Vivid World is an Action, Adventure, Strategy game from Asobism. The successor to another game from Asobism called Vivid Knight released back on May 26, 2021. Available on Steam, this is an adorable dark pastel game that gives me notes of games like Labrinth of Refrain and Etrian Odyssey for their party build mechanics.
Bejeweled except if people were trapped inside and you just have to get 3 to level them up.
Vivid World has a good amount of pros and cons to how their system works. However the game’s mechanics simple and easy to grasp once you go through your first dungeon. But, enough of that. Let’s grab as many crystals as we can and get to the review before someone runs out of mana.
Gameplay
You play as Lemuria, a witch in training who was just in class as usual, when out of nowhere, monsters appear! Of course this causes Lemuria to run away from the danger and through a door of unknown origins. Which then leads us into a dungeon located in the Underworld. Now Lemuria must use her new Jewel Magic to get through the dungeon and find out who’s behind all this.
Playing Vivid World took me some time to not only understand the battle mechanics, but the variety of traits available. It took some time before I firmly grasped the system and combos I could put together while worrying about my mana. The reason I bring up the mana is because on each floor, you’ll start with 19 mana. For each direction you choose to take, you’ll lose mana.
When your mana reaches zero, your party members will start losing health. Think of it like Pokémon when they’re poisoned and start taking damage with each step you take. So, besides trying to get these Hero Jewels to improve your party, you also need to look out for money and the key. You can get money from fighting and random events in the dungeon, but the key must be your focus.
You’ll find vendors where you can buy and sell heroes and even items you can use in battle. Later in the game, you’ll be able to combine item jewels to create stronger jewels. But always be aware of who you’ll add to the party and the traits you activate.
Graphics and Audio
The art style that Asobism chooses to go with the dark pastel colour and the dark tones with each dungeon is perfect. Each dungeon has a different theme to it, and a specific trait that you can focus on is great. With the advantage of looking at what each floor has to offer, planning ahead becomes really easy. Yet, I got distracted with how appealing each hero designed looked that I kept forgetting to stick to the traits of the dungeon. But, thanks to the UI it managed to help me fully understand what I’m able to do.
Now the audio to the game is actually nice and smooth to jive to. Then there’s the voice lines performed for each character you come across being amazing to boot as well. But, the one thing these two things have in common is you’ll get tired of it quickly. Voice lines and dungeon OST repeating so often made me just lower the audio down to 10.
Longevity
Vivid World‘s gameplay relies on both the dungeon diving and how you prepare for each dive. You can get Perfume Jewels, stickers and upgrade your skill tree with the souls you get from boss battles. Yet, with the large amount of RNG you’ll need to understand and handle will take a toll on you. With either taking advantage of certain Jewels vendor that appear on certain floors, you could get them to gold star. But, if you don’t have the luck or the patience only focus on beating the dungeon itself.
You should be able to complete the main story in about 9 hours, but going for 100% will be anyone’s undoing.
Final Thoughts
If it wasn’t for the fact that the game only allows mouse and keyboard to play, I would have given a higher rating. I did attempt to play the game on my Steam Deck with a lot of issues and just end up playing on PC. Vivid World is a fun game that has a co-op option if you’re able to find someone to play the game with you. I would have loved to use the feature, but focused mostly on aiming to beat each dungeon on my own. If you like playing auto-battlers and want to play a game that only requires 1/4 of your brain to play, in a good way, definitely pick up Vivid World today. Maybe pick up Vivid Knight while you’re at it too!
I give Vivid World the Thumb Culture Gold Award
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
