The Caligula Effect: Overdose

Get this game if you want a JRPG with unique battle system, amazing character design, lovable cast of characters (even the antagonists!) and banger OSTs.
There are a some downsides that I encountered, such as stiff animations, repetitive dungeon design and I feel like some of the story lacks the resolution that it deserve.
My mind has been occupied by this game for weeks now, you can say it's all the effect of overdosing on caligula, heh.

HONESTLY!!! Ive been fairly biased towards this game... but its still really fun!! Like, its fun but OBJECTIVELY speaking its not that good. The problem is that it had really good baseline but it just didn't execute it that well... I don't think thats the best way to describe it but for example: The characters are really interesting HOWEVER their development (and how they live with/solve the issue with their life) feels rushed and incomplete sometimes not even resolving the character's development ending when the protagonist learns of their issue. Again this isn't that bad because the characters are geniuenly interesting and when their arc is actually pulled off well it's really cool just that most of the characters' often feel off. This isn't the only thing like this in the game... The main story can feel rushed too in a similar way and the way the characters act feels very off... The thing is that if you can look past things like this the game is very fun but not mentioning these just because you CAN look past them wouldnt be a very good review....

Although I haven't played it from what I hear the second game pretty much fixes those issues... The game does have other problems like the dungeon design being pretty repetitive in the later areas because HONESTLY the first 4 areas we're cool cuz there was like some degree of interactiveness with the dungeon with different objectives to do... after the library all the dungeons are pretty much just going to the end (unless you wanna count looking for two keys in the construction site). Other than that, there's the combat, which is a masterpiece probably up there with my favorite combat systems. Seriously, this combat is really good...

Anyways, I really like the game. I do recommend you play it even with these shortcomings because its still honestly a great game that I find really fun, just expect things like this... Also this is the first time I've tried writing an honest to goodness review so like yknow fr fr fr....

Having taken plenty of time to play through the game and all the character episodes, I can safely say that this is one of the most in-depth games I have played.
Character wise: I would tie the character development fairly close to Persona level as far as the development of backstories and the information involved. It was interesting to see that most of the characters are related to one another through a specific incident, which they are unaware of. That being said, each character has their own motivations and intentions, as well as their own disorders. It's easy with the diversity in issues to find at least one or more characters here to relate to. Whether it be loss, guilt over something you felt you could have stopped, eating disorders, or simply running from the past. The true question gets brought up multiple times if the Musicians are truly bad, or just by-products of the pain of their past. It all comes together in the end and is one of the best games I've played.

Story-wise: It's a great story, though at times mildly predictable (like THAT one musician....). All in all though it deeply develops the characters and really shines with the music ensemble throughout. The game does a great job at accurately portraying traumas to the extent that it seems one truly did their research developing it. It allows a fair bit of choice, including a bad ending if you want it.

Battle wise: It's turn based progression that allows you movement around a small board to use various abilities. I found early on that learning when to use healing and the emergency barrier are key to harder fights. The battles aren't difficult, but fighting same or lower level enemies takes less skill and sometimes I would just find myself spamming all the characters basic attacks. The game has a battle forecast function similar to Fire Emblem and others that allows you to see the hit chance, as well as what the enemy is likely to do next. This comes in handy for combo moves. Speaking of, a lot of the game involves juggling to increase the enemies' "risk meter" which just ups the damage similar to criticals. Higher risk meter makes some moves use better combos, and most of the ultimate moves from completing character episodes relies on them. Though some like Kotono rely instead on hitting airborne enemies.

All in all, solid gameplay, great character work, and top notch music. I'd play but again, but my backlog is full.

Bought this on sale with no clue what it was and was pleasantly surprised by how interesting the cast and story were.
JRPG with the premise of what if The Matrix was run by Vocaloids
The battle system is... ok. It incentives juggling enemies to not allow them to get their turns but the lack of a battle timeline scrub control makes it far more time consuming that it should be.
MC stat improvements outside of levels is tied to the Causality Link which is a sidequest tree. Cool the first few times you try it, but with how much the sidequests repeat, gets really tedious.
I'd honestly recommend this game at lowest difficulty just to be able to speed along the story because that really is where it shines.

While this is a recommendation, it's a rather careful one.
Admittedly, the game is not that good. The low(er) budget is painfully obvious, the dungeons consist of rather bland corridors, basically no characters outside of the main two groups exist, the Causality Link quest system is a nice idea implemented poorly, the equipment system makes no sense and feels almost pointless, there is almost no meaningful mechanical progression outside from a handful of unlockable skills, and the combat eventually starts getting frustratingly repetitive.
Why is this a recommendation then? Predominantly for the story. Sure, the setting and premise are rather generic, but it really lets its characters shine. Most of them, while undeniably tropey, are written very well and have some really satisfying development both in the main story and in the optional character events. This goes both for the heroes of the story and the antagonists. And it's elevated greatly by the very emotional, sometimes even raw-feeling, voice acting. In part this has to do with the voice direction being strong too, I'd say.
While the combat does get repetitive in frequent encounters, when it works it works very well. The unusual battle system was part of the reason I checked the game out in the first place and ultimately it did not disappoint. The main mechanic is a "prediction" system that allows you to see what the enemies intend to do in the near future and the effects any attacks would have, and plan ahead up to 3 actions per character. It suits boss fights and scripted encounters well, but the battle system being more involved means that the chaff encounters get rather annoying. You can skip most regular enemies given that they will only "notice" you and initiate the fight if they're at your level or higher (and even then you can dodge most of them or run from battle), but you really don't want to fall behind on XP since being underleveled incurs rather big accuracy penalties.
The music certainly deserves a mention as well, every dungeon has a unique theme seamlessly switching between the vocal and instrumental versions when going in and out of combat, capping off with a remix of it during the boss fight, and pretty much all of the tracks are quite good.
Ultimately, if you can handle some jank and slogginess (honestly I wouldn't mind the game being 10-20 hours shorter, though the long playtime is mostly on me here), it's a unique and somewhat fresh-feeling JRPG that's worth checking out on sale.

You'll spend more time completing the mystery of the 21-class leader than the story itself. Thoughts and prayers

This is peak video game. Don't be fooled, this isn't even close to a Persona clone. This takes inspiration from Persona and Danganronpa(kinda). It's probably not a game for everyone, since it's pretty challenging, especially the bosses.Speaking of bosses the final boss fight was so FUCKIN' awesome. But if you like Persona, buy this on the spot. Peak JRPG,Good Story(sometimes mediocre), the developers cooked well.