Thanks to KEMCO for the review code

Title: Journey to Kreisia
System: 3DS (eShop)
Price: $9.99
Release date: 07/14/2016

Story

Here we go again, with yet another EXE Create developed title. In this game, you take control of Yusis, an ordinary teenager who enjoys playing video games in his free time, and slacking off instead of studying. However, as he tries to sneak out of the house one night, he’s teleported to another dimension, where he’s now the savior chosen to stop the cycle of evil that happens every decade. It’s a really slow moving story with a lot of self-awareness, poking fun at numerous tropes for the genre in an attempt to give personality.

Graphics

If you’ve seen a video or screenshot of any EXE Create title, (Such as my very own for Asdivine Hearts) you should know just what to expect from the art style, which is yet again another generic mess of choppy animations and dull backgrounds. Pretty much anything I said about the visuals in the last two EXE Create titles applies here, with similar character art, sprite design and menus. When it comes to the battle scenes, Journey to Kreisia is somewhere in the middle of the prior two, with OK character animations and sprites, but really bland and lifeless enemy and boss designs.

Music and Sound

Sadly, the soundfont is identical to that found in Asdivine Hearts, including the oddity of the World Map theme playing on the Title Screen. This means a lot of similar sounding instruments with bland melodies and really nothing memorable at all when it comes to the music, and the sound effects aren’t much better, with most of them being ripped from other EXE Create games.

Gameplay

Just like its sister games, Journey to Kreisia is an RPG adventure that takes place across a big world. You enter battles, defeat enemies to gain EXP and Gold, go to the next major location and maybe fight a boss, rinse and repeat. It’s a really odd formula that doesn’t change much at all in this game, and even the main character acknowledges this fact, defining one of his main traits in the early part of the story. Of course like with the other EXE Create RPGs, it does try to do one thing with the skill system to keep the game a bit interesting, and in this title its none over than the ability to transfer previous weapon experience to a new weapon, which is pretty much nothing of importance outside of making the learning of skills a bit easier. There’s also an Orb System where you combine accessories to make better ones based on ranking, which adds a bit of strategy, but starts off limited until you gain the ability to reach the higher ranks.

The game is rather linear, with the game not even displaying future locations on the map until the story calls for them, meaning that it becomes a very traditional and boring experience after a couple of hours. You can take advantage of this to grind on the world map for extra EXP, which depending on the difficulty you chose can make you overleveled. This time however, the difficulty can only be changed after fighting a certain amount of battles in the current setting, so it does demand your attention if you want to make things a bit easier.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Journey to Kreisia continues the formulaic procedure set by the other EXE Create RPGs, and with the same $9.99 price tag as the sister games, there’s really nothing to say about this game except that its pretty much Asdivine Hearts with a different coat of paint and a fourth-wall breaking hero. I did spend a bit more time with this title than I did with Alphadia and Asdivine Hearts, but its still far from the greatness shown by Hit-Point with Justice Chronicles, which is the same price. Go for that game instead if you’re looking for a Kemco RPG. I give Journey to Kreisia a 6 out of 10.