and there is the fact I played it in Japanese as a relative beginner in the language, which made me take longer whenever I got to read the story. Also as aforementioned, I played the game in Japanese so I cannot comment on how good/bad the English translation is, use the free demo and judge for yourself! Gameplay: It is very reminiscent of Fire Emblem in many aspects. -grid based -turn based -overpowered Wyvern Riders -etc. but there are some mechanics that build upon the basic mechanics that this game shares with Fire Emblem, so don't think of it as a simple clone. The most important distinction would be the "Focus" mechanic. Either by using a Focus Ring or the Concentrate Staff you can attain the Focus status which allows you to use weapons that are stronger, but as a tradeoff, require the Focus status. Powerful staves like Warp and Rescue for example require Focus, so do long range magic tomes. Another important point to mention is that weapons and staves do NOT have durability, you can use them endlessly. The only item that gets used up is potions and they are dirt cheap. Chapter 1 starts out very easy if you are used to the genre, but for Chapter 2 onward you can choose the difficulty (Normal if you liked the difficulty of Chapter 1, Hard if you thought it was a bit too easy). I beat the game in Hard and did have its moments towards the end ^^ Last thing to mention, the cast. There aren't too many units and the deployed units are prechosen by the game according to the story. Everyone has personal weapons of varying usefulness, so it's always exciting to get someone new into the army. The Story: It starts our as a relatively generic story. Green-haired Princess has to flee the kingdom, gets saved by a young Mercenary (Path of Radiance? lol) etc. As the game goes on, you get to read more about the backstory of each character in the form of their own retelling of their story to other characters in optional dialogue. I cannot really explain it, but the characters really do feel like their own people. The writing is really good, especially during that one critical moment where Alma realizes something, saying more than that would be spoiling one of the best moments, second to only another scene, so I will abstain from it. So in conclusion: This game is really great, if you like this type of game, play Little Hearts, you will NOT be disappointed!

Poor maps, poor dialogue, generic maps, laughably easy. Most other srpg studio games or even your average FE gba rom hack is considerably better. Its translated into english well enough to understand but otherwise only a level or two above machine translation witch such gems are referring to the princess as a Nobleman. Go play Walk with The Living 1 or 2 or Esperia Scarlet Witch or rom hacks like Dark Lord and the Maiden Of Light instead.