The Caligula Effect: Overdose

If you would call this a poor man's Persona, you would not be far from the truth. But is there really no beauty in poverty? Yeah, this game made us think about stuff way too much, but that does not mean it is not a great and fun title. It lacks a bit of polish but still offers plenty of reasons for you to grab a Switch and delve into its world of lies, mystery and moral dilemmas. Oh and some catchy j-pop too!

As an homage to the Persona series, The Caligula Effect: Overdose tries to utilize the same mechanics and mannerisms that made the Persona games unique, yet fails to improve over its past shadow. While it does improve many aspects, including a fantastic battle system, it still struggles to improve its storytelling and interaction mechanisms, which ultimately fail to engage players to the dark secrets of the human soul. Not a bad effort, but definitely with room to improve.

A competent if flawed JRPG that has a unique combat system undermined by poor localisation as well as just dull implementation. If you are after a Persona-like RPG you might get some enjoyment from this, but it’s pretty generic fare.

The Caligula Effect Overdose is plagued by strange design choices, poor performances and uninspired story and art direction, but is saved from a below-average mark by a good combat system.

At present, it is only recommended for players in withdrawal from the JRPG.

Even without prior knowledge of the Persona series, it’s hard to walk away from this game without criticizing the quality. A boring story, uninteresting characters, and a soundtrack that begs you to play with the sound turned off are just a sample of the myriad reasons to avoid The Caligula Effect. For a select niche, the incredibly fun combat system may be worth overlooking all of the faults, if at least for a few hours. While I had a terrific time beating my opponents into dust, everything else is just too egregious to recommend to anyone.

While it is the strongest version of The Caligula Effect, it is hard to recommend Overdose to anyone but the most hardcore of fans given its flaws.

The new additions to the story and combat are welcome and they definitely make the experience better than the original Vita release. This is better than playing it on the PS Vita for sure but you’d rather just get this on PS4 or PC if you’re really interested in Caligula.

The Caligula Effect: Overdose is a decent RPG, with a lot of social link and an original combat system, but the exploration is poor and the global design is pretty weak and generic.

Ultimately, there are many issues with The Caligula Effect: Overdose. There were many things in the game that I truly wanted to like, but unfortunately they do not save it from being a poor title. In its entirety, The Caligula Effect: Overdose is an underwhelming and mediocre experience from beginning to end.