It was just like any other day.  Businesses continued to operate, the children were in school, everything seemed normal except for the faint image of what appeared to be a fireball in the sky reflecting in a motorcycle's side mirror.  The resulting explosion left a massive crater in Tokyo and resulted in the deaths of twelve youths.  At the bottom of the cradle Kanata is cradled in the arms of Ranze, her last words to him "I don't want to die here... with you."  Game over, you are dead, thanks for playing.  Oh wait, that's not how Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky works.  Death is not the end, it is simply a new beginning (no affiliation with Fernando Martinez) in which Kanata wakes up in a strange new environment.

This strange new world is Protolexa, a gorgeous alien world with bizarre malevolent creatures and floating islands as far as the eye can see.  Kanata soon encounters Mayura Tsukishiro, another lost youth with the same white colored hair as Kanata.  Mayura has no memory of her life prior to entering Protolexa so she is of no help in helping Kanata figure out what is going on.  Luckily, Kanata soon becomes aware that some entity has merged its presence with him that goes by the name of Yamatoga, who is a rather talkative fellow though having his voice come from Kanata's hand is a tad disconcerting.  Yamatoga serves as a guide of sorts, advising these characters of the powers they have in this world called Xeno Factor and that they need to make their way to someone known as Amatsume while also seeking out the other recently deceased youths from the Tokyo incident.  Without spoiling anything, the plot does get more interesting after several hours into the game.

Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky follows a somewhat unusual format for an RPG.  Instead of an overhead view or 3D perspective that is very common it features a 2D platforming set up outside of combat.  The platforming is not very difficult, it is easy to jump wherever you need to go and if you can't get somewhere it means you need to return later when you have acquired the double jump ability or one of the other skills that makes those hard to reach places more accessible.  Calling Exist Archive a pure Metroidvania doesn't seem like it is entirely accurate but it definitely has elements.  There are multiple paths in each level that lead to treasures and enemy fights, and there is some backtracking required since not all areas are accessible at first.  The map is pretty easy to figure out and follow though its design is not the most user friendly, which is actually a criticism of the UI in general.

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The battle system is actually quite fun.  Enemies are represented on the map by angry looking floating red blobs that will engage you in combat if you touch them, it is recommended you strike them if you want to engage them since that will allow your party the first attack.  Battles are turn based with each side taking all their turns before the other side gets to counterattack.  Each side has action points, and during the defensive turn action points can be spent to lessen the blows from the enemies but you will have less available firepower when it's your turn again.  Each character's attack is activated by a different button determination by their position in the formation and many attacks have an area of effect.

Each of the dozen characters that gradually join the party have a different class and behave differently in battle, and mixing up the classes is where the strategy comes into play.  Some are useful for crowd control and others are better at dealing massive damage to a single enemy.  Figuring out which order the characters should act and which target they should go for in order to achieve maximum impact is actually a fun process, and can make some challenging battles end quickly.  The battle system is one of the better variations that has been recently done with the tried and true turn based formula, but this is another area where the UI is strange.  Items can be used in battle if the Options button is hit but only one item can be used per turn, so choosing who needs to be healed or deciding if low hit points are a better concern than poison are all things to consider.  Certain bosses can be battled later in an optional time trial mode which offers rewards for best time.  Be warned these bosses are much stronger in this mode than when they were first encountered.

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Each character has their own personality and backstory, which get revealed little by little when certain quests are activated, with Mayura's repressed memories being of particular interest.  Returning to the same areas and retreading familiar ground can become tedious but having new parts of the area accessible with the new abilities and learning more about the characters does help keep things interesting.  A nice feature about Exist Archive is during character missions  the player is not forced to have the plot characters in their party, they will simply be present in any cutscenes and at the end of the mission report about what everyone was doing they will be listed as accompanying Kanata.

Exist Archive is a visually stunning game.  The backgrounds of each area in particular are the most impressive both in their creativity and visual appeal.  The characters and enemies have stylized 3D designs that work well in game though they look more cartoonish than the environment they are in, with anime portraits of them during cutscenes.  The soundtrack is filled with majestic moments and may sound familiar to RPG fans.  The score is new original music but was composed by Motoi Sakaruba, who has done work for the Star Ocean series and Valkyrie Profile.

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Closing Comments:

Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky mends Metroidvania style platforming and exploring with a traditional JRPG with turn-based battles to surprisingly good effect. The UI leaves something to be desired and backtracking to previously explored areas is not terribly exciting, but neither of these issues ruin the game and there are more than enough positives to offset those imperfections.  The story taking place in a world that may be a distant planet or the afterlife is an interesting concept.  The pacing does take a few hours for the story to really pick up steam, but that can be forgiven when we are discussing a game that can take an excess of fifty hours to complete.  Overall this is a solid game that blends standard RPG conventions with some more unusual elements.  It has enough familiarity for RPG fans to feel right at home, but goes outside of the box enough to offer a slightly different experience.