Orangeblood

Hey onii-san. Right click the game in your library -> Properties -> Set launch options -> add in "--in-process-gpu" without the " made the steam overlay and my Xbox One controller work.
Haven't gotten that far yet. Was expecting more of story focused game, but instead got more of a looter shooter inspired rpg. The guns/gear and the abilities in them seem powerful for once though. Like I found a unique shotgun that kills one enemy in one shot(at the beginning anyway), but needs to be constantly reloaded. To support that I found an another unique shotgun that stuns all enemies with a high chance. So the other gal blasts enemies while the other one keeps them stunned. I did have to switch it around little for a boss fight. Remember Machiko's passive heal.
The visual style and music are easily the highlights here. The main hub is a little messy to get around at first, but it will become easier to get around soon. It would be nice if the map and/or UI elements could be hidden for screenshots. There are also some colour filters offered at the menu to change how the game looks.
Haven't had any crashes so far myself which is great since the developers made the decision to not allow you to save the game freely inside dangerous zones. There are checkpoints however should you fall in battle and there are vending machines to cheaply recover your lost hp(inside dungeons too). A cheap consumable item will also quickly let you leave a danger zone, but will not let you return to where you were.
Overall it's a charming little game with a vulgar main character, but hey so is the world around her. I think the price might be a little steep for what is offered, but I found it impossible to resist girls with coloured eyelashes.
Come on in.

I would recommend this game. However, I will not do so without SOME talking points.
First - The art is amazing. However, it becomes very jarring when moving around inside of zones the fog of war and tilt shift become VERY hard on the eyes.
I STRONGLY suggest that anyone wanting to play the game mess with the settings at length.
Make sure the bottom three settings are OFF (Tilt Shift, Chromatic Aberration, and CRT) and the color scheme is set to something easy on your eyes like Flat or Cinema. Vivid works as well but will be slightly more straining.
Also, the combat focus motion is very hard to stomach so I suggest turning that off as well.
The game excels in the aesthetic department but it is hard to tolerate without fine tuning.
Second - The music. The audio in this game is amazing! However, some zones like the Tier 4 zone has NO audio at all. Not sure if it's a bug or glitch or what have you but it produces no sound. Also, anytime you spend a certain amount of time in a specific area the music ends. It's almost as if it isn't set to loop infinitely. Not a big problem but if you're slow and heavy on exploration you could be left in silence for a bit.
Third - Combat and balance. Combat is actually my favorite part of the game. Super clean and fast paced (with focus turned off) but I will say that the game is EXTREMELY unbalanced.
The game has a RANDOM LOOT system. Any time you get ANY piece of weapon or gear it will be randomized. So, the two guns you receive at the very beginning out of the crate can be a whole litany of different weapons. Now, factor this in to every enemy, boss, and crate drop for the entirety of the game and you can have some playthroughs where you are just ridiculously overpowered and some where you just have NOTHING good comparatively.
I love random loot systems. It's a super fun thing. However, like Diablo and other similar systems, the game is usually balanced off of the most common drop. In this game I'd imagine that's blue/white gear. The drops, though, don't seem to be all that common. In fact, I seem to get rare and super rare (purple, gold) gear very frequently. This makes the difficulty curve near nonexistent as enemies in the game scale with you to a degree (Supervisor boss, random encounters, etc). In short, the drop rates need to be re-evaluated for better than the balance line equipment or the difficulty of combat needs to be increased.
TL;DR
Buy this game, especially if on sale. You will have 6-10 hours of a super fun time once you dial in the settings to make the visuals less jarring. Don't expect super difficulty as the drop system is unbalanced. Music is amazing and the dialogue is quite humorous and "punk"
Not a waste of your time in any sense, I loved it, but has its own quirks that make it apparent that it's an indie/rpg maker game.

Orangeblood takes a lot of chances. Just one wrong turn in any of its multifarious directions–the neon-infused aesthetic, edgy writing, or randomly generated core item system–and the whole project could easily come toppling down. Hoisted upon shaky stilts, Orangeblood still manages to successfully deliver a unique experience.
Developed by the Japanese studio, Grayfax Software, and published by Playism, Orangeblood steps of out the conventions of the JRPG genre. Instead of fantasy, we get cyberpunk; instead of swords and magic we get guns; instead of world-encompassing quests, we get gang wars. At each turn–aesthetically, mechanically, and thematically–Orangeblood attempts to innovate. In some directions, it makes smooth headway, but others come roughly in tow.
Shamploo Style
With youthful vigor, Orangeblood paints a vivid picture of a neon-lit dystopia where violence lurks around every corner and the stakes are just as grand as the plentiful egos around town. Most strikingly, the visual artwork immediately allures anybody, like myself, who fawns over the nostalgia of pixel graphics. One-upping the dystopian, glowing cyberpunk games like Disco Elysium, and upcoming ones like Cyperpunk: 2077 and Eastbound, Orangeblood pours on layer upon layer of neon colors drenched in static effects.
Although promising for the start of the experience, the further I ventured into Orangeblood, I found a lack of visual variety–the most of it coming from changing the saturation and contrast presets in the options menu. Really, I went from being mesmerized in a good way to being mesmerized in a bad way, as the pixel art stacks on top of itself with too many maze-like layers, and the color knobs turned all the way up to 11 distracted rather than enchanted after just the first few hours of play.
Despite the art not living up to my initial expectations, the music sure does make up for it. Stealing the show (really of the whole game) is the soundtrack. Mixed well, with great variety matching important emotional queues, the soundtrack and SFX helped set the gritty, hip-hop tone from the start and carried it throughout.
And on top of that, the writing is nothing if not gritty and hip-hop. To set the tone for the rest of the game–the very first encounter–is to shoot up a group of hippie rappers so that your friend can spit some fire bars in order to take over a gang hall. Hilarious? Yes. But does it work for the whole narrative experience? Ehhhh .,. kind of? Much like the artwork, I was initially enthralled with the writing, but the further I progressed the more I thought of the game as one-note.
The Grind
With many innovations working their way to the forefront through the worldbuilding and tone, the mechanics of the combat seemingly got lost along the way. Much like other JRPGs, the turn-based combat becomes monotonous with the best skills always being the best skills in every situation, the level progression grinding slowly, and the character’s skill trees becoming stale.
Clearly inspired by the looter-shooter genre the infinite amount of guns in the game is supposed to spark joy, wonder, and produce some game-breaking builds. However, none of those traits are present with the weapons and gear of Orangeblood. The game is quite easy (if you’re willing to spend the amount of time grinding it wants you to) and there is a general lack of customization past the surface level gun stats with no personality or compelling aesthetic to them.
In a genre that so desperately leans upon it, the variable aesthetics are simply not there. Every shotgun looks the same, lightning guns don’t zap, and the UI looks like unpolished work compared to the other aspects of the game. The experience firing a new gun is no longer visceral, it only satisfies on the surface level of numbers.
Final Verdict
In spite of the wacky indulgences, Orangeblood affords–sitting on random park benches smoking weed with badass friends, drinking 15 sodas to heal up the party’s cuts and bruises, and blasting through the city of New Koza with guns blazing–I can’t say I left this somewhat addictive game with great feelings. The artwork, writing, and combat all had diminishing returns, but at least its soundtrack and unique energy glued together an enjoyable experience.
Score: 7/10

"You think you're hardcore?"
QINGGONG
HAKKEI
HAKKEI
TL;DR Stellar music, solid visuals, decent enough story, entertaining if flat characters. Gameplay is not as dull as it initially appears.
Orangeblood is a strange game. Some of the best audiovisual presentation and tone-setting in a while, contrasted by a gameplay loop that's initially dull and uninspiring, which later opens up into a bizarrely engaging open question of a difficulty presentation once you wrap your head around things, with a post-game that's simultaneously both overwhelming and incredibly breakable, offering enough of a gameplay shift in several ways to actually make combat interesting once the main game is done.
I'll start with the clear issues first. The elephant in the room is the early to mid-game combat. This is by and far the weakest part of the game, considering all the tools you lack. Regular fights are trivial, while bosses can stonewall you simply due to not having all the tools to consistently deal with them. Berserk is by and far the best early-game prefix for a weapon for regular encounters, simply because it lets you just mash Z through every enemy until you hit a boss, alleviating the tedium significantly. Neither issue is as bad as it sounds, but they are there regardless. After the first three or so bosses, however, the game does pick up and become much more interesting, giving you plenty more options in dealing with the challenges it presents.
Combat does have something of an RNG focus, however you can still enforce some level of consistency if you gear properly. Hoping the game rolls favorably on your stun chance isn't exactly fascinating, but it is still only one dimension.
Itemization is, in terms of gameplay, without a doubt the game's most important factor, for better AND worse.
Gear is incredibly polarized, with several prefixes being effectively worthless, while a few modifiers are so horrendously broken that you'll gladly give up almost any base statline in exchange for them. They do provide a lot of puzzle pieces to answer the open question of the game's difficulty, though, and does end up being fairly engaging and allowing you a lot of playstyle variation outside of the post-game superbosses.
Just because the unquestionably best prefixes for gear in the game are some combination of Full, Swift and Blitz doesn't mean there isn't already a fair amount of tinkering to do with those alone. Certainly kept me interested regardless of the issues beforehand.
The story wanders all over the place, then eventually kinda comes together. It's far from great, but it does its job, and the final twist is honestly so absurdly idiotic and out of left field it loops straight back into good. There are hijinks, and they are wacky, but never so wacky as to feel completely meaningless. Entertaining, clever at points, generally solid but certainly not a focus.
The post-game and everything to do with it has practically no story, no setup outside of a single speech bubble somewhere, and is overall extremely gameplay-only, with zero dialogue. I would have hoped for at least a bit, but oh well.
The characters, like the story, are mostly flat but entertaining. They do have some cool interactions together, all of them are memorable and despite the madness around them, still very human, and none of them are truly shafted. Even the (relatively) nice girl Machiko, regardless of her clearly harsher crew and the world around them, holds her own and is every bit as much a strong actor. Definitely a strong point.
The visuals range from brilliant(in every sense of the word) to dull. The New Koza overworld is amazingly well presented visually, with the sprawl and blinding lights obscuring things perfectly communicating the idea of a cramped, wild, neon purgatory. On the other end, you have parts like the first floors of the main dungeon of the game, a generic dull factory tileset. Visuals are generally solid, however, and the feel is always there.
The audio is the absolute peak of the game. Music is incredible, setting the tone perfectly and being a really good soundtrack in itself on the side. There is no battle theme, battles simply continue the excellent dungeon theme, which does an equally excellent job of being both memorable and never really wearing itself out. I could listen to Goon Squad for literal hours (more) on end and it'd still slap. I paid 9 euros for this game and another 8 just for the soundtrack, that should say anything that needs to be said.
I have nothing bad to say about the sound effects. Gunshots are crisp, everything feels like it sounds like it should. No complaints.
The post-game is short and sweet, with an initial gameplay shift into demanding the player to answer the open question of its unprecedentedly powerful enemies and superbosses, presenting a slew of options to build the perfect kill turn with. Again, I do wish there was at least SOME form of dialogue or any other non-story bearing, but eh. The superbosses themselves do have some variety in the approach they require, which makes them memorable and distinct. Overall interesting enough to delve into despite being gameplay only.
The localization, aside from the glaring errors in gameplay mechanics, is generally excellent. Some very clever translation choices(Schwing), good choice of tone adhering to the game's general setting and feel, unfortunately marred by textbox limitations. It stumbles, yes, but rarely. I like it a lot, regardless. It does what it needed to, and does it well.
Overall, Orangeblood is something of a bizarre package in more senses than just the unusual aesthetics blending it does, but is, in my opinion, absolutely worth experiencing. Few games have made me feel like I'm actually getting to know it along the way, but Orangeblood does. Playing Orangeblood is something of a dialogue with the game itself, a feat that's not easy to replicate, and certainly not in a way that's individual and memorable.
Absolutely worth a shot.

This game is great but it has some lacking factors that should always be included.
Cons
Technical Issues:
Firstly there is no fullscreen option/resolution option,all you have is windowed and restore down . There is no information given in the settings menu to explain what thing are like CRT, Command Memory and tilt shift do. A brief description/explanation goes a long way.
(Note: If you press F4 the game will then go into full screen but it's still a bit blurry but better on the title screen and in game looks normal.
"For all rpgmaker games including this one, just press F4 to go fullscreen.
You can tell that they are rpgmaker games right away because when you first launch these types of games they always appear in a tiny box windows."
Quoted by twilightbrigade7
In game issues:
The music is a bit delayed when it loops and you can tell when it happens. There should be less of a delay to ensure full immersion by creating a seamless looping system. Another slightly annoying mechanic is that you need to choose to either ascend or descend when using the stairs every time in the town/ area of operation. I think having the option to move freely would be more beneficial as it would remove this tedious action.
Lack in skills/abilities:
There seems to be a lack of skills when you level up. Usually as your character levels up more RPGs like these generally provide you with new skills that help make your character stronger. Hopefully they add this in the future.
Movement restriction:
There are some places where you should be able to walk or move in between things such as furniture or just in general directions but in some cases the game either stops you like there is an invisible wall or in other cases redirects your movement when you should not have to. Also there is a bed that says sit down but won't actually let you.
Pros
The music:
The game has fantastic and groovy 90's music that really helps set the mood. If you want get a better feel for the music you can listen to the 3 OSTs that Playism released, when you do that I'm sure you'll be boppin and weavin. :)
Pixel art:
When it comes to pixel art style it's top tier and honestly the reason I got it was because of the pixel art and music alone. What also compliments the the games visuals is that in the setting options you can change how the game looks, for example there is a colour setting called gray that gives the game that nice 90's look and with CRT you get the old TV look vibe kinda like the Katana ZERO but just grey. There many options to work with but some are a bit eye straining so just be aware.
The setting:
With a very colourful and vibrant world that has a lot to explore and interact with even if you get lost or don't know where to go, you'll always be able to admire it.
Combat:
The combat system's take with gun turn based game play interesting and performed quite well, with fantastic animations. However in one section early on I did notice that enemies can 1 or 3 shot you but the game does give you time to take them out before they charge up fully and decimate you. Another very important and good thing to point out is that there are many weapons to use and with many different side effects one can inflict on enemies.
Final verdict:
Overall it just came out 3 days ago of writing this review so there is still room for improvement hopefully. Other than having a few minor issues and lacking in some aspects, I'd give the game a 6,5/10.

I fucking love this game. You can turn your nose up and cringe all you want at the dialogue, but this game knows it's trashy and loves it. This shit's not high art and it never pretended to be or tried to be.
What it /is/ is great music, a good sense of humor, fun combat and pretty good atmosphere. The art's fun, the writing's goofy.
Go watch a Scorsese movie if you want something serious that takes itself seriously, this is campy and it's GREAT.
I do wish you could slow down the text speed, though, it gets kind of ridiculous at points.

By far the best pixel art I've seen in a game to date. While the combat isn't difficult it's still very enjoyable. The characters are very funny and the most entertaining part of the game.