I Am Setsuna

TL; DR a journey through a snow-covered wasteland escorting the Sacrifice you are meant to kill. It is good, somewhere above average, but it is held back due to various issues, such as there being penguins that you cannot pet and who want you dead.
Story
You, the masked warrior, is tasked with assassinating a Sacrifice, the person meant to stave of the winter and save the world. However, soon after meeting Setsuna you are defeated, and you are quickly convinced not to bother killing her since she will be dead anyways when she finishes her journey. So now you are a part of her escort and in charge of guarding her life, great job!
I cannot say that I am in love with the writing, it is good enough and about what you might expect from this sort of game. Yet it can feel a bit contrived, as I hope my short summary made clear,
but it did get me immersed and I was interested in seeing how things would end.
There was nothing I really disliked about the story, other than it being a bit formulaic, and very linear. You reach a town, they have an issue, you solve the issue and move on. Repeat. Nothing really stood out to me as particularly interesting or memorable, but it hammers home the point that Setsuna is a sympathetic person, and that the masked warrior is a valuable member of the escort.
However, the formulaic nature is made worse by the fact that side quests are not a thing. The closest thing we get are fetch quests to unlock new recipes but those hardly count. But wait I just lied on the Internet!! There are side quests, one for each party member and they are unlocked just before the final boss. I understand that the escort is your only concern and I do like that the lack of side quests reinforces that you do not have time to do other things, I just think that introducing them that late is to the game’s detriment.
I wish that I am Setsuna had either completely rejected side quests or offered them at one of the several times when your progress is completely halted for various reasons. That would have been far more suitable than stopping the story at the eleventh hour.
Presentation
I was interested in the game due to the snow, I like snow, and this game really delivered because it has a lot of snow. They managed to strike a balance between the frigid barrenness of winter with the coziness of the cold. So, you have these moments where you would feel at home in small hamlets, white forests and the like, and then you have the great frozen outdoors, the long-abandoned villages and the howling black winds of Atramentus.
On account of its cutesy art style, it typically leans towards the former, cozier atmosphere, but it manages to have a surprising variety of locations and moods with only a handful of changes. However, some dungeons can feel very samey and outright boring, using the exact same template, and visuals. These overstay their welcome really quickly and are a slog to get through.
I am Setsuna has a soundtrack that could be considered divisive. It uses very few instruments, and the non-combat songs are entirely piano. Personally, I love this, it is beautiful, and they manage a surprising diversity while keeping everything coherent, it is simply something you do not see often, and I love that they were very willing to do it.
Naturally, a lot of the songs have similar moods, it is a snowy wasteland after all, so the songs need to fit into that, and they do. Melancholic, and sombre are probably the best ways to describe the bulk of it, but there are these bursts of rhythm and life to remind you that you have a goal, and that there might be hope.
Gameplay
As stated, the game is mostly linear which includes the dungeon design, there is some optional content but not a lot. You could visit the empty groves or the abandoned villages, but there is nothing there for you besides the atmosphere and the tone. There are optional fights, but you are rarely strong enough to fight them when you first encounter them.
So, what are you left with? Following the main narrative and collecting ingredients along the way. Yes, the ingredients are useful, because they can be used for food and food equals buffs, and who does not love that? Yet I would not call that interesting content.
Not to mention that you also need a bunch of material to acquire new spiritnite (skills), and these materials are be collected by exploring, these must be earned in combat. Say you want all skills, well then you would need to kill every enemy in a variety of ways, because specific materials only drop after fulfilling specific conditions. Sometimes you are required to use elemental damage, sometimes you need to have status conditions and sometimes you need to perform an Exact kill, which basically means defeating them while only barely exceeding their maximum HP (with a bit of leeway).
But your spiritnite can also be upgraded to make them stronger, increasing critical hit chance, damage, speed or a number of other things, and these depend on your accessories. This can all be very fun to experiment with, but it is needlessly complex for a game that is as easy as I am Setsuna, in a harder game you might have needed to engage with it, but here you only do it to become unstoppable. It is simply easier to not bother too much, and simply pick skills based on what is fun, and based on what has good cross-character combos.
Combat
If you avoid the optional encounters when you find them, fight enemies for materials, and play with some degree of planning I am Setsuna will be an easy game. The only time I ever had any issues (and I was following my own advice) was at a difficulty spike maybe two-thirds in. It was mostly just unexpected and simply caught me off-guard. How long did it take to beat this very challenging boss? Like two attempts, and then the rest of the game returned to the normal difficulty that you can just breeze through. Great game if you hate frustration, bad game if you want to be challenged.
How does combat actually work, well it is all in real-time, and each character can take an action once their gauge is filled. If you wait until two, or your full three-party members can act then you can use combination moves and these are often enough to end any normal encounter, add a few buffs and it can be enough to end bosses.
Otherwise, each character can act independently in the ways you would expect, attack, use items, skills and such. Enemies are typically not much of a threat but some of the longer dungeons can potentially put a dent in your resources, mostly by mentally draining you with a lack of enemy variety and diversity of encounters.
It would be cruel to say that I dislike the combat, because I do like it, it is just that the actual fights are rarely interesting and that all enemies are basically the same sort of threat as everyone else, so you always use whatever strategy typically works. It can get a bit boring, and I think that that is the biggest issue with I am Setsuna.

Steam User 7

Reviewed last year

Pros:-
1. Nice storyline
2. Basic fighting and weapons/sprit nite level ups.
3. Beautiful character
Cons:-
1. Character hard to level up. Need to grind a bit.
2. Story will be flat when approaching last boss. Seems a bit rush also.
3. Every decision making we make in the game does not affect the storyline. So it is quite useless.
Steam User 3

Reviewed last year

TL; DR a journey through a snow-covered wasteland escorting the Sacrifice you are meant to kill. It is good, somewhere above average, but it is held back due to various issues, such as there being penguins that you cannot pet and who want you dead.
Story
You, the masked warrior, is tasked with assassinating a Sacrifice, the person meant to stave of the winter and save the world. However, soon after meeting Setsuna you are defeated, and you are quickly convinced not to bother killing her since she will be dead anyways when she finishes her journey. So now you are a part of her escort and in charge of guarding her life, great job!
I cannot say that I am in love with the writing, it is good enough and about what you might expect from this sort of game. Yet it can feel a bit contrived, as I hope my short summary made clear,
but it did get me immersed and I was interested in seeing how things would end.
There was nothing I really disliked about the story, other than it being a bit formulaic, and very linear. You reach a town, they have an issue, you solve the issue and move on. Repeat. Nothing really stood out to me as particularly interesting or memorable, but it hammers home the point that Setsuna is a sympathetic person, and that the masked warrior is a valuable member of the escort.
However, the formulaic nature is made worse by the fact that side quests are not a thing. The closest thing we get are fetch quests to unlock new recipes but those hardly count. But wait I just lied on the Internet!! There are side quests, one for each party member and they are unlocked just before the final boss. I understand that the escort is your only concern and I do like that the lack of side quests reinforces that you do not have time to do other things, I just think that introducing them that late is to the game’s detriment.
I wish that I am Setsuna had either completely rejected side quests or offered them at one of the several times when your progress is completely halted for various reasons. That would have been far more suitable than stopping the story at the eleventh hour.
Presentation
I was interested in the game due to the snow, I like snow, and this game really delivered because it has a lot of snow. They managed to strike a balance between the frigid barrenness of winter with the coziness of the cold. So, you have these moments where you would feel at home in small hamlets, white forests and the like, and then you have the great frozen outdoors, the long-abandoned villages and the howling black winds of Atramentus.
On account of its cutesy art style, it typically leans towards the former, cozier atmosphere, but it manages to have a surprising variety of locations and moods with only a handful of changes. However, some dungeons can feel very samey and outright boring, using the exact same template, and visuals. These overstay their welcome really quickly and are a slog to get through.
I am Setsuna has a soundtrack that could be considered divisive. It uses very few instruments, and the non-combat songs are entirely piano. Personally, I love this, it is beautiful, and they manage a surprising diversity while keeping everything coherent, it is simply something you do not see often, and I love that they were very willing to do it.
Naturally, a lot of the songs have similar moods, it is a snowy wasteland after all, so the songs need to fit into that, and they do. Melancholic, and sombre are probably the best ways to describe the bulk of it, but there are these bursts of rhythm and life to remind you that you have a goal, and that there might be hope.
Gameplay
As stated, the game is mostly linear which includes the dungeon design, there is some optional content but not a lot. You could visit the empty groves or the abandoned villages, but there is nothing there for you besides the atmosphere and the tone. There are optional fights, but you are rarely strong enough to fight them when you first encounter them.
So, what are you left with? Following the main narrative and collecting ingredients along the way. Yes, the ingredients are useful, because they can be used for food and food equals buffs, and who does not love that? Yet I would not call that interesting content.
Not to mention that you also need a bunch of material to acquire new spiritnite (skills), and these materials are be collected by exploring, these must be earned in combat. Say you want all skills, well then you would need to kill every enemy in a variety of ways, because specific materials only drop after fulfilling specific conditions. Sometimes you are required to use elemental damage, sometimes you need to have status conditions and sometimes you need to perform an Exact kill, which basically means defeating them while only barely exceeding their maximum HP (with a bit of leeway).
But your spiritnite can also be upgraded to make them stronger, increasing critical hit chance, damage, speed or a number of other things, and these depend on your accessories. This can all be very fun to experiment with, but it is needlessly complex for a game that is as easy as I am Setsuna, in a harder game you might have needed to engage with it, but here you only do it to become unstoppable. It is simply easier to not bother too much, and simply pick skills based on what is fun, and based on what has good cross-character combos.
Combat
If you avoid the optional encounters when you find them, fight enemies for materials, and play with some degree of planning I am Setsuna will be an easy game. The only time I ever had any issues (and I was following my own advice) was at a difficulty spike maybe two-thirds in. It was mostly just unexpected and simply caught me off-guard. How long did it take to beat this very challenging boss? Like two attempts, and then the rest of the game returned to the normal difficulty that you can just breeze through. Great game if you hate frustration, bad game if you want to be challenged.
How does combat actually work, well it is all in real-time, and each character can take an action once their gauge is filled. If you wait until two, or your full three-party members can act then you can use combination moves and these are often enough to end any normal encounter, add a few buffs and it can be enough to end bosses.
Otherwise, each character can act independently in the ways you would expect, attack, use items, skills and such. Enemies are typically not much of a threat but some of the longer dungeons can potentially put a dent in your resources, mostly by mentally draining you with a lack of enemy variety and diversity of encounters.
It would be cruel to say that I dislike the combat, because I do like it, it is just that the actual fights are rarely interesting and that all enemies are basically the same sort of threat as everyone else, so you always use whatever strategy typically works. It can get a bit boring, and I think that that is the biggest issue with I am Setsuna.
Steam User 3

Reviewed last year

This is a shorter game that is pretty good & priced appropriately. The combat is fun and fairly intricate, the story is compelling and there are some great characters. In my opinion it's shortcomings are the repetitive enemies & combat tactics, as well as it's overall world. I completed 1 play-through of the main story and found that certain enemy archetypes popped up 3-4 times.
If you're looking for a fun RPG that poses a decent challenge, I'd recommend picking up I am Setsuna. I wouldn't expect to be blown away, however for $15 CAD I found this game to be worth the price.
Steam User 1

Reviewed last year

Pros:
• Engaging combat system reminiscent of classic JRPGs like "Chrono Trigger."
• Emotional storytelling that explores themes of sacrifice and resilience.
• Beautiful art direction with stunning snowscapes and well-designed characters.
• Haunting piano soundtrack that sets the tone for the entire experience.
Cons:
• Some may find the pacing a bit slow, especially during certain parts of the story.
• Limited variety in environments and enemy designs may feel repetitive for some players.
"I Am Setsuna" offers a heartfelt journey through a world filled with melancholy and magic. While it may not be without its flaws, its engaging combat, emotional narrative, and beautiful art for 2016 game make it a memorable experience for those seeking a captivating RPG adventure.
Steam User 1

Reviewed last month

Runs flawless on Steam Deck.
Great game with a feel of nostalgia for classic JRPG in the SNES/PS era.
+Story
+Soundtrack
+Endgame content
-Minimal voice acting
Steam User 2

Reviewed 12.2023

Absolutely amazing, start to finish. A few moments even brought me to tears.
I will admit that I'm not sure I entirely understood the fluxation thing. But it may have just been a me issue. I was too busy having fun to worry about trying to understand it.
Steam User 0

Reviewed last month

I really enjoyed this game. It's nice to play a JRPG that doesn't go on forever, at the same time the game offers little variation. I liked the pacing, combat and crafting/selling. And of course the reasons I got the game, snow and piano music. Now, for the things that annoyed me: there's guides in the game but at shops instead of the menu. There's a beastipedia but only for item drops and lore, not for HP and elemental weaknesses, which was important in battle. The area of attacks aren't shown in combat and even after beating the game I don't know how to rest! At points in the story I found myself with full stats, otherwise it was use an item or level up.
I loved the fact that there was NO sexualisation of the characters.

I Am Setsuna

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