Koudelka

Strong story, but the gameplay loses a bit of steam towards the end.

It's a game with big ideas, a great atmosphere, good story (with pretty good voice acting work, especially considering the time), pretty deep systems, wrapped in a game with seriously atrocious and PAINFULLY, game-endingly slow combat. There are choices here, like doing 0 damage in combat after what you had previously been doing was working, that just annoy me. Weapon breaking was the nail in the coffin for me.

a pretty remarkable chamber drama stuffed inside an...interesting game. the light survival and turn-based tactics elements certainly hold my interest more than a lot of more typical jrpgs, but it's so incredibly easy that those elements don't contribute anywhere near as much as they should. also, character controls are horrible. the characters themselves, though...yeah. the drinking scene was great. this is a very strange game, for all the good and bad that entails. mostly good, i think.