Alvastia Chronicles

Alvastia Chronicles is a retro-style Japanese RPG developed by EXE-CREATE and published by Kemco, featuring anime-inspired art, a fixed side-view perspective, and classic turn-based gameplay. Set in a fantastical world, it delivers a story-driven adventure with charming, humorous characters and engaging battles, offering great value for JRPG enthusiasts on a budget.

Alvastia Chronicles: A Retro JRPG’s Ambitious Yet Flawed Journey

Introduction: The Allure of the Pixelated Promise

In the crowded landscape of modern role-playing games, where photorealistic visuals and open-world ambitions often dominate the conversation, there exists a dedicated niche that yearns for simpler times. It is a space defined by 16-bit sprites, turn-based tactical combat, and narratives that prioritize archetypal heroism over gritty realism. Alvastia Chronicles (known as Alvastia Senki in Japan) is a product of this niche, a deliberate and earnest throwback developed by EXE-CREATE Ltd. and published by the prolific Kemco. Released initially for mobile platforms in 2018 before a wider console and PC rollout, the game positions itself as a love letter to classic JRPGs like early Final Fantasy and Suikoden, promising an epic quest with a staggering roster of over 100 recruitable companions. This review will argue that while Alvastia Chronicles successfully channels the aesthetic and structural heart of its inspirations, it is fundamentally hamstrung by a repetitive narrative, archaic design choices that border on punitive, and a monetization philosophy that seeps into its core systems, ultimately preventing it from achieving more than a respectful, if uneven, standing in the contemporary retro-JRPG canon.

Development History & Context: Kemco’s Budget Blueprint

To understand Alvastia Chronicles, one must first understand its creator, Kemco, and its primary development partner, EXE-CREATE. Kemco is a Japanese publisher with a decades-long history, but in the 2010s, it carved out a specific Western-market identity: the purveyor of affordable, digitally-distributed, retro-styled JRPGs. EXE-CREATE (often credited as Exe Create) is a key internal studio within this strategy, responsible for a string of titles including Asdivine Kamura, Fernz Gate, Dragon Lapis, and Revenant Dogma. These games share a common DNA: the Unity game engine, FMOD for sound, a top-down perspective, and a fundamental reliance on familiar JRPG tropes.

Alvastia Chronicles was conceived and executed within tight technological and financial constraints. Its 2018 mobile-first release targeted low-spec devices, explaining the minimalist 8-bit-inspired pixel art and the relatively simple mechanics. The transition to consoles (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PS Vita) and PC in 2019 was largely a port, retaining the original’s interface and systems. This context is crucial: the game was not designed with modern console UX in mind. Its roots as a touchscreen-centric mobile title explain the oft-criticized menu navigation and the presence of “gacha”-style mechanics—randomized rewards for in-game currency—which are standard in free-to-play mobile games but feel jarring and exploitative in a premium-priced ($12.99) console/PC release. The development team, led by Director Ryuji Takumi and Scenario Writer Yoshimi Sagawa, was operating within a well-established, low-budget formula, aiming for volume (100+ characters, lengthy playtime) over innovation or polish.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: A Vengeance Tale Lost in the Crowd

Alvastia Chronicles presents a classic JRPG premise. A decade after their parents were murdered by the demon lord Valhyt’s forces, siblings Elmia (a priestess) and Alan (a warrior) encounter one of the Four Tetrarchs, the Archfiend’s generals, reigniting their desire for vengeance. Their quest is twofold: repair the four sacred pillars that hold the continents of Alvastia aloft and stem the monster tide, and gather an army of companions to confront Valhyt.

The narrative framework is sound but execution is where it falters. The core plot is a linear, predictable journey of good versus evil with few genuine twists. The primary character dynamics are confined to the small “core” party—Alan, Elmia, the stoic ogre Raine, and the elf Gil. Their interactions, as noted by several critics (notably Life is Xbox and Game Hoard, The), rely heavily on rehashed, often uncomfortable humor and repetitive banter that undermines the story’s more heartfelt moments. The sibling relationship between Alan and Elmia, while intended to be central, is described by JP Switch Mania as getting “a little… weird…,” suggesting awkward or overly familiar writing that fails to build a believable bond.

Thematically, the game touches on duty, found family, and the cost of vengeance, but these ideas remain surface-level. The “over 100 companions” gimmick, directly evoking Suikoden, is its most significant narrative feature and its greatest missed opportunity. While collecting these characters provides a satisfying Suikoden-esque “gotta catch ’em all” compulsion, the vast majority of them are devoid of personal storylines, quests, or meaningful integration into the main plot. They exist as stat blocks and recruitment challenges, not as a living, breathing army. This transforms a potentially rich theme of uniting disparate peoples against a common foe into a shallow collection mechanic, a point of frustration highlighted by critics like KRESNIK258GAMING and eShopper Reviews who find the cast forgettable. The story’s attempts at emotional resonance are consistently undercut by its focus on quantity over quality, leaving the player with a sprawling world but a narrative that feels both generic and strangely hollow.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: A Compelling Core Marred by Archaic Friction

The gameplay of Alvastia Chronicles is where its love for the genre is most apparent, and also where its most severe flaws reside.

Combat & Progression: The battle system is a familiar, polished turn-based affair. A visible turn order gauge allows for strategic planning. The innovative “Team” system is the standout mechanic. The three primary fighters (Alan, Gil, Raine) can each have up to three supporting characters. Supports augment stats and contribute to attacks. The core strategic depth comes from the “Burst Strike” gauge: once full, a team can unleash a coordinated attack where each member uses a skill, culminating in the leader’s powerful “ultimate” move. This system encourages thoughtful party composition and creates exciting, cinematic-feeling turns. Characters gain experience, level up, and can equip enhanced gear. A robust weapon synthesis system allows players to transfer attributes and consume weaker weapons to level up favored arms, adding a layer of customization praised by SwitchRPG and TheXboxHub.

However, this solid foundation is eroded by several regressive design decisions. Most damning is the random encounter rate. Critics across the board—from Seafoam Gaming to Digitally Downloaded to Gaming Age—singled out encounters as excessively frequent and punitive. This transforms exploration from a joy into a chore, a stark contrast to the quality-of-life innovations (like full HP/MP restoration after battle) meant to streamline the experience. Furthermore, key modern convenience features—adjusting the encounter rate and increasing movement speed—are not built-in options but are instead locked behind microtransaction-based DLC (No Encounters, Damage x2, Experience x3). As Seafoam Gaming states, this relegation of basic QoL to paid add-ons “comes off as very questionable,” poisoning the well of goodwill for a full-priced game. The “Gacha” system mentioned by Life is Xbox, while providing a “satisfying feeling” when winning rare items, further cements the game’s mobile-game DNA in a console context, feeling like a predatory leftover rather than an integrated feature.

Recruitment & Bond System: Recruiting the 100+ companions is the primary side-content loop. Methods vary: simple conversations, defeating them in battle, completing quests, or bringing items. This collection mechanic, while addictive (the “recruitment chime” creates a Pavlovian response as noted by JP Switch Mania), lacks depth. The “Bond” system, where certain character combinations unlock passive bonuses, is a neat idea but is ultimately a numbers game with little tangible impact on the overall experience, failing to make most recruits feel unique.

World-Building, Art & Sound: A Perfectly Competent Nostalgic Facade

On a purely aesthetic level, Alvastia Chronicles succeeds in its primary mission: to replicate the look and feel of a 16-bit era JRPG. The pixel art, while not as detailed as the best modern indie titles (like Octopath Traveler or Sea of Stars), is clean, expressive, and full of personality. Character sprites convey emotion effectively, and the top-down world map and towns capture that