Absinthia

Absinthia nails an old-school JRPG vibe: turn-based combat, regenerating MP instead of random encounters, crisp pixel art. Representation is handled with genuine intent: queer protagonists, trans and aro/ace characters are part of the core story rather than mere side notes. Despite this, it is never heavy handed. The scope is manageable (10-20 hours depending on how much optional content you explore).

If I had to come up with a criticism... I think the OST is sometimes a little weak, but still enjoyable enough. It does not help the weakest track in the game is one you will hear a LOT.

If you’re a fan of “classic JRPG” feels, appreciate thoughtful queer representation and want something that doesn’t demand a month of your life, Absinthia is a strong pick. It may not reinvent the wheel, but it drives a well-built vintage model with heart.

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.

A heartfelt story, deals with some queer topics very well, most particularly trans people, the trauma inflicted upon them and how it can affect one's perception and decisions. I especially appreciated that the solution to major conflicts between lovers in this game is never a sudden, complete exoneration and restoration of the old norm. Characters spend a lot of time uncertain about where they stand with each other. We come away from these situations hopeful but ultimately uncertain as to whether anything like what the characters once had will be reached. The hurt is not downplayed, it's real. And the wrongdoer is not always innocent and misunderstood, there's some real toxic shit here. It's not the best written game I've ever played, but the care was put in to create very compelling characters and tell very relevant stories with them.

Gameplay is pretty good. I always enjoyed getting new abilities, as well as finding side content and secrets for new gear and such. It's not amazing and sometimes I got a little tired of the battles, but the JRPG fatigue is helped by the game's relatively short length and the lack of random encounters (outside of two very specific sections that reference a previous game).

Got it for $5 and never regretted it. Very worth both the time and money (even at full price, imo)

Set a few years after the events of Celestial Hearts, this one focuses on a new set of heroes facing Lillith after she fell to the continent below when she was defeated by the heroes of the previous game, but not all is what it seems and Freya, a deserter Halonian Knight, has more than one secret she's afraid her companions won't understand.
Another solid entry in the series, similar in tone, gameplay, pacing and themes as the previous games, it also features mentions of minor appearances of characters from the previous games and one of the main characters is the great-grandson of Morgoth the wizard.
And like the previous games, it features a post-credits scene that sets up a future plot point, though it remains to be seen if it will ever be addressed directly in a sequel, or indirectly such as when we found out through a second-hand account in the third game how the original heroes faced off against Morgoth in their final battle, or how in this game we finally see the fight against Lillith, but not being fought by Kaya, Helen and Achilles.
I do have to say that I found Lillith's arc very interesting because in the first coupe of games she's an optional super boss you can encounter and learn about, but not directly part of the main story, but then in Celestial Hearts she turns out to be the main bad guy at the end, and in this one she's the main bad guy from the start, but she's no longer a crazed angel/goddess of death being controlled by an evil god who created her, so she's more reminiscent of Lissandra after Hermes removed her curse than of herself in the previous game when she was already free but still basically batshit crazy. She even mentions that her ultimate goal is to kill a god, much like Lissandra did at the end of Knight Bewitched 2 during her youth.
I thoroughly enjoyed all these games because they include every element I love in retro JRPG's, including a relatively detailed story, but they're also fast-paced and you can finish them in less than 10 hours instead of 50 or 100 hours the bigger names require. I already got Knight Eternal, The Black Dungeon and Knight of Heaven to play on my phone and finish all the series so far.
My only very minor complaints are that I caught a couple of misspelled words in the dialogue, and that this one has my least favorite character portrait art of the whole series.
Also, If you're one of those Anti-Woke hysterics-prone types, you'll probably lose your shit at the amount of gay and lesbian characters in these games and pitch a fit because they're destroying western civilization or whatever your media outlet and/or pastor says, but it honestly didn't bother me in the slightest and I'm a straight guy who's old enough to have played the Atari 2600 when it was popular.
Hell, the games themselves have a sense of humor about it, like how in this one a random Halonian Knight NPC says that he's surrounded by women soldiers all the time but he still can't get a date and it feels like every chick in Halonia is a lesbian. And I'd say that out of the complete series, this is the one with more gay people in the main cast and where they discuss those issues the most during the story, but they certainly don't spend the whole game talking about that, much less in a preachy or confrontational manner like, say, Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

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.

the best of the series so far excited to see what comes next

Excellent and heart breaking story featuring a transfem main character