Main game
2.92 average rating based on 13 ratings
I played the PS4 version of Asdivine Hearts. If the creators put just a bit more effort into a few small areas, this mostly mediocre game could have been a pretty good one. Here's a list (very minor spoilers):
Sprite animations - If Final Fantasy VI, which came out twenty and a half years prior, thankyouverymuch, can show characters emoting, closing their eyes, kneeling, sleeping, what have you, why the heck can't this game? Is it just laziness? Characters outside of battle move left, right, towards you, and away. And that's it. Oh, they tossed a cat to the side? Let's just spin the sprite. Oh, we need someone to lie on the ground? Literally just rotate the sprite sideways. Don't even close their eyes. It's crazy. Also, I feel like they could've added maybe three more NPC designs for towns and what not, and that would have gone a long way to adding some visual interest.
Palette swapped monsters - I know almost every RPG is guilty of this but... come on. They designed about six enemies and the rest are minor detail and color swaps.
The music - This one is maybe the most frustrating of all, because …
I played the PS4 version of Asdivine Hearts. If the creators put just a bit more effort into a few small areas, this mostly mediocre game could have been a pretty good one. Here's a list (very minor spoilers):
Sprite animations - If Final Fantasy VI, which came out twenty and a half years prior, thankyouverymuch, can show characters emoting, closing their eyes, kneeling, sleeping, what have you, why the heck can't this game? Is it just laziness? Characters outside of battle move left, right, towards you, and away. And that's it. Oh, they tossed a cat to the side? Let's just spin the sprite. Oh, we need someone to lie on the ground? Literally just rotate the sprite sideways. Don't even close their eyes. It's crazy. Also, I feel like they could've added maybe three more NPC designs for towns and what not, and that would have gone a long way to adding some visual interest.
Palette swapped monsters - I know almost every RPG is guilty of this but... come on. They designed about six enemies and the rest are minor detail and color swaps.
The music - This one is maybe the most frustrating of all, because the music is pretty good. Some of it is great! There's just not enough of it! A few more tracks to give some variety to dungeons and towns would have gone a long way. The overworld track in Reveria is fantastic and one of several examples that shows they had a good composer on the project. Just a little more would have gone a huge way. A minor point, but still something of note, is that each track starts from the beginning after every battle, which makes it hard to get into any particular piece, and makes it hard for the music to set the mood really. This is probably a holdover from the game's mobile origins.
Some plot points - The major story line isn't anything deep or revolutionary by any stretch, and that's okay. What bothers me the most is that basically all character development exists in the bumbling male hero curating his harem of even more bumbling archetypal female characters. The game advertises different endings, which are basically just you gave the most attention to this particular woman, here she is falling in love with you. It's boring, insulting to players, and just SO outmoded.
Next to the game's treatment of its female protagonists, the biggest grievance I have with AD is a repeat of number two. And that is the last boss... is a freaking palette swap of the game's mid-boss. SERIOUSLY? You couldn't have given these two different entities different appearances? This one blows my mind.
All in all, if you're looking for an "old school" turn-based RPG experience, you could do much worse than Asdivine Hearts. Just don't expect too much. And if you're like me, prepare to be annoyed by the overwhelmingly repetitive music, story, and don't say I didn't warn you when you're expecting some awesome crazy boss at the end, only to have it be... a different colored version of a boss you already fought.
New to the site but enjoying what I'm seeing so far, particularly the modern, social, and flashier GUI than Backloggery has held onto since it began. Might just spend a few afternoons updating my backlog here and, once more, wonder how I'm ever going to play all of these games!
Otherwise, started Asdivine Asdivine Hearts today, in search of a relaxing RPG, and I may have just found it.
Playing this on Android. Is a serviceable game with strong characters even if stereotypical and one note. Combat is ok, but veeeery repetitive. Every mission plays the same. Town leads to dungeon which leads to telegraphed boss fight which leads to repetition in a slightly different town with slightly different looking monsters. Abilities are varied, but they lack information; there's no way telling on which skills are stronger than the other and even the scant descriptions are confusing. Thankfully, it's easy enough for that things not to matter that much.