A story-driven JRPG epic that combines political resistance, tactical automation, and a huge amount of material.
This game, Wayblazer Dämmerung, is very important to the company that made it. Japan has been known for a long time for making big strategy RPGs and fantasy sagas for grown-ups. For years, most of its books were out of reach for English-speaking readers because of issues with translation and limited ways to get them out.
Shiravune came along and moved the game to the west, which changed everything. It’s interesting that Wayblazer Dämmerung wasn’t always meant to be a game for adults. It came out in Japan as a straightforward JRPG with a story.
Adult DLC was added later as an extra. The whole package is open to people in the West, but the game is still mostly about telling a story, not making a sexual spectacle. If you like old-school Japanese role-playing games and deep stories, this game is kind of like a mix of the two. At the same time, it feels both old and surprisingly new.
People in a country that seems to be steady are having trouble with the government at the start of Wayblazer Dämmerung.
It used to be that King Torkrieg was seen as a wise and kind king. People are scared instead of safe when his guards steal from towns and say they are gathering food. Mark and Ruili fight when they see their own home being destroyed because of a tragedy in their own lives. A search for solutions turns into a movement across the country against oppression. You are not forced to follow a linear plan by the story.
Instead, it asks you to look around. You can look into places to find allies, say no to possible friends, or even work with groups you didn’t expect. You can make choices that branch, react, and change the story. It doesn’t just move forward.
The big group is one thing that makes the game stand out. You might have eleven fighters by the end of a game. Each one has their own goals, story, and personal stakes in the battle as a whole. In a lot of RPGs, once a character is hired, their story stops. But their stories keep going in this game.
As bonds between people shift, hidden truths emerge, and trust may be put to the test.
It’s set up so that no single run shows everything. Ends come in many forms, and yours and someone else’s may be very different. With New Game+, you can play the game even more than before because it gives you new tasks and reasons to go back and make choices you made before.
You might find that even after forty or fifty hours, you haven’t even started to look through the CG gallery or all the different storylines that can end in different ways.
It’s a lot of fun to talk to people in Wayblazer Dämmerung, which is set up like a visual novel. The game is mostly made up of portraits of characters, animated sprites, and dialogue with a lot of text. If you think you’ll be exploring dungeons all the time, you might be shocked. Combat and travel take up about 20 to 30 percent of the game’s time, but the story is what it’s all about.
The slow pace lets the world-building be more in-depth than in most middle-level JRPGs. Politics, family problems, and disagreements about ideas are more important than TV shows. This will be the best thing about the game for some people and the hardest thing about it for others.
But the idea becomes even more complicated when you’re in battle.
In battle, each player takes a turn, but what makes the game unique is the automation system, which is a lot like Final Fantasy XII’s cheats. You can make sure that each figure follows a certain set of rules when you can hit two enemies at once with a spear attack, when an enemy is in the air, when your health drops below a certain level, or when your SP is low, use a sword.
Each condition is checked one after the other because these rules are ranked. Thanks to smart layers, targeting choices, like focusing on the enemy with the least health, can work with other conditions at the same time. The end result is an AI that can be changed in many ways and is surprisingly good at running daily tasks.
This makes a big difference in how you play the game. Random fights are streamlined into almost meditative scenes where you don’t have to direct every move but instead watch strategies play out. It’s a lot less boring to grind, which is sometimes necessary since the leveling curve is meant to be very slow. You can still choose not to use the method, though.
When time is of the essence or resources need to be saved, boss fights often need to be managed by hand. The game never feels too automatic or too hands-on because it’s so easy to change. Instead, it lets you choose when to really take part and when to let your well-thought-out reasoning take over.
The rate at which you gain experience in Wayblazer Dämmerung is meant to be slow.
You feel like you earned each level, not got it. Stat boosts may not seem like much, but they can make a big difference in how long you can stay alive and how much damage you can do. Sometimes, one extra level can mean the difference between a hard-fought loss and a win.
People are told to grind to get something or to get training. You buy the best gear from shops most of the time, but sometimes you sell resources you’ve gathered. When you use this way, battle is directly linked to progress. This makes the loop of fighting, crafting, upgrading, and coming back stronger even stronger.
There’s a handy tool in the game that lets you start a random meeting with the press of a button. This keeps things interesting. You no longer have to run through halls looking for enemies. The task is only called up when you need something or want to practice.
The game does not quite live up to expectations when it comes to dungeon creation. There are places that feel like better versions of RPGMaker plans; they’re useful but not pretty. Some graphic variety is given up so that the story can shine through because there are so many hallways.
Later on, it gets hard to get through complex layouts, especially near the end. Dunes aren’t as big as they are in more expensive JRPGs, but they’re not bad either. Most of the time, they do what I expect them to do.
One of the best things about how it looks is the character art.
There are a lot of different styles and feelings that can be shown in portraits. If you look at a friend, you can tell right away what kind of shape and personality they have.
What spells do and the pictures you use to fight are good, but not new. A UI that is clean and easy to read is important for a system that works under certain conditions. During story scenes, the background art always has a magical feel to it, but it never goes too far into stunning. The designs are well-done, but not revolutionary. This puts them in the upper middle level.
The sound design goes well with the game. The music leans toward big orchestral themes when things are getting tense, and toward softer tunes when things are calm. Since the game lasts a long time, it’s important that the battle tracks don’t get dull too quickly.
When the story takes a big turn, voice acting makes the dramatic parts better. The audio landscape isn’t as good as some of the biggest names in its field, but it does a good job of backing the strength and tension of the story.
The adult content is in Western versions, but it doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the game.
Scenes are added as the story goes on, but you don’t have to follow the major plot to see them. This stuff didn’t come with the original game, so they don’t work well with it now.
They don’t change the story or how the characters grow. You might not notice how deep and original the parts are if you only play the game for the sexy parts. You can choose not to do them, so they don’t take away from the main experience.
Wayblazer Dämmerung works best when it’s big in the end. Even though it doesn’t change the JRPG genre or break new technological ground, it has way too much content. The game can easily last more than fifty hours in one sitting because it has so many endings, allies that can be recruited, loyalties that can branch off, and complicated fighting systems.
It’s easy to see what the value is when you add replayability.
Quality is always good, but sometimes the game puts more value on numbers than quality. Even though it’s not a perfect emotional story or a very difficult tactical obstacle course, it is a fair and very interesting journey through resistance and consequence.
This is a great game that you should play if you like deep stories, freedom in strategy, and making big decisions. Some problems with it are that the dungeons aren’t very well thought out, the graphics aren’t great, and the game’s major strengths are its interesting systems and big world. You may not remember every hallway you walk down, but you will remember the people you met, the lies you heard, and the kingdom you changed.
