Although I found crafting to be a favorable gameplay mechanic, it had its shortcomings too. I am vexed by the lack of details regarding upgrades. It would have been tremendously helpful if we were given descriptions of the upgraded weapons/armor, or even a hint at possible additional attributes; definitely more than just changes to ATK and DEF. How can you not also give players the MAG and MDF stat previews too? How do you not have these stat previews for magical weapons, like Erika’s weapons, your main magic user!? This is a huge lack of foresight regarding player experience, and it’s frustrating to say the least.
Staying on crafting, it becomes an utter chore, as you will always be strapped for cash when buying high priced materials and paying for costly upgrades. The lower than expected cash flow throughout play helps not, so you’ll need to be picky as to who receives upgrades to their equipment. This, in turn, will potentially limit who you use during play. Another issue is the tying together of crafting materials and subquests. Nearly all of the fetch subquests require finding and offering up higher than necessary amounts of your crafting materials; more than x10 is what I would consider more than necessary for this particular game. Although completing these subquests unlocks those materials for purchase, the benefit of purchasing is offset, again, by pricing.
As for the subquests, these are composed of either material fetch or enemy subjugation. With fetching, finding materials in itself isn’t difficult, as the spots for mining them are always indicated on the mini-map. However, not all of the spots yield every type of material. For example, a dungeon may have Floatstone, yet only the mining spot at the very end of said dungeon may actually yield it. And so, collecting the required amounts of materials via revisiting dungeons drags gameplay down to a crawl. As for enemy subjugation, this done-to-death type of quest adds nothing other than the opportunity to earn a little cash. This, and the other missteps I’ve mentioned above, don’t break gameplay on their own. In fact, I wouldn’t go so far as to say Justice Chronicles’ gameplay is broken by any means. However, the compounding of all of its missteps and poor decisions causes gameplay to suffer from its share of bland, tiresome stretches throughout the experience.
The last components of Justice Chronicles I’ll discuss are its aesthetics, the areas where it shines brightest. Visually, this game is beautiful, nailing the classic 16-bit style while also incorporating a hand-drawn style for its portrait art. The sprite work is excellent, packing in tons of detail into its pixel arts. I am also impressed with the detail that went into the enemy designs, adding to them a satisfying amount of intimidation and viciousness. As for the portrait work, it’s mostly remarkable, adding much needed life to the game’s cast. But, some of the artwork looks less polished. I will say I appreciate the effort to have several expressions per character to show their range of emotions in conversation, as it most definitely helps the lacking narrative. I also wish to draw attention to the game’s UI, specifically how sharp it all looks, from icons, to text box borders, and the combat overlay. This also contributes to the ease of navigating its various menus and commands, further aiding its accessibility factor. A final, minor issue I could point out is that I found the characters’ walking animations a bit clumsy. Not anything to label as a negative, but having to see it throughout play made it hard to miss. Other than that and the inconsistent quality of the portrait art, Justice Chronicles’ visuals are as impressive as I’d expect.
As for the audio, the soundtrack is above average compared to other KEMCO offerings, as I found the music contributing to the overall mood of events and play. The boss theme is particularly outstanding; one of my favorites from any KEMCO game and one that truly got my blood flowing. The main battle theme is also noteworthy, though its memorability might be due to how often you will be forced to hear it. Speaking of repetitiveness, there is quite a bit of reuse, the track used for dungeons for example, and I feel that a few more songs would have prevented them from fading into the background as I played. My complaints aside, again, the audio effort is overall a stronger one compared to others by the publisher.
Justice Chronicles, like many others in the KEMCO library, possesses the pieces to be something remarkable, however, with the common missteps that I see time and again, the overall experience once again ends up a satisfactory, though unextraordinary one. Compared with other titles I’ve reviewed, this game is on par with Asdivine Hearts, though I would sooner recommend Revenant Saga or Antiquia Lost, which remain my standards for the publisher. Although it’s advertised as a 40+ hour game, I think an assessment of 25-30 is more accurate, and the $14.99 USD price on Steam is fair. It has its missteps, yet with a curious story, appreciable characters, and new game mechanics for the publisher, Justice Chronicles sustains my hope for an extraordinary production in the future.
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Review copy provided by the publisher
