VARLET is an upcoming School-life JRPG that many Persona fans might be keeping an eye on. You take control of the main character, who secures bonds with allies as you progress through the story, learning more about the school they have transferred to and the world surrounding everyone within the school. We were given access to look at the first chapter of Varlet to see what this new and compelling JRPG is all about.

Following The Classics

Getting right into Varlet , you are given a quiz in the prologue. This is interesting and new to the genre, as this seems to affect your main character in interesting ways. Depending on your answers, your main character receives a set number of bonuses to specific stats. In our case, the answers given were sympathetic and altruistic for the most part, giving a sympathy stat boost.

This will affect what answers you can provide to others when talking to them throughout the story, allowing for more information to come from scenes that would normally be vague. These stats also do more than unlock extra dialogue routes; the more you level them through various talking points in the game, you unlock extra benefits to combat through them as well. Sympathy will give you extra healing potency, making it worth the work to level them up throughout the game.

Using the player’s preference on these answers and giving the main character the stats to benefit their line of thinking is something unheard of in this genre. When making a silent protagonist, the idea is usually to use this silence to allow a player to use their voice in the scenarios throughout the game. Here it's upped a notch, allowing your personality to affect this protagonist right away and giving you the opportunity to benefit from it. While it may not give you results instantly, it's still a great way to bring you into the game for extra immersion without using the silent main character as a crutch.

The world is also interesting in how it has been set up, with both the virtual and physical realms intertwined. These characters we meet and get to know all partake in activities within the virtual and physical worlds. What makes the dungeons within chapters interesting is that they take place in a realm that is between both of these realms of existence. This sort of world-building isn’t new by any means, but it does a lot to make the events we see play out and feel completely fresh.

A Nice Take on Turn-Based Combat

Combat in Varlet takes a lot from other big JRPGs, but this time, combat is more straightforward. This is a turn-based game with a variety of skills you can use with each of your characters, with them all specializing in ways to fight enemies. Your main character will be a jack of all trades, able to stun enemies and provide buffs to allies. But your party will vary in what they’re capable of doing in combat. For example, Sota is a character who is good at follow-up attacks when the protagonist stuns an enemy, but Noa excels at drawing enemy attention to keep the party safe.

The use of these skills won’t cost any mana either, as they're used in a way to be proactive and reactive during fights. Throughout Chapter 1, you’ll slowly be able to activate and use more abilities and features that the game provides in combat. It's a nice way to show you new ways to attack foes while still giving you more of the features available after you have learned the basics that the game has to offer. Abilities can range from guard-breaking enemies to draining their stun meter, which can then open up new opportunities to attack when you bind them with follow-up skills.

Varlet does lack the visual flair that other games in the genre provide in strides, but that doesn’t take away from what it has to offer. The game itself looks good, with dungeons providing a lot of visuals that are awesome to look at. There are also plenty of ways to approach combat with the limited access you have just in the first chapter alone. You’ve got character story events that trigger as you spend time with the rest of the cast, fun combat and an interesting story to experience. This is a game that's looking to earn its spot in the genre and give players more classic turn-based gameplay while adding new qualities to it.