After going through an RPG, I wound up randomly rolling another RPG: Axial Disc 1, by Sawyer Friend. I previously played Sawyer’s Silver Daze, so I was delighted that my RNG system gave me another game of his. Disc 1 was actually the first big project that Sawyer put up, so it was interesting to see how his ludology starts.

Again, I disclose that I’m a friend of Sawyer. In fact, one of my [c]haracters [c]ameos in this game, though I didn’t find him on my playthrough. Sorry Tai.

I will also say that I apologize if my thoughts feel cluttered or if I got things wrong. Partway into my playthrough, that sudden death in my family happened, so I didn’t exactly play the game with a clear head. You may ask, “is it healthy to play and write about things when you’re dealing with tragedy?” And I answer that my personal work is the only way I feel like I have any control left in my life.

Now, let’s get back into things and re-maintain the [c] gimmick.

Axial takes place in a world where mysterious [c]reatures called Eaters run rampant – but they’re not the direct [c]oncern of our story, at least in this first part. Oli, a woman with a sword that refuses to separate itself from her, winds up [c]oming across a [c]urious sight: a strange-talking man named Sai and a mysterious woman named Amara are being hunted by the Agency supposedly in [c]harge of maintaining the well-being of the capital Stardust City. Oli aligns herself with them because it presents her the [c]hance to see what’s up with the Astral Tower that presides over the [c]ity, a larger [c]uriosity in her life…

Axial is [c]lassic turn-based RPG action with a big focus on building skillsets. This is particularly encouraged with Oli, whose [C]haractreristic of [C]oncentration allows her to learn enemy skills with Durend, the sword attached to her. There’s a lot of skills for her to leech off, making her the most versatile character. For me, until I got her to learn more busted attacks, she was the queen of debuffing enemies, and I do love throwing debuffs around in RPGs.

Besides learning through Oli, the other characters build up skills through level ups and trading Eater Eyes to the local [c]offee shop to learn new things (as you do with any [c]offee shop). Playing around with the [c]haracters gets more fun as their libraries build up. Sai is a pretty good mage, especially if you manage to find team skill combinations for him to build toward. Amara has sets of skills dependent on what she has equipped to experiment with; for me, I was all about having her main a spear, like a true dragoon. It was pretty fun to play around with everything, and it really did feel like the party building experience from Silver Daze built off of this.

Now, I alluded to it before, so let’s talk [C]haracteristics. Each playable [c]haracter has a [c]haracteristic that defines them, but some feel more solid than others. As the [C]oward, enemies are less likely to target Sai, which is handy as someone you [c]ould direct to be the healer, though part of me wishes that it affected his evasion rates. When fighting, Amara has the chance to become a strong apeshit berserker as a [C]ell and the length of the state is based on how much C she has; I honestly don’t know how to trigger this mode, but it’s respectable. As for Amara, her [C]oncentration… just affects the rate she learns skills. I mean, pretty good if you’re farming around for skills, but it means absolutely nothing outside of that, which makes her [C]haracteristic feel underwhelming. I remember feeling a bit mixed on the [C]haracteristics of the guest party members overall. Like, the whole [C]haracteristic thing feels that it should be [c]onsistently stronger given how it feels like part of the game’s identity. Dare I say… it helps [c]haracterize the game.

As for the writing of the [c]haracters, I’m mixed about it. Oli initially feels like she would just be a perspective character to Sai and Amara’s struggles against the Agency. However, she does take the lead in investigating the origins of the sword bonded to her, and the sword is related to the Agency… but it feels kinda unconnected from the rest of the main Agency plotting? Oli is definitely an active presence, yet she weirdly feels like a +1 to everything, if that makes sense. Better than Vaan Final Fantasy XII at least.

Amara does present an interesting throughline. She’s really good at killing things, but she desperately wants to define herself outside of her pre-determined role. In escaping the Agency, she tries to find a new normal for herself. Well, I did kinda min-max her killing potential because she’s kinda too good at it, which kinda goes against the whole thing, but she’s killing for good reasons now, actually. It’s based when I make her a killing machine, actually.

Now, I’m in a weird place with Sai. He is a [c]haracter that talks in a medieval accent, and all the other [c]haracters think he’s weird for it. This tendency also accompanies his desire to play the role of the hero, like he’s some [c]hivalrous knight. But no, that’s not why he’s weird to me, even if he is a bit of a loser. What’s weird to me is that he has extreme neoliberal brain, insisting that there’s no way that the Agency is evil all the time until the last leg of the game. Brother, you’re introduced in the game being on the run from the Agency with a girl that they [c]learly had [c]aptive – and you know that she was [c]aptive. Did you forget the [c]ircumstances you’re in?? What the fuck are you talking about, of [c]ourse the Agency is evil! Forget being a [C]oward, he’s a [C]entrist to me – but of [c]ourse I know that some of you readers think that’s the same thing (it is).

Now, the story. It does start solid enough, though it feels like it speeds through some aspects; like dang, Oli’s adoptive father is suddenly all in on helping out these two [c]omplete strangers. Then, after a whole bunch of drama, the party settles down for a bit. After somehow managing to [c]hill in a [c]afe that’s not too far from the Agency, Oli has a new proposal for the team: let’s go figure out the deal with Durend! Huh? Nah, you don’t have to worry about the Agency, they’re just kinda hanging around for the next few hours of the game. It extremely kinda feels like the story’s getting sidetracked and the sense of stakes disappeared; a few interesting things do pop up on this sidequest, but they feel incidental to Oli’s plot.

Confronting the Agency soon becomes the principal [c]oncern again, but part of the game that sincerely made me mad happens. The gang goes to help out a hacker who [c]ould give them a way to infiltrate Astral Tower, and to do that you have to do fetch quest stuff. There’s actually a [c]ool fight against the villain lieutenants, but going on, there’s a villain that did not appear before who doesn’t even have a portrait who killed the hacker offscreen. This [c]ertainly [c]omplicates the gang’s plans and – oh? Astral Tower got hit by an unrelated power outage that got rid of its defenses so the heroes can just go in now? Huh? Why did you waste my time??

A huge part of Axial Disc 1 felt really unfocused to a frustrating degree. However, what kept me engaged was that the game does bring up interesting things. Like, what’s the exact nature of Amara? What’s the deal with the villain lieutenant Chip, who has a pre-existing deal with Sai? Meanwhile, if you explore around, you can find points that give flashbacks that further defines [c]haracters and shows them doing things outside of the story. I [c]omplained about the story getting sidetracked with the investigation to investigate Oli’s sword, but as I said, interesting things pop up during the party’s escapades. There were enough hooks that kept me going, which is more than I can say about a few other games.

When you get to Astral Tower, the story is shoved front and [c]enter – perhaps in an overbearing way. Hey, here’s two more [c]haracters to experiment with after spending at least 10 hours with a trio… and they’re not with you very long. It extremely felt like the new [c]haracters were placed to balance things when the party’s briefly split up, but at that point, why not just balance enemy encounters to be more accommodating of the split up party instead? While those [c]haracters have strong moments when you end their time with them, it really felt like they should have been a more direct player in things longer to make it feel more impactful; this is especially the [c]ase for one of them, because while he does show up and do things earlier in the story, his story also involves a [c]haracter that didn’t really show up until that point despite being so important to the past of a few [c]haracters.

Like, it’s just bizarre to have so much stuff dumped in Astral Tower when there’s so much meandering beforehand. I wish that the story was paced differently or events [c]ould have been spread more evenly through the story. Like, that moment with those [c]haracters I was talking about in the last paragraph [c]ould have been placed elsewhere. Maybe that guest party member [c]ould have been helping on the hacker quest and that [c]haracter I was alluding to [c]ould show up there to be a threat instead of that jobber that doesn’t even have a [c]haracter portrait, and the fight would have a more personal edge and I wouldn’t feel like my time was being wasted. Because the thing is, the stuff that goes on in the final dungeon IS engaging, it’s just that it felt unfocused.

Overall, Axial Disc 1 had an engaging beginning and end, but a huge [c]hunk of the middle is just… ???

But I will say, it was interesting to play this game because it was [c]ool to see how it reflected into the future with Silver Daze. Silver Daze felt like a refinement of the skillset building systems present in Axial. While the whole [C] stuff definitely could have been better, I feel that it’s done better in essence in Silver Daze with how everyone had their own Specials that defined them. Most importantly, while I think half the [c]haracters in Silver Daze needed more work, the story felt felt way more focused than what Axial gave. No meandering, just straight to business unless you the player wanted to do the side stuff.

After all, this was Sawyer’s first major game. I remember my first game that I made for a game jam back when I was in [c]ollege and I’m not too proud of it. But hey, it was my first game, and this was Sawyer’s first game. Playing Axial reminded me that we all start small, we don’t immediately [c]ome out with something perfect. It’s always interesting to see how people begin.

Of [c]ourse, we have to remember this is only the first disc of Axial. Disc 2 may follow-up on things and help form a more proper whole story. I don’t know when I’ll play Disc 2 – after all, I got a fresh new backlog bingo sheet to attend to. However, I think that this first part is enjoyable enough. It certainly helps that Disc 1 is free and acts as an appetizer for the full [c]ommercial release of Disc 2. Overall, it was a flawed but okay experience.