CNs for The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails: sexual harassment, kidnapping, mind control.
Masters of the PSP Nihon Falcom send off the console with this behemoth and extremely video-game-y video game. Nayuta is a smash cut of middle-era laser dance and combo chain Ys combat, the social sim-gazing side-quests of the Zemuria Legends of Heroes games, and the Zweii style exploration sprinkled over some very humble 3D platforming. This is an ARPG that is pretty conventional in narrative to create the space needed to refine the small scale low-stakes endeavor that gets dropped after each new Zemuria arc begins. Nayuta does very simple yet breathtaking things to place a high(er) fantasy world rendered as a conventional level select screen in relation to a small and mostly un-changing hub village chapter-to-chapter: the youngest village boy is nowhere to be found, some visiting artists come your backwaters island, or someone else is suddenly helping you with your boxed lunches in your elder sister's absence. Your village vibrates in very slight ways while the attached fantasy world expands in typical "Forest, mushroom, ice, lava" fashion; it's been hollowed out by meta-physical family drama that echoes into and wraps around the petty domestic woes of your village. A very healthy and moderate kind of mission collectable will have you running from the placement focused anti-flash dodge combat zones to go back to the village to sell some bugs, cook your lunch, and train with the master of your runaway chosen-family-brother/boyfriend. The Legend of Nayuta is a fine tuned gem for those who love the imagination space between classic DQ dungeons, anyone into slow slice of life character work, and for everyone looking for something unbespoke and earnest from their RPGs in a post Nier:Automata/cinematic games release landscape.