Really great game

As someone who played Alter Age as my first game and in very hard mode, it was the best gaming experience I’ve ever had in awhile. I usually play Final Fantasy, and while those games often follow the same “save the world from the antagonist” plot, Alter Age felt unique and refreshing. The story is captivating because you embark on an adventure with cute and funny characters and pursue revenge—though I won’t spoil the details. This made the game incredibly fun and engaging in a way I hadn’t experienced before.

Regarding the battle mechanics, the experts have probably already explained the differences, but the feature I want to highlight the most is the ability to change age! It’s like experiencing both a shotacon and lolicon story at the same time—how wild is that? Jokes aside, the battle system’s age-changing mechanic is interesting. The grown-up version deals higher damage, while the teen version hits weaker but generates Power Points (PP)—which are essential for the adult form to deal significant damage. It’s a clever balance that keeps combat dynamic and strategic.

As for the endgame stuff, the endgame offers an NG+ mode (or “SP New Game”) where you can restart with bonus points to allocate, carrying over your endgame progress. On paper, this sounds fantastic, but in practice, the points granted is pretty limited. Aside from enabling a “double damage dealt/received” mode for extra challenge, there isn’t much else to do in NG+. The base endgame is arguably already tough—especially on Very Hard mode—so the lack of major NG+ incentives doesn’t detract too much.

Despite these minor shortcomings, Alter Age remains an outstanding game. The story is great, the gameplay is engaging, and even the grind feels rewarding.

Even so the game is still really great, story wise. Gameplay wise, grind wise.

Alter Age

This is a review based on a mobile playthrough exclusively with Preteen Arga in early September 2024 and a Switch playthrough exclusively with Grownup Arga at launch, March 2025.

Overall, it’s a strong Ryuji Takumi game mechanically, but Alter Age’s story is comparatively lacking to all his save-the-world plots due to character driven low stakes. While the console port is better, I have mixed feelings about how it handled some things.

Gameplay: Like most Exe-Create games, a conditional turn-based RPG with a turn order timeline and a variety of progression mechanics: Astrune Academy’s Missions system & Season Pass (5/10/20 on mobile for short/mid/long-term goals or 15/30/60 on console), Cooking for permanent stat boosters, Composter to recycle items into learning passive skills, Relic Coins to exchange for items (the Arena equivalent in past titles, but Alter Age lacks one or a substitute), and Brave Stones (in-app purchases on mobile) to roll the weapon Forging gacha, acquire items, or apply Secret Room buffs. Altogether, it’s addictive since you’re constantly rewarded as you grind. Console version also rewards 3x as many Forging Tickets, 36 total instead of 12 on mobile, to roll the gacha. They even halved the requisite Brave Stones for the Alter Pass on console from 800 to 400 (you still need 500 for post-game’s Twisted Key).
One thing I overlooked on my mobile playthrough is using Relic Coins to buy 32 Leather Satchels (2 RCs each = 64), so you can fulfill the respective missions (6, 15, or 32 opened) for Brave Stones as you grind post-game’s C-Dragon for stat boosters.
The console version added a new difficulty below Easy called “Unparalled”, and made each of the 5 difficulties reward a certain amount of Brave Stones per 10 battles: 30 on Unparalleled, 15 on Easy, 9 on Normal, 6 on Hard, and 3 on Very Hard (default mobile rate). I don’t like how it was handled: either stay on Unparalleled and only switch up to Very Hard for bosses on your 11th fight, or stay on Very Hard and count 9 battles before switching down to Unparalleled (I’ve lost track 3 times so lost 81).

Controls: Fast movement speed tied to L3 (click in left stick) and encounter rate toggle tied to R3 is good quality of life. Puzzles throughout the game will require the R button to Alter and B button to swap position. The console version specifically excludes the options to turn off battle animations outside of Auto, which is bad since a post-game weapon scales skill power with uses like in Isekai Rondo/Alphadia Neo. In addition, either version needs 10 battles to acquire currency from battles, but there are no monster atttacters to sequence 3 battles consecutively, so it would’ve been nice to have animation skip for battles every step while using the Y button for Repeat. The console version also can’t toggle how many stages the mini-map cycles through, defaulting to 1-3 when I prefer 1-2. I also experienced 5 crashes on the Switch menu from menuing, like changing my accessories and or accepting my Mission rewards.

Story: It does have a NG+ feature to see the altered dialogue, but you have to spend points to choose what you carry over, so I’d just do a Preteen playthrough instead.
As Grownup Arga, Elsie is mostly quiet whereas Lillieka is the female brat archtype who will tease Arga and call him a bumbler, with banter inbetween the two as he leads the party. There’s only 2 scenarios where the party will Alter mid-cutscene, Elsie during the leafboat scene and another in a Lillieka side quest, so it’s pretty consistent interactions with bumbler being a gag that ran on too long.
As Preteen Arga, he’s more timid and the girls take the lead instead, with Lillieka being the quiet one and Elsie the livelier one as they fuss over how cute Arga is. There were more memorable differences, like the initial Braver recruiter being jealous over the 2 babes in his party, Melty gushing over how cute Arga is during their second fight, and the girls giving Arga a lap pillow as he wakes up from fainting during the first trial’s heights. I remember cutscenes also altering a lot to Grownup Arga for more serious moments, so you get the best of both really.
As for the story itself, it’s low stakes since Arga’s goal of punching his deadbeat dad Leogrado is the main story. Elsie and Lillieka do get their own character arcs through 5 quests each at least. The 3 trial guardians you face (Mercury, Mars, Jupiter) have no further story relevance unlike the ones in Journey to Kreisia, and why this setting bestows class skills is never explained unlike Isekai Rondo/Chroma Quaternion’s worldbuilding with their deities. Sure there’s a villain organization RAGE you fight throughout the story, but that is resolved by a third party in the penultimate dungeon, for a somewhat anti-climatic climax.

Battle System: The main feature is the Alter command, which transforms you between Grownup (+20% damage, +40% if 1 Braver Heart is channel, generates Rush Gauge for the lackluster Alter Rush combined attack) and Preteen forms (-40% MP cost, +1 Braver Heart per turn, max 10, can use one Summoner per battle) and selects which Battle Array (formation) of 2 you’re on, but the 10 turn cooldown makes it difficult to use. While you’re waiting, status ailments like Arga’s Prickly (Poison) and Elsie’s Sleep/Drenched (+50% receiving critical rate) can be pretty helpful. I found my Very Hard mobile playthrough moderately challenging up to the half way point, then challenging again when I hit post-game.

Skill System: Active skills in combat has various perks depending on which form you’re in, so how you even start battles can make a difference. Weapon Synthesis is a thing for more ATK/DEF, but you can’t apply additional effects. Acquiring passive skills will feel bad early on due to a lack of Composter materials to convert into Phantom Stars, but once you’re done with gold in post-game, you can then convert all your sell-for-gold items. There’s some pretty interesting synergies with equipment and accessories, like inflicting yourself with an ailment to get buffed by it, improving the effectiveness of Alter, or improving your hit count (there’s a 30-hit damage item so you can easily build up 90 hits for the combo multiplier). The Lv. 70 “Climbing Himation” armor earned in a chest in the final dungeon chest is mistranslated: it gives you an extra turn if you inflict an ailment on an enemy, allowing you to set up Drenched/Prickly on everyone before capitalizing.

The forums are a little wonky now (profiles work but pages on modern games are absent), so for some references,
https://www.rpginsanity.com/forum/alter-age/46597-console-alter-age-march-7-2025-miscellaneous-info/
https://www.rpginsanity.com/forum/alter-age/46352-recipes/
https://www.rpginsanity.com/forum/alter-age/46182-maxing-stats/
https://www.rpginsanity.com/forum/alter-age/45567-alter-age-uber-boss-strategy-needed/

Must Play

Alter Age is an amazing game and I’d recommend it. I’ll rate it an overall 10/10, and here are my takes.

The story might seem simple or weird on the basis, but I think it’s super intriguing. Arga is set on leaving his hometown in order to take back his absent father after he’s been gone for years and leaving the mother to die. On the way he teams up with the two 12 year olds, Elsie and Lillieka, who are affected by his “soul alter” ability. Arga turns into a preteen while the girls turn into 20+ adult women. Now, one of the interesting parts is that story events and NPC dialogue changes depending on how the characters are altered! An example of this is an early game scene where a woman was aiming to pursue Arga. But when he altered, she couldn’t find him anymore. I’ve spent so much time checking NPC dialogues when I get bored!

Something else I REALLY love is that there are side quests that actually explain character lore. We know all about Arga, but Elsie and Lillieka end up getting some spotlight too! This game is pretty good for anyone who cares about the characters so much.

The mechanics are very nice. Of course altering takes place in battle too, which can give you stat boosts within formations, etc. The brave hearts system can power up moves and easily be broken! There are the standard walk speed buttons and encounter charms BUT what really caught my eye is the “quests for brave stones” menu much similar to the one in Astrune Academy. An additional “alter pass” purchase will get you the “Sword Girl” spirit at level 50! Yeah of course this isn’t a random made up character, it’s Alice from Sword of Elpisia! It’s intriguing to see past characters return, and speaking of that there’s a key you can purchase in the in-game shop and… you’ll see what’s there!

I honestly think this game would be cute as an anime, but that’s wishing for too much. I still think this game is amazing though and I hope for many people to enjoy it, just like I hope with many other Exe-create games!