First Impressions: Goblin Slayer - Another Adventurer - Nightmare Feast (NS)

[Disclaimer:  I received a review key for Goblin Slayer - Another Adventurer - Nightmare Feast through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.] 

Goblin Slayer - Another Adventurer - Nightmare Feast

Systems: Windows*, Nintendo Switch

Release Date: November 15, 2024

Publisher: Red Art Games

Developer: Apollosoft Inc, mebius

Time Spent: 5 Hours 17 Minutes

Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast, from what I've played, is a mashup of two genres: visual novel and tactics RPG.  Which really isn't too far off from a lot of tactics games that I've played, as most games are broken up between tactic battles and story/exposition.  The biggest difference here is that the story elements aren't conveyed using the somewhat standard pixelated characters that are also used in battles. Instead, it is more of a visual novel approach with one to three anime-style characters facing the player and talking while you press the A-button, progressing the dialogue.  The other added piece to the visual novel is that the majority of the dialogue is all voice-acted for the principal characters, with the occasional grunts and snarls for enemies that don't deserve to have their lines spoken out loud.  Thankfully, the tactics RPG side of things didn't seem to take a backseat at all.

When I started Goblin Slayer -Another Adventurer- Nightmare Feast (Goblin Slayer here on out), I was genuinely confused at how much of the game was just a straight-up visual novel.  It's not that there is an over abundance of visual novel exposition scenes that outweigh the amount of time you spend in combat, it's just something that threw me for a bit of a loop when I first started the game.  Even the trailer uses only seven seconds out of 68 to show the visual novel aspect and during that time doesn't specifically reference that genre.  But maybe my perspective is slightly skewed as I do make it a point to listen to all of the spoken dialogue instead of blazing through the text or just reading it faster than it's spoken.

The other thing that threw me was just how the game up-and-out uses the name Castlevania in the English translation.  During the opening sequence, I heard "Akumajō" spoken, which I know can roughly translate to demon castle, or Devil's castle, but Akumajō Dracula is also the title of the original Castlevania in Japan.  I can only imagine that whoever did the English translation, which apparently is currently only available on the Nintendo Switch edition, interpreted "Akumajō" to literally mean Castlevania.  Apart from the setting for game is in an idyllic village that was once in the shadow of a castle inhabited by an evil vampire, I never felt that what I was playing was supposed to be a side-story to any of the official Castlevania games.

Let's get to the meat of the game, which is the tactics RPG.  The mechanics here are pretty standard for a game in the genre.  You play as a group of adventurers, although you start out the game with only one member and slowly grow your ranks to the point where you have more characters than are allowed in a single battle, who fight a group of enemies on a square grid of varying elevations in turn-based fashion.  Like a good tactics game, the direction a character is facing is also important, as attacks to the side and the back can deal higher damage and at least seem to have a higher chance of dealing a critical attack.  Unlike a lot of tactics games I've played in recent years, Goblin Slayer lets you change the direction of your characters at any time during the player phase of the battle, so you don't have to worry about forgetting to rotate someone in the direction of an imanent attack or if you accidentally have someone facing the wrong direction at the end of their turn.  And thankfully, there is no permadeath for your characters, and we'll get to the death of the Guild Master a little bit later on.

One interesting decision that the developers made in the battle mechanics, is that regardless of your enemy, be they humanoid (humans, goblins, vampires, etc) or creatures (wolves, warthogs, gargoygles, etc), not all of the enemies will engage in battle until they're activated by the proximity of the characters.  I found this exceedingly helpful knowledge since when I first started, I played like any other tactics RPG where most, if not all, enemies would move on the grid when it was their turn.  In Goblin Slayer, you can tactically cheese individual enemies to follow a single character who's acting as a sort of scout, back to the rest of your waiting party, so your characters aren't overwhelmed, which can happen with as few as three enemies attacking at the same time.

As far as the list of characters in your party, there are definitely story-centric characters like Guild Master, Blood Princess, Squire, Conan, and Polar Bear Priest, but there are plenty of other characters you can recruit into your budding adventurers guild with names like "Gemstone Lover," "Generous Scales"(he's a lizard man), "Wise Friend," and "Inheritor of Ambition."  I have no explanation for some of the names of these characters, as they're not their titles, although for some, they do seem to be both.  I'm going to chalk it up again to something related to the translation from Japanese into English.  Just like in Final Fantasy Tactics, these recruitable characters are not included in exposition scenes or have much in the way of personality, and it's up to the player to imbue any of these characters with any kind of characteristics found in their character design and skills from their "pre-installed" class.  I actually really love this aspect of the game and wish that more tactics RPGs were like this and not as much like the Fire Emblem series, where every single playable character is the lead character in their own story, complete with a detailed backstory.  Sometimes I just want a faceless grunt to join my merry band of adventurers, whom I mentally develop their backstory for as the game progresses, and I get to know them.  But I recognize that I might be in the minority on that front.

The last thing I want to touch on is one of the things I'm not a fan of in tactics RPGs, and that's the main character during battles.  When the Guild Master dies, the battle is immediately over.  This is something that's bothered me since I first came across this specific mechanic in Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia, although I know the mechanic exists in other tactics games as well as Final Fantasy Tactics.  The difference with FFT, though, is that characters have a death counter when they are killed, and once that counter reaches zero, if they're not revived, they turn into a crystal, so the game is not GAME OVER level if Ramza is killed.  Once again, this means being very conservative with the Guild Master in combat lest you run the risk of them being surrounded and attacked by enemies at any time during a single battle that could last around 30 minutes.  That's a lot of wasted time when you know you're only able to dedicate an hour or so a day to playing video games.

At present, I've only played just over five hours, and I'm only in Chapter II: First Experience Point, but that's mainly because I've been grinding fights that are both side quests and training fights because I am hiring every single recruit who comes through the proverbial doors of our fledgling adventurer's guild.  I haven't been progressing the story very quickly because I am paranoid I'll run into a Wiegraf encounter that I'm not properly levelled for and that will be the end of the game, or at least the end of that save file, which is why I have 2-3 save files as back ups before I go into situations that become points of no return.  I still don't feel as invested in the Guild Master and her backstory being the driving force behind the game, but I do kind of wonder what will happen with Inheritor of Ambition and XXXX.  Like, what's their deal?

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
I Want Them Shaking in Terror and Shame