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 1

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 1

Reviewed last year

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 1

Reviewed 03.2023

6/10 for me. I think the story is missing something. A lot of the game play is not explained very well so I had to google how to get a flux and do momentum mode. Setsuna is a national treasure and I adore her. The art is amazing and I love the character designs. The snow scenery is very relaxing and the way the sunlight hits it at just the right angle is CHEFS KISS.
Steam User 1

Reviewed last year

Yet another game in my library that I first purchased on Switch, and re-purchased on Steam to trophy hunt! The game is a blast - from interesting customization combat approaches to a satisfying-yet-not-overbearing achievement set. Fair warning that this game does little to hold your hand re: objectives - Much depends on your ability to glean information from chatting with NPC's. The Flux system also lacks clear, easy to find definitions of what each flux actually does native to the windows they most appear in, making building Spiritnite difficult for first time players.
Overall, 100% worth the time imo though!

I Am Setsuna

Game Discussion

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