Yes, the story is "good enough" and some of the scenes (that I saw anyways) are unnecessary in that they don't seem to advance the story in any meaningful way. And..and...there are lots of things "wrong" with this game - but still. I really, really enjoyed it.
A lot of that enjoyment came from the intense desire to want to talk about what happened in my version of the game and to learn from others about their experience. All this because the game really diverges in lots of interesting ways. It REALLY diverges.
And, I also really appreciated the games branching UI display - it shows you all the moments and places where the game can branch, it shows you what you've seen/done and it also shows some (all?) of the dependencies that matter - e.g. for unlocking options in a later section you might have needed to do something in an earlier section.
It's a really neat experience to just navigate that AND it's also a really good example where you can see how, even with "few" branches - these sorts of games can quickly spiral out of control all over the place in terms of the need for production resources (animators, actors, etc.).
I also really enjoyed the games overall UI and the fourth wall breaking "menu character" - there's a character in the main menu who says things BUT (at least?) twice during the game breaks out and asks you a question - the first one (mid-way?) is whether I considered her a friend. I said no - and immediately regretted it! The 2nd question came up after I finished the game - this time, the UI character basically asked if I could/would set her free - I said yes, and then she was gone from the menu! I don't know if she comes back, she didn't when I went back to replay earlier sections...but who knows?
So I had to go to a tower to fight a sand monster. People were hinting that I needed a water spell to before I could do damage. However, I couldn't buy one in the shop so I thought I might have to find it out in the desert or something. I ended up in a tower fighting the sand monster by mistake and it clearly wasn't effective.
So I died and started back up at the desert village.
It was night time and I was able to sneak into some caves under the leader's palace - oh, and that's where the water spell was!
So, I head back to the tower. When the fight starts you get a message that says "hey, don't forget to prepare your water spell" (or something like that). You can't actually prepare it, and I had forgotten to prepare it.
So I had to die again. Sigh. Third time was the charm.
Oh, and now I've switched over to the other two characters!
I decided to join a clan just to experience the "clan" gameplay - so far there are two things: titans and wars. Wars seems like a new thing with different gameplay? I'm not sure yet because I haven't played in one yet. Titans are basically REALLY tough monsters you play against and try to do as much damage as possible within a limited amount of time. The whole clan can attack and if it goes down everyone gets rewards. You start at weak titans and then more powerful ones roll in.
I've also put a limit on myself for my progression - I won't play longer than X and then I'll quit and uninstall. Lets see if I last that long...
I assumed I'd stick with this for not a lot...but, I'm kind of enjoying it - especially because I've been pleasantly surprised and confused!
a. You being as a level 1 character, the king asks you to go rescue your daughter and halfway into a dungeon another character shows up and says you're too weak and joins you. He was not wrong! I had a really hard time "getting started" mostly because all the characters kept on dying! This was not a walk-in-the-park dungeon for a weak character (with no items, etc.)
b. Apparently you can craft hats that give you powers by slotting gems in them? I have a hat, but haven't been able to slot stuff in permanently because.. UI? I don't get it?
c. Over the course of the first quest I gathered two more teammates (to get to the titular 4). However, as soon as that was done, two of them bailed! What? I thought these were the "four heroes of light"! Maybe not... I've since been wandering in the desert with two characters...but I just met a third!
d. The game simplifies a lot of RPG stuff in interesting ways - there are no classes (as far as I can tell), and you have little control over what you attack and such. However, there's more flexibility - you can easily cast spells (don't have to worry about mana and such) via "initiative points" (don't recall their actual name).
