Atlus is taking so long to come up with a sequel to the highly successful Persona 5 that it gives a reason for smaller (and thus, less prepared) teams to come up with what I can only describe as “we have Persona 6 at home”, stopgaps meant to satiate everyone’s impatience towards the release of a new Persona entry, and not just another remake of a previous title. Granted, that’s not exactly a bad thing, but very rarely, if ever, will you see someone come up with something as good (or better) than what Atlus is capable of cooking. Case and point, the well-intentioned, but decent-at-best, Varlet.

Varlet comes to us from the development and publishing duo of Aquria and FuRyu. For 95% of the populace, that might sound like mere gibberish. For the remaining 5%, that announcement is enough to pique their interest, but with a semblance of skepticism. You see, Aquria is the developer behind The Caligula Effect, which is another JRPG clearly inspired by Persona. It was also set in a Japanese high school, with an anime feel, very dark undertones, and alternate dimensions. That game was janky as all hell, and cheap in some regards, but it had its qualities, namely an overly complex, but also truly engaging combat system. Varlet somewhat follows the same premise, but in an even more “we have Persona at home” vibe.

It really wants to capture that feel of being a high school student during the day, and JRPG hero that can kill a god with the power of friendship after school hours. You play as an unnamed (and highly androgynous) protagonist who has just transferred to a new high school after an incident involving his parents. This school is known for a few odd things. The first one is the fact that, if you’re talented enough of an artist, you don’t partake in normal classes, instead enrolling in what is literally a training ground to become a J-Pop idol. You are not one of those talented peeps, but that does play an important role depending on the chapter you’re in.

The second main factor is that the school was the first in the whole nation to implement the cross-reality, VR network known as Johari, which is used for everything from finding basic information and making purchases to serving as a social networking and messaging app. Your social skills, your overall life outside of school, your gaming sessions, all revolve around Johari. But in between Johari and the real world, lies a limbo dimension only known as “Glitch”. In it, people’s darkest secrets, desires, and awful thoughts all materialize into monsters and alternate dimensions. And this is where you’ll spend most of your JRPG time inside.

I’ll say two things about the premise. I actually liked it, even if it’s too similar to Persona, but I truly disliked how poorly the premise was implemented in the story. I somewhat liked the characters, their backstories, and whatnot, but no one seemed to care that there is a freaking digital limbo full of magic and actual monsters you can freely visit from your school. The first forays into the Glitch felt rushed and devoid of any urgency. The protagonists would just casually explore the unknown, completely understand right away how to unleash their new powers, and not care at all about the life-changing scenarios happening before them.

That’s not to say the story is bad – it is poorly told. There’s a difference in this case. It’s almost like rewatching the Star Wars prequels: you know the character interactions will be crap, but the story being told, underneath all the poor dialogue and stone-cold reactions, is not bad. I was curious to see what would happen next. I would even be able to withstand some really boring sidequests and pseudo free-roaming sections inside school, doing menial jobs for my student club, because there were interesting tidbits to witness right around the corner. And I was also interested in the combat system.

It’s not a revolutionary system by any means, but I feel like its simplicity is what makes it stand out, somehow. It’s VERY basic – you don’t even have a magic meter. What differentiates your decision to either use a simpler or more powerful attack is how long it will take for your turn to arrive. The more powerful the move, the longer you might need to cast it, in a way. So, if you notice there are lots of fast, but weak foes, it might be better to just use a quick attack to get rid of them. If a foe is taking its time to cast a powerful move, it might be wise to also use a medium-strength attack and break their stance.

Even if it’s a painfully simplistic loop, Aquria was still able to come up with a layer of strategy to make the act of grinding and exploring dungeons further a somewhat painless experience. In fact, Varlet as a whole was a bit easy, and that was fine – people usually don’t play Persona for the challenge as well. It’s easy to overlevel as well.

You might think that I am sounding like a human contradiction with this review as a whole, as I’m basically saying I kept playing a game that, at its core, wasn’t interesting, well-written, or revolutionary. I guess that another aspect that kept me interested in Varlet was that it had a pretty decent presentation. Granted, far from fantastic (games published by FuRyu rarely have big budgets), but the art style was alright, and the occasional cutscene looked crisp. The voice acting was also very good, with not a single performace sounding overexaggerated, like your typical shonen.

Varlet is the perfect definition of a mixed bag. It feels incomplete at parts, with some of its chapters feeling incredibly rushed. The writing isn’t the best, the schooltime activities were pointless, and the setting felt like a cliché. That being said, there was always something about it that made me somewhat ignore its shortcomings and make me want to push forward,  be it the charming characters, decent presentation or actually interesting combat section. Yes, it clearly wants to be an alternative to Persona, and that is the quintessential losing battle, but it could have been a lot worse. If you’re into anime-like JRPGs, or if you really need something else to distract you while Atlus takes its sweet time making Persona 6, Varlet gets the job done, even if ever so slightly.

Graphics: 7.0 A decent enough art style, but environments and animations feel a bit cheap. The occasional cutscene looks a lot better than the rest of the game.	Gameplay: 6.5 Schooltime sections are simplistic and boring, with an uninteresting gameplay loop. Combat sections are more interesting, with just enough strategy added to the combat system to make it grab your attention.
Sound: 7.5 Even if the soundtrack isn’t very memorable, I appreciate that the voice acting doesn’t follow the overdramatic and exaggerated tropes popularized by anime-based games. Performances are, for the most part, quite good.	Fun Factor: 6.5 It feels rushed and incomplete at parts, but I still kept on playing it. I was constantly nitpicking at its faulty storytelling, and moaning at its pointless schooltime sections, but something about it made me want to push forward.
Final Verdict: 6.5

Varlet is available now on PS5, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB and Asus ROG Ally.

A copy of Varlet was provided by the publisher.