The Use of Life
The Use of Life is a multi-ending adventure book style RPG.
A Story Influenced by Your Use of Life
In this game, your choices as the player will influence Goshe, the main character, as well as his thoughts and various attachments in life, represented by flames.
Whether Goshe uses his life for his own selfish purposes or sacrifices himself to help others is entirely up to you. The endings of this game are simply the conclusions of the various ways of life, and there are no “Good” or “Bad” endings.
Tense Battles that Balance Stasis and Action
The Use of Life features unique battles that combine the strategy of a turn-based battle system with the quick reflexes and action of a QTE system.
Each turn, both you and your enemy get to choose 3 actions, which you then take turns to perform. How will you deal with the enemy’s upcoming flurry of attacks? How will you time your own attacks to deal the most damage? Your skill and strategy will determine the outcome of battle.
Even if you can’t defeat an enemy, the game is designed so that you will gradually figure out how to deal with them and win. Boss battles are especially tense, where you frequently have to toe the line between life and death, and we strive to deliver the highest satisfaction you can possibly get after defeating a strong enemy.
Adventure Book Style Events
Events in this game are narrated in an adventure book style, and some events come with TRPG-esque dice rolls that determine the event’s outcome.
The same event will play out differently depending on your choices and the dice roll results.
You can choose to proceed cautiously and choose the safest options, or bravely throw yourself into every opportunity for battle you come across—it’s all up to you, and your actions will affect Goshe’s personality.
Customization
Goshe, the main character, obtains incredible power through a certain Curse. Through encounters with death, he can gain experience which can be used to strengthen his own abilities.
Not only will you gain different advantages in battle depending on what abilities you choose to invest in, but the outcome of events outside of battle can also be heavily influenced by your stats.
On top of that, by leveling up and unlocking new levels for the various classes, you can learn a wide variety of Skills and Spells to use in battle.
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・The “Fighter” carves up enemies with pure physical attack power and a high number of moves
・The “Samurai” unleashes unabashed power with Iai and lands fierce critical strikes
・The “Mage” specializes in high-risk, high-reward super-firepower using incantations and Spells
・The “Sorcerer” toys with their opponent by utilizing special attacks, including some that cause status ailments
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A myriad of fighting styles can be utilized depending on the class you choose to upgrade.
A “Good-New” Type of JRPG
While this title is technically a JRPG, we are not aiming for a “good old JRPG” style, but rather a “good ‘new’ JRPG” style, in hopes of showing that this kind of evolution is absolutely possible.
■ Early Access Features
① Play even further through the story than the trial version.
② The Early Access version is for the purpose of making the game more fun to play.
In Early Access, the developer will experiment by implementing elements he would like to try out, and then use the feedback received from users to develop/improve the full version.
③ Players who have purchased the Early Access version will be able to receive and switch to the full version upon completion and release.
④ Since it’s cheaper than the full version, it’s a better deal than purchasing the game after official release!
Game Discussion
Steam User 35
Intriguing story? Interesting world building? Check.
Moral questions, giving the player something to think and debate on, like what's most worth living (or dying) for? Check.
Inspirational? Emotional? Check.
Decent characters? Each with their own story and depth? Check.
Nicely drawn characters? Check.
Incredible music to set the mood? Check.
Also, gameplay, combat that's engaging and encourages both strategizing (at least in most boss fights) as well as good reflexes/timing? Check as well.
And lastly... Indie game made by a passionate person who worked on it, for multiple years of their life? ...Check indeed. Thank you for doing so, it's a great game, great story, I loved it.
...If it wasn't obvious, I most definitely recommend it.
Steam User 13
This game took me by surprise. At first, I wasn't expecting much when I bought it, assuming it would be a cute little game to play for a bit, but then it turned out as a real little gem.
The events while exploring, story and gameplay really keep the game interesting for a long time. Also the story isn't as simple as I thought when starting the game for the first time.
In addition, there are two paths that significantly alter the story and also have different areas. (worth to play through both at least for once)
There is a demo, so give it a try.
Steam User 11
It's simply a great game! It's like a mix of Dark Souls difficult gameplay and dark themes, and a fun and coloured Tabletop RPG with many interesting characters.
Also, the story is way too good! It's a revenge story with multiple endings. Each of them sending the protagonist (Goshe), cursed with a powerful but deadly power, in a different sort of journey. How will he use this power? For revenge? For himself? For the world? Or just to find a way for survival?
The journey you take, the friends you meet and the enemies you make depend exclusively on your choices and each ending has a different map and final boss.
I hope you can enjoy the game as much as I did!
Steam User 9
The game has anenigmatic title that may be hurting it's sales, but trust me, for a small indie RPG, it's well worth the small investment cost.
The game starts off like "Dragon's Dogma, but you're an anthro/furry rabbit", and I'm still only partway through a first play on this game, but that concept alone got me interested.
Not only is the game interesting on the themes of choice, and life and kindness versus cruelty during a personal crisis, the combat is very unique.
You and your opponent take 3 actions per round. Your moves consume resources such as Combat Points for your weapon moves and bolstering your defense options, Magic Points for your spells, Item stock for using your items, obvously.
On each enemy turn, you will have 1 to 4 button prompts to respond to, and your SPD determines how fast the time bar runs, aim for the middle, that sort of thing.
The feeling of a constant back-and-forth in this is really thrilling, and the managing your moves based on resources and cooldowns will feel at home for any rogue-like player or Paper Mario-like fan.
Also, this is a personal note, from an obviously biased furry gamer, kudos on having a rabbit protagonist NOT be helpless. I've seen the movie read the book AND the graphic novel for Watership Down, and I've been waiting YEARs for an RPG where a rabbit playable feels less like the Easter Bunny and more like Bigwig.
"My Chief Rabbit told me to defend this place.
Until he says otherwise, I shall stay right here!"
Steam User 6
10/10
Well written, and engaging pacing throughout. From what it says on the store page, this game delivered on everything promised. It reminds me of the ps1 era of experimental rpgs, with The Use of Life setting new standards for narrative and "active turn-based combat". Not many modern games put the work in to make the story branch appropriately to player agency, let alone offer so many unique chapters and scenes based on your choices. This is a clear example of what rpgs can be.
Steam User 7
So first off and foremost, the game is hard. Like, super hard but not to the point I'd call it unfair. Story's an absolute delight, the art style is *chef kiss* and the replayability is there! I only got one of the endings (so far) but I loved what I got to see enough to say it's well worth the 20 bux you put in for it.
Steam User 10
The Use of Life is the game which reminds you that your choice matters.
Nowadays you rarely can find games that pursuing something outside of changing dialogue line or character's reaction to the options you can chose from, while in the end it all leads to the same result.
This game tries to escape this concept by providing you with variety of choices how to approach most events while using DND style dice roll for skill checks with unique outcomes. No matter if you passed the check or not, game still tries to compensate you in some way so the player doesn't feels like he got completely robbed by RNG.
There also options that are locked behind other stats but I not gonna go into details on how they work to avoid spoiling the big part of the game. Just remember, your choices will be following you till the very end. Yea game has multiple endings and each of them follow their own philosophy with unique outcomes, both narratively and gameplay wise.
Visuals and Music
Game mostly uses approach of visual novels with static images, but quality of those art-pieces and illustrations on really high level. Great variety in characters design too. When it comes to soundtrack there is good mix of classic JRPG music, powerful orchestra and some ambient.
Combat, classes and stats
Might be part of the game that surprised me with how engaging JRPG combat system can be. Instead of being another game where you spam same move over and over for 50 encounters between story segments, this game took a bit different approach of turning every fight into a mix of puzzle, resource managment and deffensive use of QTE.
For each turn, you and your opponent have 3 slots for actions. You put 3 actions in whatever order you think will be most effective in current situation and amount of info you have on opponents attacks. How you get info? There is a stat responsible for revealing some parts of enemy slots, and the higher stat is, the more info you get. It can reveal the name of action, number of attacks, or even direction of these attacks. You can either dodge or block them. To do so you have to hit sliding marker from one corner to another right in the middle of QTE bar. While block requires just timing, some damage still goes through it. Dodges can avoid damage completely, but not only you need to time it right, you also need to hit correct direction. Attacks can be unblockabe, fast, or contain combo of multiple hits that require their own direction for dodge.
Most moves have unique paterns, so you can memorize them and save limited deffensive skill options for unknown or more dangerous attacks, while not forgetting to push your own offense. And you gonna need to learn these paterns, because game isn't shy to challenge player even on normal difficulty. My first playthrough was on hard and it took me 31 hours to beat it. Final boss alone took me about 6 hours of constant memorization of every attack and direction it had, to be able to overcome the challenge.
Game also has some variety in classes which are unique and plays differently. And later into the game you can combine 2 clases into more advanced one with even bigger arsenal that utilizes strength of both.
Verdict
This game will be a great choice for people who either wants to experience a story with actual branching and no split on "good" or "bad" endings. Or people who wants to experience challenging and fresh view on old formula of JRPG games.