Long Gone Days

It's a game with so much love and heart put into it that it rips at the seams and spills out. I've been following the development of this game since the first demo and I feel so happy to finally see it completed.
I loved the story, it feels very topical with the unrest in Eastern Europe at the moment - as a Polish person myself I loved to see an interpretation of my country, haha.
I became very attached to the characters; maybe it's just me, but they were written in a very humane way - you're not always happy with the choices they make, but when you sit down to think about it, it's what a person would do. Morality, ethics and personal drive mixes into an amalgamation of a human being, and it's an incredible experience to see what kind of a human being (or not!) emerges from that mess.
I hope that people who play this game can feel how much this game meant to the devs and people who followed the development. For me it's an easy 9.5-10/10, and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

This game is about war, but more importantly, it's about the cost of war on civilians and those that get caught in the cross-hairs, in front and behind the gun. This game touched many human experiences, and I could tell that this game was a labor of love from its developers.
The story is very engaging, and I would personally say its strength lies not so much in the (sort of sci-fi,) alternate universe plot, but in its snapshots of how war, and elements surrounding war, affect people. The game briefly touches on some very real topics, like trauma, human trafficking, propaganda & misinformation, homelessness, and xenophobia, to list a few. Unfortunately, the game doesn't go in-depth into these topics, but I also believe doing so would detract from the pacing of the main story line. What also struck me was the beauty (and challenge) of the story spanning many different countries and locations. I got to meet characters of different backgrounds and different values, and it wasn't long before I fell in love with them.
The elements of the game are quite engaging. Unlike other video games about war I've played, the art is bright and saturated, which for some can read a little too cheery, but for me, I loved. We got to see the vibrant colors of the cities and their people that are affected by game events. The music and sound design is fantastic throughout as well!
The gameplay for the most part is smooth. Combat has changed a bit over early access and has improved, though the turn-based combat still needs a few tweaks to its balance, in my opinion. If I had to suggest something, it would be to have a speed x2 mechanic for combat, as the status change messages are quite slow. Puzzles in the game are a bit too guided in my opinion, but I'm mainly here for the story and characters, so it's no big flaw for me.
There is a morale system, which some other reviewers mention, but to be honest, I haven't paid too much attention to it yet, as I've only played through the full game once. I think it's best not to think too hard about whether or not you're increasing/decreasing morale your first playthrough and just select answers to your heart's desire.
Overall, I do recommend this game if you're looking for a story-based game with great characters and a message about hope and action in the face of adversity. I enjoyed it a lot, and I think many people will as well!

This is going to be a "thumbs up with a caveat" type of review - since this is a game that, while I found it enjoyable, it is very story driven and political - so that may be a turnoff for some people. The game, its premise, and the gameplay proper are well done, and will be straightforward to get into the groove of for anyone who enjoys the RPG genre.
Pros:
- Art and Music are solid (I'm not even a fan of "tall sprites" in Anime-styled RPGs usually, but this one is an exception, and I love the look)
- Game respects your time and has no mandatory filler content (sidequests give you more story/items, but aren't mandatory)
- Combat is simple, yet effective
- Mechanics and Combat feel intentional with no random encounters, also causes a con though.
Neutral:
- Story is politically styled, and alternate universe "modern day"
- Touches on a couple darker subjects, but never deep enough to incite a trigger warning
Cons:
- Character to character balance is kind of weak, there are distinctly "better" characters to take with you
- I wish chapter 1 and 4 were a bit longer to give us more worldbuilding in them (imo - Chapter 3 is the ideal length)
- Health/SP recovery feels a bit clunky, even though it is a mechanical representation of the "timespan" the game happens over (a few days, so no real time to spend days recovering), this is better than the earlier versions of the game though.
- The final boss felt a bit silly compared to the rest of the game.
Overall, I enjoyed spending the weekend with the game, and exploring the world. For the game overall, thumbs up, the gameplay is middle of the road for me, but it works out quite well.
Video Review:

Really tempted to jokingly label it as "Metal Gear Undertale". This is an indie JRPG that combined a pretty grounded for a JRPG scifi plot involving modern war... and also a story about friendship.
Generally it sticks very closely to this older JRPG canon of having parties, equipment giving stat boosts, taking turns using abilities or attacks or items, travelling trough locales and engaging in dialogue, all that. It's faithful to older 2D JRPGs to a fault, despite more modern art style it can be pretty slow with animations, transitions and prompts to perform actions. During certain dungeon crawls there's a lot of air vents to crawl and each gives confirmation prompt if you do want to do it where a single interact would have been enough. A lot could have been done smoother, really. New ideas are playing safe too, like ability to pick where to aim in JRPG combat, avoiding armor at chance of missing or reducing damage further to hit a painful weakspot and make enemy skip turns. It's interesting but under-utilized, and the limited hit spot variety is sad, could have had stuff like shooting specific equipment to disable specified abilities or induce greater variety of effects.
Now, the story: a naive but principled rookie soldier, fully raised in a militarized society of The Core subterranean state deserts after discovering he's tasked to kill innocents, convincing another soldier to flee with him, on his way encountering other characters he teams up with to survive and then confront Core's ambitions. It's... not too sophisticated and you can see quite some twists before the characters do so to be fair everyone feels lowkey naive. But it kinda feels like an anime, young adult adventure sort, so it works thematically? Personally my favourite bits in this one were the towns you visit and roam relatively free in, full of things to discover, tiny quests and scenes spent with main characters. There's even an aspect where you need a specific language speaker to actually communicate with anyone else which doesn't have major impact beyond "can only meaningfully interact after X joins you" but it does add believeability to settlements.
This is fine. I guess if you wanna play a JRPG but wanna go for more martial theme this will do well. It's nothing revolutionary though.

Long Gone Days caught my attention a few years ago because of its excellent visual style, but I only managed to play it now. I'm glad I waited for the full release as it would have been painful to stop in the middle without following the plot till the end. Political fiction genre with a modern world setting is pretty unusual for a jRPG-style game, so it warms my heart we actually got an interesting story with lots of varied characters to befriend along the way. It took me about 12 hours to beat it and I had fun pretty consistently with only a few hiccups along the way (combat can drag a bit sometimes, morale system feels half-baked).
The thing I appreciated most, although it's a pretty minor detail overall, is that in every country you visit (no spoilers) the locals speak their own language, so as a foreigner you have no idea what's going on until someone translates for you. It added to the immersion and made my inner language nerd happy.
Long Gone Days is a hidden gem and I'm posting this review to make it a tiny bit less hidden. Go and play it.

Pros
+ Pretty good story and writing
+ Very good characters
+ Decent pixel gfx
+ Amazing art and character portraits
+ Decent music
Cons
- Honestly, my only complaint is how easy everything is overall. The combat, puzzles, and side quests, are all super simple. I'm not saying it has to be super hard, but a little bit more challenge would have been great for me.
Overall, the game is pretty good. If you are in the mood of a heavy story based game with fun gfx, great art, and good characters, definitely pick this up.

This game is so underrated
I GENUINELY wish more people would play this game because this has SUCH an experience