Re-Tentacled is a colorful and completely crazy JRPG where Brie, a pink-haired girl living in Axon City, has a seriously weird power — she can summon monsters using a magical cheese sandwich. Yeah, it sounds ridiculous, but somehow it turns into a pretty big adventure. You’ll spend your time exploring monster-filled dungeons while also dealing with normal life stuff like making friends, dating, shopping, managing money, and trying not to make terrible food choices. The game doesn’t take itself too seriously, but the story still gets bigger as supernatural threats start appearing throughout its five long chapters.
A big part of the game is managing Brie’s daily life. You’ll have to keep track of her time, mood, money, and social activities, with the whole system taking some inspiration from Persona. When you’re exploring dungeons, things become much more serious because the combat uses turn-based battles. You can build a party from eight magical girls, each with different skills and abilities, and you’ll need to figure out which characters work best together. There are more than 40 different enemy types to fight, along with some pretty tough bosses that can seriously test your party.
When you’re not fighting monsters, Axon City gives you plenty of things to do. There are six different districts to explore, with shops, daily activities, changing weather, and even a rotating news program that can give you hints about upcoming sales. You can also follow one of 10 romance routes, so there’s plenty of room to build relationships with different characters. If that isn’t enough, you can collect and battle insects in the GameCore’s InsectiVirus minigame, visit special holiday towns, or play Mermaid Spikers, a ridiculous mermaid sports RPG that has a similar vibe to Blitzball from Final Fantasy X.
Axon City also feels like an actual place instead of just being a boring hub between missions. The city has a day-and-night cycle, weird local food, loads of supporting characters, and different outfits you can use to customize Brie. The updated version also makes the whole experience smoother with a cleaner interface, better combat balancing, improved quality-of-life features, and five new boss battles.
The game definitely has a very specific sense of humor and style, so it won’t be for everyone. The weird characters, crazy designs, romance options, and completely random situations are basically part of what makes it stand out. If you enjoy party-based JRPGs, social-stat systems, dating mechanics, and games that aren't afraid to be totally weird, Re-Tentacled has a lot to offer. And if you’re already familiar with the wider Captain Nekorai stories, there’s even more here for you to enjoy.
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