Dark Blood Chronicles

Dark Blood Chronicles is an okay but mixed bag of a jrpg, RPGMaker game, okay then the story. On a rainy day a young woman named Samantha wakes up from a nightmare involving her own death, but despite the strangeness of her dream today is just another ordinary day, after a brief conversation with her dad she heads to school only to discover that everyone's missing say for her friend Ethan.
As they try to figure out what's going on they are soon pulled into a strange world of monsters and tasked with defeating an evil entity from rising again, but in this strange world Sam will be confronted not just of her past but who she is as a person.
Alright let’s get into the likes, the story is very good with some good twists, turns and some nice buildup, some of the story also takes inspiration from the persona games with character exploration, I also like the themes of death, loss, grief, saying goodbye and overcoming the past, it was very touching and some of the story can be quite thought-provoking.
The gameplay was okay, it's your standard turn based jrpg were you fight random monsters, pick up items such as healing items to heal your party or pick up weapons or clothing to improve your characters, it's pretty standard stuff. But there are some things that do make it stand out a bit more like you can skip an counters with monsters by dodging their floating skull forms or if you decide to fight and kill all the monsters in a level you can unlock a secret room that gives you bonuses, there's also the picturemancy an ability were Sam can draws stuff and the drawing can come to life and either attack enemies or give her and her team a stat boost.
There's also familiar spirits that can aid you in battle as a fourth player with their own powers and finally there's these zodiac signs, you see you have to collect these warriors souls and each warrior represents the zodiac and when you equip them you can have different attacks and things that can give you and your party stat boosts or heal your party or even bring them back from the dead, which was a pretty good idea.
The pixel graphic art style is pretty good with a nice use of somber yet bright colors that really helps with the mood and look of the game. The levels are good; each one is somewhat visually distinct for an RPGmaker and is quite memorable from the cathedral to the warzone and Queen Nova's Castle. The characters are good and pretty entertaining, but their also a mixed bag sometimes they're very good, but other times they can be jackasses and can be really annoying and kind of stupid.
The enemies and bosses are good each one has their own unique look that's quite interesting and can be actually pretty disturbing, also some of the enemies and bosses you see feel inspired by other works like Final Fantasy and one enemy that's inspired from Griffith from berserk. The music was okay had some nice tracks to listen too, but otherwise nothing really to write home about.
Alright let’s get into the dislikes, the game can be very frustrating at times like let's get into the story, while I did say it was good there are some parts of it that just feel like it's there just to pad out the game. Like after watching a long cutscene you go explore the level only for a minute or two later another cutscene happens, I don't know it just feels unnatural and like it feels like there's too much story and not enough gameplay, it all really bogs down the game. There’s also no way to skip the cutscenes so if you die you have to see them all again.
Like I said about the characters sometimes they're quite good and pretty entertaining, but other times they can be jackasses, especially near the end they will stop to have a conversation even though that the bad guy is going to be resurrected vary soon or they get into little fights for no reason. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying characters should be perfect, but they're a fine line of a character being flawed but good to just being jackasses.
Some of the enemies and bosses can be a real pain in the ass to fight like some enemies has this power to basically harden themselves or others and make them immune to most attacks which was really frustrating and a couple of the bosses near the end was also a pain in the ass, like Malahyde Flesh and soul both of them being quite annoying to fight.
Especially soul because he has this ability that he'll just refill all of his health when it's too low, so you have to be real careful not to activate that and worse he can activate it multiple times with his health is near depleted, that just got so frustrating and then there is the final boss and has so many overpowered attacks that if you're not at proper level it can just floor you.
Some of the achievements can be a real pain in the ass to get, the worst being the star achievement, it took me hours and hours just to get that achievement, luckily there were some talk on how to get them, unfortunately it was very vague and it still took me a while to figure it out.
So with that done with Dark Blood Chronicles is an okay but mixed bag of a jrpg, RPGMaker game, with a very good story, okay gameplay and good enemies and bosses, so do I recommend this game, honestly it's really difficult for me to recommend this game, but if you do decide to get it I suggest have a good amount of patience with it and that's all I can really say.