The gameplay is challenging and fun, but just like Justice Chronicles, grinding to level up and craft good equipment is REQUIRED.

Genso Chronicles is a turn-based RPG by developer Hit-Point, and the precursor to Justice Chronicles. The story connection between Genso Chronicles and Justice Chronicles is relatively small; the playable characters of both games are completely different; and the player won’t be confused if they play Justice Chronicles first.

The first incarnation of Genso Chronicles was a Japanese-only mobile RPG called Fantasy Chronicles. Then, Natsume created an English localization and called it Mystic Chronicles. Mystic Chronicles had a digital-only release for the Playstation Portable and Playstation Vita handheld systems (and the Vita TV).

Genso Chronicles is a new English localization of the same game. It’s readily apparent that Genso Chronicles is not Natsume’s translation, because the names of some playable characters are different. I assume this is because using Natsume’s translation in the re-release would cost royalties or otherwise be a legal hassle.

Genso Chronicles has been released for various systems including Switch, PS4/PS5, PC, and Xbox One. At the time of this writing (fall 2024), there is no English-language mobile version.

This review is of the Vita version, Mystic Chronicles, but I have no reason to believe that the gameplay or overall story are significantly different from those of Genso Chronicles.

Genso Chronicles is fairly long, with multiple endings. The first ending has variations depending on which party member the main hero Light grows closest to. If the player progresses through the postgame story, then they can earn two more endings in linear sequence; these endings do not seem to have any variations. There are also sidequests, optional postgame challenges, and optional arena battles.

Genso Chronicles is basically Justice Chronicles 1.0, or perhaps Justice Chronicles is Genso Chronicles 2.0. The two games have almost identical gameplay.

Every party member can be paired with a powerful Guardian Beast. Guardian Beasts level up with the party and can be equipped with items that alter their statistics or give them extra abilities. Guardian Beasts are not controlled directly in combat, but they can be indirectly controlled with a “Tactics” option that instructs them to focus on attacking, protecting, or healing. The “Tactics” option can and does affect which abilities the Guardian Beast uses in combat.

Both Guardian Beasts and party members can be freely swapped around in the middle of a fight. There is a wide variety of viable options for equipping party members, and a diversity of party member abilities and cooperative attacks, resulting in a high amount of strategic options for the challenging boss battles.

Grinding is required. Not only level grinding, but also grinding materials for the crafting system. The only way to get the most powerful armor and weapons in the game is to find crafting books for the recipes, gather materials, and then make them in the workshop.

The good news is that level grinding is fairly painless. Battles are fast-paced. All party members always gain experience whether they’re on the front lines or not, whether they’re KO’d or not. The player gets access to an ability that instantly summons monsters to battle fairly early (maybe 1/4 of the way in). Experience scales in such a way that the player will rapidly rise in levels until they reach a soft cap tied to whatever area they’re grinding in.

The bad news is that grinding to craft weapons and armor is tedious. The game does provide some workshop helpers who automatically accumulate materials whenever the party fights battles, and it is possible to buy some intermediate-stage crafted gear as the story progresses. It’s still a slog. I strongly recommend saving the game before any crafting session, and crafting weapons only for one or two designated damage-dealers, just to minimize time spent gathering and crafting.

The story of Genso Chronicles is very RPG trope-heavy, but it does have a few surprising twists. Genso Chronicles doesn’t have anywhere near as many “shocking swerves” as the telenovela-like story of Justice Chronicles, though. Instead, Genso Chronicles features a more standard teen-hero, journey-to-save-the-world JRPG story.

In Genso Chronicles, relationships between the party members get more focus. There is a combat advantage to strengthening bonds between party members, and there are optional but memorable scenes at the arena or at a bathhouse, where party members can get to know one another better.

There are weak points to Genso Chronicles’ story. For example, even though the main hero’s tragic past seems to be a major story factor at first, its full revelation is nothing more than a brief conversation. Then the hero’s past is completely dropped for the rest of the game. I remember thinking “Are we just leaving it at that? Seriously?” to myself.

The third and final ending is also handled in an unsatisfying way. It’s not a cliffhanger; it just left me wondering “Is that it?”

In both cases, it felt like Genso Chronicles’ writers ran out of time and space to properly tell their story. Justice Chronicles didn’t have this problem, or at least, not as severely.

These flaws make Genso Chronicles hard to recommend for its story. At the same time, the characters of Genso Chronicles are likeable enough, and its story more or less reaches the threshold of “acceptable.” Maybe not “great” or even “good,” but “acceptable.”

I can recommend the gameplay of Genso Chronicles to anyone who enjoyed Justice Chronicles, and vice-versa. This recommendation comes with a warning: tolerance for level grinding and equipment crafting is flat-out REQUIRED to progress in both games. Neither game has an option to lower the difficulty level!