This game bangs!
It has:
excellent in-motion pixel art
excellent music
a very dark plot
most of the characters have very memorable looks and personality (Wylfred, Auguste, Fauxnel, Reinhilde, Lieselotte, Gwendal especially),
most of the in-game voices are superb
It is a strategic game with a very unique twist: dynamic reflex-based siege battles, where you have to time your characters attack by just pressing the matching button on the DS console.
Very easy to learn, but difficult to master the gameplay if you want to reach the safe threshold for 99% of the battles you’ll fight (if you don’t reach it, Miss Hell is going to give you massive disadvantages in later battles!)
It incentivises multiple playthroughs and experimentation and has a MASSIVE post-game.
If you can, give it a try!
This game is one of the most brutally difficult games I’ve ever played if you want to get any sort of good ending. It’s quite thematic in that way: the player is trapped in the curse with the main character, forced to meet unreasonable demands, but aware of the consequences of using the most effective tool to meet them. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I could never attempt it without giving up still relatively early on. That said, I still own my copy so maybe one day I’ll try again if I feel like a true test of my patience.
Ending A on 1st playthrough is brutal indeed