The Caligula Effect: Overdose

Good game with turn-based system that let you forecast your moves before it happen

Honesty, after finishing this game, I don't know if deserves a thumbs up or a thumbs down. If you were to ask me about 70% into the game, I would have said I hated it--it was excruciating to get through. The game itself is ugly (the anime they advertise consists of like no more than 30 seconds) and while I enjoyed the music, the same song loops through each dungeon and it quickly becomes nauseating. There is tons of potential with the game mechanics and I hope the sequel refines them. But the game is so easy it almost plays itself. I forgot all about equipping items and about the last stretch of the game I updated my characters and they were like godlike powerful lol. The bosses were especially easy-- if you save your special moves, your team will obliterate them before they have a chance to make a move.
Now, the last 10% was different for me. I'm surprised how much I warmed up to this game. The stories started to come together, the stakes of the story felt more real and the game itself became more challenging which forced me to strategize with the game mechanics. It's not enough for me to ever play this game again but it is enough to feel good about finishing it and it encourages me enough to play the sequel (which I've heard is miles better).
If you like j-pop, listen to the soundtrack though. It's surprisingly good and probably where most of the budget went lol.

I like that this game has hints of Persona. It's also very imaginative. Nice graphics. I'm still not terribly fond of the nav or battle system, but they're growing on me. This game has a bizarre knack for occasionally hitting upon raw spots in my psyche. Definitely not everything is as it seems in Mobius.

This is a hidden gem, at least for me. It's a FuRyu game, so as expected the budget was a T-Rex & a Go-Fish card. Because of this, the graphics are middling & a lot of character animations are kinda choppy. If you can look past these things, the game opens up to you.
The story of the game is genuinely interesting, with each chapter of the main story involving a primary focus of 2 characters at a time (1 Go-Home Club member & 1 Ostinato Musician), giving each character time to shine. You learn about their traumas & help them overcome them in each character's story episodes. The emotions are there. The only problem with the story is that it can feel kind of choppy at times. As this is a remake with a new route & new characters, they needed to integrate it into the main story, but I wish they put a little more effort into it over "OK we're gonna do this now", because that's how it feels during some parts of the game. It won't ruin it, but I do wish it flowed better.
The gameplay is great. I really like the battle system in this game as it makes you think about your team composition & who to use. Your strategy will vary depending on the team. Combat with bosses always feels challenging but never unfair with the tools you have. I beat the game blind on hard mode. Maybe a sweat.
The side quest system in this game is fine. It can get quite annoying since basically all of them require you to add the NPC into your party, but taking some time between chapters to clear them out can get you some nice rewards. Stat boosts for the protagonist or special equipment (the equipment you get is a different type then what you get during the main story, so it won't fight for slots & will purely benefit you). Also, some of the side quests are pretty interesting. But you might want to go onto Easy Mode before doing some of them. Fighting the level 70 nightmare with essentially a useless party member is frustrating. But it's not the hardest thing in the world, & it typically grants good rewards. Also, completing the side quests will help you learn about each classroom. Easter Eggs for nerds. Like me.
Overall, I would give it a 7/10. Good, fun, enjoyable experience with more positives than negatives overall. Story had me hooked, gameplay was fun. Graphics were FINE, barely. QoL was good. Deducted points for pacing & the unreal amount of side quests in the game. There's a reason I have 120 hours when the story takes about 40 (I beat the game twice).

This is a unique game. Why is real time based battle system. lets dive in.

During battle you can plan out your moved before you execute them. The game shows you whaat happens via a preview of a turn before it actually plays out so you can plan ahead to heal buff or debuff an enemy / ally as needed.

Enemis have shield in this game so if one activates a shield you can plan ahead to break it to dish out the damage otherwise your dmage will get blocked if the shield is not broken. You can eventually stun lock enemies and or stagger them to a point where they can't do a thing.

You are mostly going to be fighting the same thing over and over again so theres not much variety in the enemies you are fighting as they are just demonized high school students trapped in a metaverse who don't want to go home. But your job is to correct that.

Each npc in the game ( 524 ) of them can be recruited on to your party there is really no limit this so go wild. Along with being able to recruit them each one has his or hers problem to solve. this give off a feel where npc's actually matter.

This game gets a pass for me as batles can be repeditive and after awhile you just hit a to win. But the system is still pretty unique.

The music is great, and the characters are quite unique.

this sure is a video game that is associated with furyu
ok out the gate : this game is ugly. not to say there is nothing good here (the character designs and portraits are quite good) but this is an unsightly game. even for a vita game. there's other games that escaped the console but at least looked better than this. on top of that, it does not help that for most people the combat is not worth playing above "easy", partly because it is painfully slow to get through.
that aside, the Persona comparisons aren't entirely unwarranted (a given, considering the pedigree of some of the people who worked on this) but it's very very very much a budget RPG, and the main reason to play this is the writing, which might not even satisfy most people. you can feel the budget everywhere, and it's not always a good thing.
but is it worth picking up? uh on sale maybe, certainly not at full price, it's a very hard ask for most people. it's a bit of a chore to get through but there's something here if you're willing to invest your time, which once again is a hard ask in the modern gaming landscape. especially since this game feels like a draft at times.