Absinthia

I was hesitant to buy this game, but so glad I did. It became one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. The story took me by surprise, given its unexpected twists and turns. The humor was on point with all characters being likable. Absinthia is such a hidden gem so it saddens me it's not as popular as it could be. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Absinthia is a game that is difficult to recommend simply because of how odd it can be. To start with, this RPG doesn't tell a massive story but a much more personal one. The story is largely about Freya, one of your party members, and Lilith, a woman who is out to destroy lives for whatever reason. Lilith is constantly attacking a single town, Katti Town, and largely ignores the rest of the world. Freya is training three children of Katti Town to help defend it. Sera, the knight's apprentice, Jake, the thief, and Thomas, the wizard. These three make up your party for the majority of the game, playing as Sera.

First up, the combat. The combat is unique in that the entire thing is a balancing act. You can attack, use skills, use items, and flee in most battles, with every character having a sort of 'defend' action in their skills menu. This skill will typically give some sort of self-buff for a few turns and regenerate MP. Every character has the same maximum MP and you regenerate some of it per turn. This means combat is a dance of sorts; balancing offensive actions with defensive ones to keep your MP high so you can keep using skills. This also means going all-out can often be a difficult choice, as it leaves you basically helpless in following battles until you get your MP back. As you play it a lot, you get the hang of this system and get a good sense of when you should go offensive and when you should fight strategically, especially on higher difficulties.

The characters are a part that is... difficult to talk about, since they're handled a bit differently than most RPGs. Characters aren't really explored too deeply; while everyone has some elements of depth to them, characters are much more grounded in this world. You get just enough personality to get an idea of how they're like, but not much more than that. What's a little harder to swallow for some is that every party member is some element of LGBTQ+. Jake and Thomas are a couple, Freya is a lesbian, and Sera is asexual. I bring this up because these are things that will come up in conversation. However, this is also where I applaud the game as they're treated less like they're a big deal and just aspects to the characters; small parts of the whole. Sera struggles the most with her asexuality and, even then, merely coming to the conclusion that it's okay to have no real attraction to anyone as of now, nor drive to change that. She accepts it, which is fine.

The one downside to this is that it does come across a little like 'if everyone is special, no one is special', but, like I said, these relationships are downplayed as much as possible not to be a vocal point of any one character or their interactions with others. Jake and Thomas get the most exploration of their relationship and, even then, they have their minor issues between them; moments of trust needing to be built upon. Freya's relationship with Ruthea, doesn't get quite as much development as it probably needed to have, but I can't hold this against the game. None of the interactions overstayed their welcome, as far as I'm concerned.

The soundtrack is also quite good, though I wish some themes would show up more often. Certain boss themes are amazing, but only show up once and only in side quests, making them really easy to miss. The world also feels a little small, making it feel like there isn't much to find, but considering this is a shorter RPG, I feel that's to the game's strength.

If I had to say something negative about the game... the story isn't great. It gets a little generic and, by the end, I felt like Lilith's motivations weren't explored enough. For how well the main cast is characterized, the villains are significantly less so. There is also a later curveball about Freya that gets dropped and... basically never brought up again.

All in all, a very good, competently made RPG. I'd recommend it for the gameplay alone; the combat system is pretty interesting and is the reason to play it.

Safe and fun little recommendation if you like classic RPGs. Despite its short length of 10-15 hrs its paced extremely well and doesn't feel rushed anywhere. A very small amount of map puzzles, mostly lever pulling jumping ones that can expand two rooms at times. The story does has some interesting twists that make it more unique than the normal tropes you often see as well. I would suggest reading the manual key item to learn about status effects and know that your characters actually have elements they are weak to and also some they resist!

Really fun! Feels very well thought out with a lovable (and complicated!) cast of characters. Normal mode was a good challenge for me, had to go back and find some things I'd missed before I could give the final boss another shot. Soundtrack is lovely and pleasant to listen to even if you leave the game idling in the background. It's also wonderful to see people like myself & friends represented in a game that's so full and polished. I'm not much of an RPG player (usually I get overwhelmed by all the stats, upgrades, equipment, etc.) but I really loved this and I was able to grasp the vulnerabilities of different enemies, and when to switch up my gear! Kept coming back to it time after time until I finally completed it just a little while ago! The only thing that's missing is fishing ;)

Review Summary:
Another entry in the Bewitched Series. It's a short RPG. The story is insipid, most character are uninteresting. There are glitches everywhere. There are not many options gameplay-wise, so there is no replayability value or encouragement. The art-style is a breath of fresh air in the series. You can't get all achievements in your first play through.
The Bad:
The story length.
Maybe the other entries had much more achievements to squeeze time put into it. Here, it's just short. You are new in Katti Town, someone shows up and do bad stuff so you must stop them. You travel this brief story in a "hermetic" linear road to have this dudette ass kicked, the end.
The writing.
It's bad. There is a point in the story when a character fucks up and everyone realizes it, but they are like: "Hey, I know you are bad, but you are not so bad since you helped us get all the way here! Yey! (besides the part that where you are the reason for this dudette to come into Katti Town -with your endorsement- and cause lots of trouble)". Like.. what fuck*ng Steven Universe's kind of bullsh*t is that? I don't know about writing, but this stuff needs some work done, preferably by an adult. The ending is so underwhelming, it's like nothing happened. Everything goes back to zero. Besides Freya's relationship, which is given some ground (let's leave it at that).
The characters:
You can get a hint of the work put into every character's background/development in the last paragraph.
You get lots of this "LGTQ++⬆⬇⬈pew-pew, etc." stuff, so avoid this game if you don't like it.
The glitches:
There are glitches everywhere. Not game breaking bugs, though one time I self-locked myself in a two-tile cell without a way out, so I had to load a saved game (thankfully I always save after every battle). They are just visual glitches. In a game where you are supposed to find hidden stuff (running into walls) is a problem when you just climb or dive into the 4th dimension. I think it's a problem with the map layers system, it needs some work done.
The gameplay:
It's a regular RPG, but when I said "hermetic" story, I mean the way it plays. You don't get much freedom besides a ship, so you can travel wherever you want. But even then, you need to follow a path if you want to get items that will let you get in certain places.
You can't equip characters with equipment out of their role. That's a sin: "Actually, metal can interfere with a Mage's spell, rendering it useless :B" Like.. what f*cking Harry Potter's buttocks garbage is that? I don't care if he can't use magic. I want him to put on a f*cking armor, I'll give him some sharp hardware and get him to slash enemies. Is that too much to ask for?
The pixel-art style:
It's good-looking, you really know that there is work put in Northwood (the one featured in the Store Page's screenshots), Arfenas, Ambervale, and some other areas (castle interiors, or lava level). But that's all, there are some places left behind. Simple texture, plain ground and some rocks. Nothing more. Same with the characters. Freya looks great, but the rest could use some work.
The achievements:
Luckily, there are few of them. They are easy to get if you just follow your path and stay sharp, but you can't get them all in one play through because you need to beat the game in Hard and Master difficulty. A pain in the ass without a "New Game +" feature or replayability value.
"That's all? That's just bad opinions"
I know, but I like the Bewitched series and it's a decent RPG. I don't expect them to come out with one masterpiece after another. Besides, I bought this game hoping for a girl on girl romance, but we don't always get what we want.
In their defense, if there was a single fiber of masculinity in this particular character, I would have written a negative review.

Finished this yesterday and overall I'd say I like it.
The combat mechanics are really solid, having to do a balancing act between regular attacks, skills and MP regeneration made the combat consistently engaging, I was playing on Normal, but even with that the regular encounters never felt mindless. I'm not too familiar with RPG Maker so I don't know how much this deviates from the usual, but it felt pretty unique to me at least. The areas you explore were all right, pretty standard but definitely not bad. I wasn't a big fan of most of the lategame sidequests(with one exception) since they felt kinda short and didn't tend to move the characters forward or even let them interact all that much, the main story locations were generally good though.
I generally like the cast of characters here, the main cast are very enjoyable and I really enjoy the dynamic the have with each other, their interactions were generally the highlight of the game for me. All of them are queer which is generally something I like and I feel it's handled well here, their identities are all important to their character and come up a quite a bit, but they've got plenty going on besides that.
The side cast fares a bit worse unfortunately, I'm not big on Lillith, she feels a bit too generic to me. I like what the game was going for with her interactions with Freya, but I just felt like the execution wasn't all there. Ruthea is also not great, I like her when she shows up, but she really needed more screentime. Despite being important to Freya's backstory she only shows up a couple times which makes the resolution between them feel a bit undercooked.
As for the general plot, this game is really going for something more character centric which I like and it's well executed, but the general plot beats are pretty generic, basically just a compilation of fantasy tropes. I can't say I found this world or most of the major events all that interesting, the interactions between the main party was the thing keeping me engaged, not so much the story around them.
The game tries to have comedic moments pretty frequently and these are a mixed bag to me, generally it's great when it's not relying on reference humor or memes which is unfortunately pretty often. Still got a good amount of laughs out of me, but also quite a few groans.
Visually the game looks pretty good, not blown away by the pixel art, but it does look pretty nice. The OST is also really good. I did notice some performance issues during battles in the late game side quests, the laptop I played this on is pretty old so maybe that's the reason, the issue was also generally resolved by quitting to the title screen and reloading so it ultimately wasn't that big of a deal.
Overall I'd say I definitely have my issues, but I still had a very good time with this and would recommend it if you're looking for a good indie RPG.

So gay and i like it