Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan

Underrated. I like this more than every Paper Mario game, except maybe Thousand Year Door. It's so refreshing to play a turn-based RPG with no repetitive battles and something other than HP. Every combat encounter is wholly unique and I wish more RPGs did this. Well done, ManaVoid!

An interesting turn-based game with a story around exploring your own emotions and emotions of others. It gets a bit twee at times, but that's to be expected of a game with an art style like that. The thing that made me interested was the combat system - yes, it's quite simple, but the fact that no fight (or confrontation, as the game calls it) is a filler trash fight is quite commendable. Every fight in the game is against a predetermined opponent with dialogue you have to navigate and think about if you want to "help them" by winning the fight. And not only that, but almost every fight brings in some sort of twist on the base combat formula, adding one-off mechanics never seen again in the entirety of the game. It's clever and it kept me entertained enough to continue interacting with the combat system that is basically 'put square peg into a square hole'.

Good early on but the amount of friends with each one being a fight filled with boring minigames just got to be too much, it would be a way better game with combat removed entirely.