The Caligula Effect: Overdose

I don't understand why this game isn't rated way higher, like... at least 85%. For me it's easily 100%, it just has so much great stuff. It's compared to the Persona games a lot - well, I'll just say that I liked Persona 4 enough to do all the achievements there (even that completely ridiculous one with getting 400 unique voiced lines from Rise), but I love this game so much more.
1) Combat is great. There's a planning phase for your characters' moves (where you also see what the enemies will do during that time), and then everyone's moves are executed at the same time (similar to Transistor, or a less extreme/more accessible version of Frozen Synapse).
* Characters can be launched into air, downed, or stunned - it works great for coordinated team action (I think that alone made the combat deeper than in Persona)
* Positioning characters is generally important - even if enemies are, say, 20 levels above you, you can either avoid their attacks instead of tanking them, or use shield to block them which would also stun the enemy
* Stat-modifying abilities are actually important for harder fights, AND they don't wear off in just a couple of turns like in so many other games
* There are NO items or shops - instead, all characters are fully restored after each battle, and for any in-battle healing there are character skills. So there's no need to stock up on items or have to backtrack because you ran out of healing, etc.
* The difficulty is VERY flexible. If you want challenging combat, the Hard or Extreme option is great - but if you don't care about it, Normal or Easy is the way to go. This can be changed at any time (well, except in mid-combat) with no penalty. Also, enemy encounters stop being forced on you once MC is 5+ levels above the enemies, so you can fight as much or as little as you want.
* They actually made sensible use of the mouse wheel for choosing menu options, making it often faster than using mouse AND keyboard. It's a relatively small detail, but I sure appreciated it.
2) I really, REALLY enjoyed the story.
* Plenty of lovable characters, and a couple of easy to hate ones, tons of funny interactions - seriously, it's great.
* The Musician route felt amazing. It was the closest I got to feeling like the MC of Eminence in Shadows - specifically, the arc where he works with another group against his own organisation, and they all think "wow, I wonder who this really strong person fighting against us is". They give you a bad4ss look and theme music, too. Interactions with other Musicians (and Go-Home club members) are very fun, the ending of the route is properly gut-wrenching - and you are not forced to replay the entire game to see the different ending, either. .
* I can't believe this even needs to be pointed out, but - I've seen some claims online like "this game condones/excuses <problematic behavior>", and after playing the game I found those claims to be as credible as saying "detective stories condone/excuse murder". Like, seriously, this game is VERY, ridiculously clearly on the side of empathy/compassion/etc.
3) Music, of course, deserves a special mention. The in-game setup is that there is one singer, Mu, who has different Musicians (each with their own background/personality) create the music and lyrics for her songs. Mu then performs each song according to the corresponding Musician's feelings (basically, she's taking on a different persona for each song). In real life, the songs were actually created by different people and performed by the same singer.
* Mu's voice actress (Reina Ueda) does an absolutely phenomenal job of it - she actually managed to make ALL songs really sound like different characters were singing them. E.g. someone who doesn't ever want to grow up, or someone who wants to break everything, or someone who just wants to be cooler - very different personalities, and all come through very distinct, through just her voice (though music style and lyrics/vocabulary for each song are also very distinct).
* Pretty much all songs are bangers as a result
4) This game has an *insane* amount of extra details that are completely optional - but they're still available if you want to seek them out.
* Each character has something unique they can say to MC or *any* other character the in the party once battle starts, and something else when it ends (and what they say to MC changes based on whether the link with them is maxed out). Moreover, after finishing the game, it's possible to put both the Go-Home club members AND Musicians into the party together - and see what they have to say to each other! Given some characters' histories together, this can be super fun. The only downside is that this is Japanese voice only, without any subtitles.
* The in-game messaging app lets you ask ANY of the 500+ students how they feel on a variety of topics. For example, maybe you know that "The moon is beautiful" in Japanese has the meaning of "I love you" (for historical reasons - google it), and you're curious to see how different party members would react to the confession (or indeed, whether they even know that meaning)? Well, you absolutely can. Or try asking some of the more eccentric characters "What is important in battle?" - some of the replies are hilarious.
* The Causality Link system is mostly a way to gradually make MC more powerful through stat increases and extra skills - but it also has random bits about each of the 500+ students. Uncovering those bits feels a bit like Return of the Obra Dinn - it tells you bits of stories of what happened in each class, with some jokes and secrets. For example, one class is labelled as "Class Trial" on the chart, with some students on the prosecution side and some on the defence side... and if you explore this you'll find out that the trial was about who ate someone else's lunch.
I just love this game so much.

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

I love me a good RPG with and intriguing story. The music and aesthetic really appealed to me as well, however I wish the in game models and animations were as good, they leave a lot to be desired. Admittedly it does take awhile for the game to rope you in with the good story and mechanics roughly about 10 hours? So it does have a bit of a slow start. Majority of the characters were well written and relatable which carried a lot of my interest in the game. The character episode were fun however the side quests with NPCs were some of the worst implemented I've ever seen I only did about 3 of them and needed a guide since a majority of them were so convoluted. Some of the dungeons went a little longer than I would have liked. Other than that it was a fun game that I was happy to play :)

An example of a game where there should be a middle review option between recommend and not recommend. The Caligula Effect is an ambitious game. It have a lot of interesting ideas. But it achieved none of it. Though, you can see that it tries so hard, so you want to commend it for at least trying.
So what do we have?
A JRPG combat system that wants to utilize tactics and timing to create combinations to cool moves, check. But in execution, you put everything on auto and spam the same moves because encounters are so easy, and once you get to the bosses, they are just upscaled minions that will go down from a round of limit breaks.
A Persona-like story line dealing with traumas and accepting oneself, check. But because there is no time constraints and the choices in the social link story line is severely limiting, because choosing the wrong choices can lock you out of a character episode, player choices and engagement are limited. Characters are really good though. But the constraint really makes the episodes more of an annoyance than getting to know your friends better.
A comprehensive school system where every students are unique and you can approach them to resolve their trauma and gain benefits from them. Because there are over 500 of them, none of them are distinct enough to remain in your memories, and their trauma resolution boils down to what amounts to mindless sidequests in most game.
It's an ambitious game that met none of the goals that it set for itself. But at least it tries, and make for a decent game. Not a good game, not a great game, but not an unplayable horrible mess either.

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.

Very good game. I was looking for a game with a timeline mechanic that wasnt very limiting and I got what I wanted. But because of the fact that it wasnt very limiting, if you know what you are doing, you just might kill the final boss without seeing its attacks. Still, one of my new favorite games :)

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.