Yohane the Parhelion captured my interest in the short time I played the demo

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Yohane the Parhelion - NUMAZU in the MIRAGE - 7.7 Roguelike Anime

✨Overview

Yohane the Parhelion - NUMAZU in the MIRAGE is a deck-building roguelike game set in the Love Live! Sunshine! universe. The game is set to release on PlayStation 5, Switch, and PC via Steam on February 22, with a free demo now out for everyone to try. The demo includes the first chapter that lasts around 20-30 minutes per run and culminates in a final boss battle. Progression is not saved, but as this is a rogue-like game, it’s a non-issue.

📜History

The game is set in the Love Live! universe, a franchise known for its multimedia projects, anime series, and music; and has been a cultural phenomenon in Japan. “Love Live! Sunshine!!” is one of its successful media, which is about high school girls forming idol groups to save their schools. “Yohane the Parhelion” takes this beloved universe and transforms it into a fantasy setting, and this is what this game adapts and is all about.

📖I have no idea about Love Live!, can I still play it?

Yes, checking out the demo, I really had no prior knowledge of Yohane the Parhelion or the Love Live! Sunshine Franchise. Despite the game primarily catering to existing fans, it turned out well for me as a first-time exposure because the experience is mainly gameplay-oriented and focused on the deck-building rogue-like aspect. Still, it’s probably a better experience if you had prior knowledge with the franchise and have watched the anime.

📖Story and Premise

The story begins when Yohane, a fortune teller girl in Numazu, comes into possession of an old mirror. Suddenly, she is sucked into the mirror, which transports her to the “Reverse-Numazu” – an exact reverse of the real Numazu. This mysterious world allows the use of magic through the power of cards, and this is where the rogue-like gameplay begins.

🎮Gameplay

The game combines elements of fantasy, magic, rogue-like gameplay, and strategic card battles. it is essentially a deck-building rogue-like where you choose your encounters, free to select your own path through a series of branching paths.

Players travel across the map, encountering events such as stores to buy new cards, campsites to rest and upgrade cards, chests to loot, and random events with choices to play out. However, the primary focus is on combating different sets of enemies in a card battle layout, culminating in a final boss battle that concludes each chapter. There’s not much varying of enemies in the demo, and I do hope there is a lot more in the later chapters in the full game.

⚔️Card Battles

The actual card battle mechanics are simple yet very strategic with its attack and defense mechanic, involving attack and defense ratings for all cards/units that determine their attack power and the ability to mitigate damage.

You get to choose which new cards to add from a randomized selection every now and then, building up your deck, until it’s full that you need to discard to add new ones. The modifiers of the cards are varied and interesting, providing straightforward effects such as “attacks all enemies,” “lowers attack rating,” or “adds 10 shields on the next turn.” Health points are persistent throughout runs and does not reset after encounter so you’d need to manage it throughout the runs.

We also get to see the enemy units’ next moves and it’s an interesting mechanic that gives us another strategic insight how to approach the battle — what cards to use and which units to attack. Overall, the combat is very strategic without being overly complicated, I was constantly thinking about next move instead of spamming attack cards aimlessly.

🃏Charms and Summons

Apart from cards, the game includes charms serving as permanent passive elements with simple yet varied and interesting modifiers. Players can also summon friends as temporary allies during battles. Although the game is a rogue-like, it incorporates persistent elements, allowing players to unlock new modifiers and mechanics for subsequent runs, for example a one-time revive upon death to 20% HP.

⏫Progression

I found the first run very easy, with a tutorial section at the start and some story being told in between encounters, but there was a huge difficulty spike at the end boss which defeated me. Subsequent runs of the Demo are then have a more balanced difficulty and excluded the tutorials/story bits.

🎨Visuals and Art

The game features vibrant visuals, well-animated characters, and somewhat detailed cel-shaded visuals. The soundtrack is an atypically adventurous and soothing anime music, but it sounds great nonetheless. There is a little bit of voice acting with partially voiced dialogue lines, and it’s quite unfortunate not to have full acting, as it feels lacking considering everything else in the presentation is essentially done well.

📊Technical Performance

Overall the demo ran smoothly and no issues. With it’s lightweight nature most computer should run it well. Aside from its current platforms, I do hope it gets ported to mobile soon though, as this type of game really fits the mobile platform very well with its rogue-like nature and open-ended gameplay.

The game can be played with just the KB and supports controllers too, but the point-and-click controls for the mouse are implemented really good as well, it even snaps the cursor to appropriate locations when using it, although some people may find the feature confusing.

⚖️Conclusion

I went in pretty much with zero knowledge of Love Live!, but I came out of the demo pretty much excited about the upcoming game all the same. Yohane the Parhelion - NUMAZU in the MIRAGE captured my interest in the short amount of time I played the demo, with its engaging rogue-like mechanics, strategic card battles, and the overall appealing visuals and cute characters, and I’m glad to have tried it. It releases next month on February 22, 2024.

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