Toward Dawn

A good game with some glaring flaws.

Pros: 

Gorgeous scenery.

Very beautiful characters.

A nice soundtrack.

Animated sprites.

Cons:

A convoluted battle system that asks for a lot and gives very little in return. (Do you gain stats as you level, because while I was fighting I didn't see much change from level 1 to level 8.)

Too many pieces of equipment and spells and stats and debuffs and buffs. I was actually getting annoyed at how much I was being asked to keep up with, all the while wondering if I was getting more powerful as I leveled up. 

Very bland characters who feel like they fit an archetype more than a narrative.

A plot that is almost non-existent. 

An empty world that doesn't feel like it has anything in it, despite how pretty it is.

Oddity:

There is a card game in here that is...fine. I guess. Not a card game fan, so don't get much the point.

A rhythm game that halted my progress...mostly because I am bad at them, which is my fault.

Codex. In theory, very nice. In practice, it demands reading information to understand who is who and why is 'that thing' there, and I skipped it. 

- - - - - - - - - - -

Playing this game, I was left wondering several things, one of which was, what the point of what we were doing was, because for as action pack as the narrative begins, it almost immediately grinds to a halt minutes afterwards, and I do minutes. 

While playing the demo I was left wondering what my overall goal was with regard to everything happening, and then I realized about 2/3rds the way in that this story is basically a wish fulfillment fantasy much along the lines of Twilight. And I don't say that to be cruel or mean or derisive, I say that because the main character is a nearly helpless maiden who is saved by this imposing wolfman, and ends up with him, because she has no other goals or motivations. And he...is there because he needs to be, he himself has no other goals or motivations outside of basically being her VERY obvious boyfriend in the making, a four character in the storyline actually comments on this and when the wolf and maiden got flustered I felt myself sigh before I heard it.

Now, to be fair, this isn't a bad thing, for a starting storyline, since it does show the characterization very well, but it feels so...pedantic, like this was done by the numbers for the sake of making a very clear YT romance story. However, because that's all there is to it, there's no depth to the relationship, no value to the heroine and hero being together, because, yeah, they are going to end up together, very clearly, but...as a viewer I'm left asking...'so what?' Why should I care, when they do anything more outside of being together.

A narrative like this DEMANDS action from both characters in order to better define them, but without a strong plot there is no motivation to see their storyline through, and so I stopped...

...specifically at the 'rhythm game' where you have to press the buttons in order to find the MoonBlossom. No. Just...no. I shouldn't be forced to play a new type of game like this just to progress. It's gatekeeping the rest of the game for no reason.