Info about MISTOVER:

Official game description:
Game Story
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The unexpected appearance of the Vortex, Pillar of Despair, unleashed dreadful creatures that brutally raided the world. Defenseless and vulnerable, mankind was soon on the verge of extinction.  
When all hope was lost, a miracle happened and the creatures suddenly vanished. Desperate to prevent the next invasion, the survivors created a group called the 'Corps' that journeys into the Vortex from whence the creatures emerged. You will lead the Corps to reveal the secrets behind the incidents.  
Will the human race succeed in changing the course of their destiny?  
In the Mist of the Vortex, Pillar of Despair...
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*   You will be constantly dealing with internal conflicts between 'satisfaction' and 'greed'.  
*   Limited visibility will hinder your exploration.  
*   Utilize skills and create effective formations to achieve victory.  
*   Don't forget, even your best crew members have only one life.  
*   Upgrading gear is not the only way to win.
Key Features
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*   Contains 40-hours of expeditions in 5 distinct regions.  
*   Turn-based RPG with a twist... It can change based on your actions.  
*   Maps are always changing… practice different strategies in order to survive.  
*   Build an invincible Corps by combining and strategizing with 8 different Corps classes.  
*   Learn new skills and upgrade equipment to enhance Corps Crew members.  
*   The Mist influences EVERYTHING that happens in the game.
Your strategy will reshape the fate of mankind.  
Lead the Arta Kingdom's Corps into the Misty expedition!
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Release date: Oct 9, 2019

Categories: Turn-based RPG, Turn-based Combat, Dungeon Crawler, Grid-based Combat, Roguelike, Character Progression, Class-based Combat, Permadeath Variants, Resource Management


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Highly enjoyable and charming gameplay (weight 0.55): Players consistently praise the game's enjoyable and charming core experience, highlighting its addictive gameplay loop, tense strategic elements, and rewarding progression. The game's mechanics and design are frequently compared favorably to titles like *Darkest Dungeon* and *Etrian Odyssey*.
- Appealing art style and character design (weight 0.42): The game's anime-inspired art style, cute yet dark aesthetic, and well-designed characters are frequently highlighted as major strengths. The contrast between adorable characters and an apocalyptic setting adds to its unique appeal.
- Strategic and replayable combat (weight 0.21): The turn-based combat system is praised for its depth, counterplay options, and replayability. Features like the 3x3 formation system, combo attacks, and class synergies encourage diverse strategies and long-term engagement.
- Unique twist on *Darkest Dungeon* formula (weight 0.17): The game is widely recognized for innovating on the *Darkest Dungeon* formula, particularly through its grid-based positioning system, faster gameplay pace, and unique mechanics like leader-switching and tile-based combat. This appeals strongly to fans of the genre.
- Deep and customizable difficulty (weight 0.15): The game offers extensive difficulty customization, allowing players to adjust or disable mechanics like the Doomsday Clock, enemy spawn rates, and cooldowns. Updates have also improved balance, making the game more accessible without sacrificing challenge.
- Responsive and active development (weight 0.1): Players appreciate the developers' responsiveness to feedback, frequent updates, and patches that address bugs, balance issues, and quality-of-life improvements. This has significantly enhanced the game's playability and longevity.
- Well-designed class system (weight 0.09): The class system is praised for its variety, viability, and strategic depth. Each class offers unique abilities, map skills, and synergies, allowing for creative team compositions and playstyles.
- Fair and rewarding challenge (weight 0.07): The game is challenging but fair, with mechanics like near-wipe recovery, mid-game recruitment of high-level agents, and boss hints ensuring that careful planning is rewarded. Even on easy difficulty, the game maintains a satisfying level of challenge.
- Engaging dungeon exploration (weight 0.04): Dungeon traversal and exploration are described as fun and strategic, with mechanics like 9-directional movement, resource management, and rescuing explorers adding depth to the experience.
- Solid controller support (weight 0.04): The game is well-optimized for controllers, offering a fluid and intuitive experience. This enhances accessibility and comfort for players who prefer gamepads over keyboard/mouse.

Common complaints:
- Poorly balanced RNG mechanics (weight 0.96): Randomness heavily influences combat outcomes, equipment drops, and skill assignments. Players criticize the inconsistency of hit rates, evasion, and guard mechanics, as well as the reliance on luck for progression. This creates frustration and undermines strategic gameplay.
- Repetitive and tedious gameplay (weight 0.89): The game suffers from repetitive dungeon crawling, battles, and grinding mechanics. Players highlight issues like enemy respawns without rewards, slow combat tempo, and lack of variety in enemy compositions or dungeon designs. This repetition leads to boredom and fatigue, particularly in mid-to-late game.
- Lack of quality-of-life features (weight 0.73): The game lacks essential quality-of-life improvements, such as manual saving, mouse support, key rebinding, and fast-forward options for combat or cutscenes. These omissions make the game feel unpolished and cumbersome, particularly for PC players.
- Insufficient post-launch support (weight 0.23): Players express disappointment with the lack of meaningful updates, content expansions, or bug fixes post-launch. The game is perceived as abandonware, with updates focusing on minor optimizations rather than addressing core gameplay issues or adding new content.
- Unbalanced economy and farming (weight 0.12): The in-game economy is poorly balanced, with high costs for resources, skills, and equipment. Gold acquisition is insufficient, and farming for desired items is tedious and often yields irrelevant rewards. This makes recovery from setbacks or progression difficult.
- Weak story and character depth (weight 0.1): The game's narrative and character interactions are described as lacking cohesion, purpose, and depth. Players feel the story is underdeveloped, characters are forgettable, and the overall experience feels unfinished or rushed, particularly for its price point.
- Poorly designed taunt and tank mechanics (weight 0.07): The taunt system is unreliable due to RNG-based success rates, often failing to redirect enemy attacks to the intended tank. This makes combat frustrating, as fragile units are frequently targeted and killed, undermining strategic party compositions.

Gameplay feedback:
- Darkest Dungeon-Inspired Design (weight 0.35): The game draws heavy inspiration from *Darkest Dungeon*, incorporating elements like dungeon crawling, permadeath, Lovecraftian themes, and a turn-based combat system. It also blends mechanics from *Etrian Odyssey* and *Mystery Dungeon*, such as tile-based exploration and anime-style aesthetics.
- Doomsday Clock Core Mechanic (weight 0.29): The game features a unique 'Doomsday Clock' or 'Chaos Clock' mechanic that pressures players to complete dungeons efficiently. Failing to meet objectives (e.g., defeating all monsters, collecting all items) advances the clock, which can lead to save data deletion if it reaches zero. This mechanic adds tension and strategic depth to dungeon exploration.
- Character Permadeath and Loss (weight 0.13): The game features a permadeath-like system where characters can die permanently, though replacements can be hired. Character and equipment loss is a core mechanic, and players must strategize to mitigate these risks. Some reviews suggest this can feel punishing, especially in roguelike modes.
- Randomized Skill and Equipment System (weight 0.11): Characters learn random skills upon hiring, and skill upgrades are resource-intensive and randomized. Equipment upgrades are similarly unpredictable, requiring significant investment for minimal improvements. This adds replayability but may frustrate players seeking consistency.
- 3x3 Grid-Based Combat System (weight 0.09): Combat is turn-based and takes place on a 3x3 grid, with characters positioned in lanes or columns. Combo attacks are limited to once per turn, and some abilities target rows or columns. This system encourages strategic positioning and team composition.
- Resource Management and Economy (weight 0.09): Players must manage resources like food, gold, and consumable items, which can become corrupted if left unused in dungeons. Money is earned through looting, quests, and selling items, and efficient farming is key to progression. Exiting dungeons without meeting objectives results in item loss.
- Customizable Difficulty Settings (weight 0.08): The game offers adjustable difficulty settings, including enemy spawn rates, health, attack power, and status effect toggles. Players can also customize mechanics like the Doomsday Clock, allowing for a tailored experience. New Game+ mode is also available for added challenge.
- Character Synergies and Unique Abilities (weight 0.08): Characters have unique abilities and synergies, such as combo attacks unlocked at higher levels. Some characters also possess dungeon-specific skills, like obstacle destruction. These mechanics reward experimentation with team compositions.
- Boss Fight Strategy and Mechanics (weight 0.05): Boss battles require careful planning, as bosses are immune to debuffs and can enrage if minions are killed. Some bosses inflict high bleed damage or reduce the party to 1 HP, making violent output (e.g., high-damage attacks) more effective than healing.
- Dungeon Exploration Mechanics (weight 0.05): Dungeon exploration is turn-based, with mechanics like 9-directional movement for dodging monsters. Dungeons are divided into difficulty ranges, and using high-level characters in low-level dungeons incurs penalties. Enemies respawn quickly, and fleeing can trigger relentless pursuit.
- Bleed and Jinx Mechanics (weight 0.05): Bleed effects deal significant damage over time and can stack, posing a major threat in combat. Jinxes, which can be corrected using gold and items, add an element of unpredictability to gameplay. These mechanics encourage players to adapt their strategies dynamically.
- Cursed Equipment Trade-offs (weight 0.03): Cursed equipment offers powerful stats and removes level restrictions, reducing grinding. However, it comes with debuffs and is tied to lost characters, adding a risk-reward element to equipment management. This mechanic can mitigate the impact of permadeath.

Performance notes:
- Combat system feels unbalanced (weight 0): Multiple players report that certain weapons, abilities, or enemy types are overpowered or underpowered, leading to frustrating or trivial encounters. Some suggest reworking damage values or cooldown timings for better fairness.
- Story lacks depth and engagement (weight 0): Players describe the narrative as shallow, predictable, or poorly paced, with underdeveloped characters and weak dialogue. Some mention that side quests feel repetitive and fail to add meaningful context to the main plot.
- Technical performance issues (weight 0): Frequent complaints about frame rate drops, bugs, and crashes, particularly during intense combat or in specific areas of the game. Players on both PC and console platforms report these issues, suggesting optimization is needed.
- Multiplayer connectivity problems (weight 0): Players experience frequent disconnections, long matchmaking times, and lag in online modes. Some mention that these issues make cooperative or competitive play nearly unenjoyable.
- Loot system is unsatisfying (weight 0): Feedback indicates that loot drops feel random and unrewarding, with too many duplicates or low-value items. Players suggest adding more meaningful progression or customization options tied to loot.
- Art style divisive among players (weight 0): While some players praise the game's visual design, others find it overly stylized or inconsistent with the tone of the gameplay. This feedback is split, indicating a potential polarizing aspect of the game's presentation.

Recommendations:
- Mixed recommendations based on preferences (weight 0.39): The game receives highly polarized recommendations, with some players loving it for its art style, strategic depth, and Darkest Dungeon-like mechanics, while others criticize its excessive difficulty, punishing mechanics, and lack of fulfillment. The feedback suggests the game appeals strongly to a niche audience but may frustrate or disappoint others.
- Niche appeal for hardcore players (weight 0.37): The game is strongly recommended for players who enjoy methodical, strategic, and punishing roguelike experiences, particularly fans of *Darkest Dungeon* and *Etrian Odyssey*. However, it is explicitly not recommended for casual players or those seeking a relaxed experience.
- Value concerns at full price (weight 0.04): Several reviewers question the game's value at full price, suggesting it is only worth purchasing on sale or after future updates. Some feel the game is incomplete or overly punishing for its cost, while others believe it justifies its price for the right audience.

Other player notes:
- Game enjoys dedicated fanbase despite flaws (weight 0.19): Many players, despite initial hesitation due to negative reviews or high difficulty, found enjoyment in the game after investing significant time (e.g., 100+ hours). Updates have mitigated some of the earlier criticisms, and players appreciate the depth of mechanics, though they acknowledge the game's punishing nature. The modding community is seen as a potential source of future improvements.
- Early access would have suited development (weight 0.18): Multiple players express that the game would have benefited from an early access model, allowing for more iterative feedback and improvements before its final release. The current state of the game suggests it was released prematurely, leading to unaddressed issues.
- Low-quality or biased feedback noted (weight 0.11): Some reviews mention distrust in feedback from specific player groups (e.g., Chinese players), suggesting potential bias or review-bombing. This point is included for transparency but is assigned low importance due to its speculative nature and lack of concrete evidence.
- Game removed from sale abruptly (weight 0.06): The game was delisted from sale following a service termination announcement, leaving players unable to purchase it. This has also disrupted ongoing community efforts, such as guide creation, and may deter new players from experiencing the game.
- Updates improve but core issues remain (weight 0.06): Recent updates (e.g., 1.0.3c) have addressed some issues, such as reducing resource consumption and freeing up inventory space for journals. However, persistent problems like skill reset mechanics, character loss recovery, and economic pressure continue to hinder player experience.
- Mixed reception as Darkest Dungeon spin-off (weight 0.03): The game is viewed as a low-budget spin-off of *Darkest Dungeon*, with some players appreciating its unique narrative and variations, while others feel it fails to surpass its predecessor. The comparison highlights both its strengths and shortcomings in gameplay depth and innovation.
- Cultural and thematic elements divisive (weight 0.02): The inclusion of Japanese-inspired elements, such as samurai and onmyoji characters, has polarized players. While some appreciate the unique setting, others feel it clashes with the game's overall tone or narrative.

Emotions:
- Frustration (weight 0.36): The primary causes of frustration stem from the game's punishing and unfair mechanics, particularly in boss fights and combat systems. Players frequently cite 'first-try kills,' instant-death attacks, and excessive reliance on RNG as major pain points, which disrupt progression and undermine player effort. Additionally, repetitive grinding, poorly balanced difficulty spikes, and lack of meaningful content exacerbate the sense of tedium and unfairness, making the experience feel unrewarding despite significant time investment.
- Disappointment (weight 0.26): Disappointment arises from the game's failure to meet expectations set by its potential and marketing. Players highlight unfulfilled promises, such as missing features (e.g., Steam Workshop support), rushed or anticlimactic late-game content, and a lack of meaningful updates. The game's poor design choices, including unfair mechanics and lack of polish, further contribute to a sense of wasted potential, particularly when compared to similar titles like *Darkest Dungeon*. The absence of depth, innovation, and accessibility for casual players also amplifies this emotion.
- Satisfaction (weight 0.11): Satisfaction is primarily derived from the game's strategic depth, rewarding mechanics, and the developers' commitment to improvements. Players appreciate the innovative combat system, meaningful counterplay options, and the sense of accomplishment from overcoming challenges. Updates addressing core issues, such as balance and playability, have significantly enhanced enjoyment, particularly for those who value fair difficulty curves and immersive experiences. The game's aesthetics, art style, and music also contribute positively to player satisfaction.
- Excitement (weight 0.08): Excitement is driven by the game's unique blend of mechanics, engaging combat, and dark atmosphere. Players highlight the contrast between cute characters and a grim world, as well as the strategic depth inspired by titles like *Darkest Dungeon* and *Etrian Odyssey*. The potential for future updates, customization options, and the addictive gameplay loop further fuel enthusiasm, particularly among fans of the genre seeking fresh experiences.
- Anger (weight 0.07): Anger stems from the game's perceived intentional unfairness and poor design choices, such as the Doomsday Clock mechanic, permadeath, and deceptive boss fights. Players feel disrespected by punishing systems like save data deletion, lack of manual saving, and poorly explained mechanics. The absence of quality-of-life features (e.g., mouse support) and false promises (e.g., unfulfilled updates) further exacerbate frustration, leading to accusations of poor developer communication and disregard for player experience.
- Boredom (weight 0.04): Boredom is caused by the game's repetitive and monotonous gameplay, particularly after players optimize their strategies. Excessive grinding, slow combat pacing, and limited MP recovery contribute to a tedious experience, especially when setbacks require time-consuming recovery. The lack of variety in mechanics and content further diminishes long-term engagement, making progression feel like a chore rather than a challenge.
- Confusion (weight 0.03): Confusion arises from unclear or poorly explained mechanics, such as the Doomsday Clock system, SP management, and jinx correction. Players struggle with lack of transparency in objectives, restrictive inventory systems, and inconsistent RPG mechanics, which hinder progression and create unnecessary frustration. The absence of a cohesive narrative or character cohesion also contributes to a disjointed experience.
- Relief (weight 0.03): Relief is primarily tied to updates that have made the game more approachable and less punishing. Players express gratitude for improvements to the Doomsday Clock mechanics, increased transparency, and overall polish. The ability to request refunds or find enjoyment despite initial negative reviews also provides a sense of relief, particularly for those who were hesitant to engage with the game.
- Joy (weight 0.02): Joy is derived from the game's charming aesthetic, engaging combat, and the satisfaction of overcoming challenges. Players on 'easy' mode particularly appreciate the cute characters and tense adventures, while the addictive gameplay loop and strategic depth create a sense of fulfillment. The game's ability to live up to the *Darkest Dungeon* genre's standards also contributes to this positive emotion.
- Gratitude (weight 0.01): Gratitude is directed toward the developers for their efforts in improving the game, particularly through responsive updates and addressing player feedback. While this emotion is less frequently mentioned, it reflects appreciation for the developers' commitment to refining the experience and acknowledging player concerns.
- Stress (weight 0.01): Stress is caused by the game's punishing mechanics, such as the Doomsday Clock, permadeath, and lack of rewarding progression. The constant pressure to manage resources, recover from setbacks, and navigate unfair combat scenarios creates an overwhelming and anxiety-inducing experience, particularly for players with limited time or those seeking a more relaxed gameplay loop.
- Sadness (weight 0.01): Sadness stems from the emotional impact of losing characters or progress due to a single mistake, particularly when the loss feels unavoidable or unfair. The permanent nature of these setbacks, combined with the game's punishing design, evokes a sense of grief and frustration, especially when significant time and effort have been invested.
- Hope (weight 0.01): Hope is tied to the potential for future updates and improvements. Players express a desire for the game to address its core issues, such as balance, fairness, and content depth, which could transform the experience into something more enjoyable. This emotion reflects optimism that the developers will continue to refine the game based on player feedback.
- Disgust (weight 0.01): Disgust arises from the stark contrast between the game's demo and its final release, particularly in terms of quality and polish. Players feel deceived by the disparity, leading to strong negative reactions toward the perceived lack of effort or care in the game's development. This emotion is often tied to broader frustrations with the game's design and execution.}