Going 2 for 4 on Switch RPG demos now. The first batch was good, this second batch was a disappointment. Thank God for demos is all I can say, because Shining Resonance Refrain and Labyrinth of Refrain are the games I was more likely to shell out for sight-unseen, the former because I liked previous Shining games and the latter because I like first-person dungeon crawlers.

Shining Resonance Refrain – Very short demo that didn’t tell much about the story but did introduce the three boobies beauties the game is probably going to revolve around, as well as the worthless sap main character Yuma who they are all going to fall in love with because that’s what girls in Shining games do. I don’t mind harem RPGs at all as long as the gameplay is fun. Which sadly isn’t the case for Shining Resonance. I fought a few battles with three different party members and the controls are sluggish, clunky and unresponsive. After those few minutes I didn’t want to play any more, which is very rare for me and ARPGs. That said, SRR has gone on sale for as low as $9.99 before. At that price, it would be worth continuing to play and seeing if the combat picks up. Until then, I have no interest.

Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk – I was a bit cautious going into this one. I don’t have a good history with Nippon Ichi, because IMO they have a habit of taking basic systems and mucking them up with too many complications. E.g. their Disgaea stuff overcomplicates SRPGs and Zettai Hero Project went overboard for a roguelite. All IMO of course, but nevertheless it keeps me away from their games.

All that said, however, initially Labyrinth of Refrain far exceeded my expectations. Exploration was a bit annoying because I’m used to auto-travel from Experience Inc. games, but I got on great. The demo was meaty and I got to explore a lot of territory, create several party members and equip and level them as well. There’s quite a bit of customization involved in creating characters too. Combat wasn’t bad – nothing exciting, just the usual dungeon-crawler fare. The Game Over/Escape penalty wasn’t too harsh and even the roving enemies that initially gave me pause weren’t very F.O.E.-like.

I was all set to wishlist it and buy it at the next opportunity when the story destroyed everything with a scene of a lesbian nun sexually assaulting the witch main character. It would be hard to express in words just how repulsed and disgusted I was, so I’m not going to try. Yes the game did have a “Mature” label, but not like this NIS, not like this. Someone actually proposed that scene, someone wrote it, someone programmed it, someone recorded the voice lines, someone translated it and all along no one ever thought to scream, “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS GARBAGE?!” All right, then I won’t say anything either. I deleted the demo and we will never speak of it again.

Back to Picross. Good old Picross. Casual games are the best!