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If you have fond memories of old RPGs such as Wizardry, Might and Might 1, or Bard's Tale, this may be the game for you. I bought and finished this game within the past week with the 20 hours played that you see here and it brought back some great memories of playing those old games. The game plays the most like the original Might and Magic and Bard's Tale 1. You create a party of 6 adventurers and you need to go back to an Inn to rest and also visit a Trainer to level up. It does have a reasonable automap feature that automatically annotates important locations for you. Like many of the old rpgs, the first few levels are the toughest and if you understand the game system and know how to use your abilities and spells it gets easier as the game goes on. I thoroughly enjoyed this game but my only warning is this game may not make as much sense to people who did not grow up playing games like Bard's Tale and Might and Magic in the 80's.
Six man party hex-based movement with turn-based combat dungeon crawler. There are not many games around in this genre, so I take what it's there. And this one is a decent one, it may not have animated monsters but arts are really nice. And Swords and Sorcery - Underworld is complex enough to keep me entertained. Bugs free also.
Meh. I love games like Might & Magic, and Wizardry. I loved the Gold Box series back in the day. There isn't much to love in this game. Its like a bad remake of Might & Magic I, but with slower progression, less variety, and less appealing grinding. I really wanted to like this game... but I don't.
Great game if you are a gridder fan. Great brutal combat, There is some grinding here, but doesn't detract from the overall gameplay. Great job on the developers' part on getting some quick fixes out there on some minor bug fixes. Having fun and taking me back in time. Love it.
The amazing thing that separates PC gaming from console gaming is what I term the "gaming underground", indie developers who do it purely for the love or to create a game they would enjoy playing. Also, the ability to connect with developers of indie games is something that was never able to be done with consoles, it makes the player feel much more involved in the game world. Swords and Socery-Underworld is a perfect example of an "underground" role playing game. Big game studios do not make their money developing games highly inspired from antiquated RPG's of the past like "A Bard's Tale" and "Might and Magic IV". Some newer titles have done well such as the Grimrock series, but those will never ascend to the likes of what the big developers are doing. For those of us who still enjoy the old style of gaming, who don't care about flashy graphics and sound, and just wan't an atmospheric, immersive story and all the fantasy trademarks of yesteryear will do well to check out this game. It's refreshing to download a 256 mb game and be able to fire it up within seconds instead of waiting for hours for a download to finish. A lot of the gaming elements are familiar to aforementioned games in this review, but there is still a learning curve, even for us older games. I truly enjoy the map layout and how the world map is connected more like puzzle pieces, instead of just being able to see your entire map at once. You want to keep exploring the grid based world until every square is uncovered, in hopes you'll come across an elusive rare item or challening foe. I'm about 10 hours into the game and have uncovered the first four segments of the map. I have no idea how big the world is, and that's the beauty of it...to keep exploring and see where it leads next. I highly recommend this game, but only to people with patience and who can appreciate the old days of gaming through and through. This IS your dad's computer RPG!
Absolute delight of a game. It's a very simple grid-based and turn-based blobber with easy to learn mechanics. Nevertheless it manages to be very challenging with it's JRPG style "random encounters" nature. It's got gorgeous artwork which is, bizarrely, somewhat sexy. The only downside is that it requires a lot of grinding and you're going to be staying in the same areas for some time until you've gotten to a level where you can handle what's next. I'm still at the beginning of the game (~5 hours in) but I've got the feeling this is how the progression's going to be. For OG bonus.com visitors (flash games site in the late 90's, early 2000's), it reminds me a bit of the HTML/javascript based RPG called Knight's Quest which I absolutely loved.
tl;dr - This game plays exactly like a game from the late 80s. Start out pathetically weak with no armor or weapons to speak of and pray to the RNG gods your entire party isnt 1-shotted. You're going to have to grind for gold and XP before you can even think about going and doing anything. Nice hand drawn art, minimal stereotypical sound, and some weird UI choices. Its not terrible, but it's not great either. Besides the cool images during conversation scenes, theres not muct to set it apart from the crowd. If it had come out in 1989, it'd be great, but modern grid-dungeons have come a long way since then. I'm only recommending it for hardcore fans of the genre who like games like the early Wizardrys where theres a lot of RNG luck and grinding just to stay alive. __________________________________________________________ This is an true-to-the-late-80s turn based dungeon crawler with interesting hand drawn graphics. The graphics are rendered in great detail, with plot scenes being shown with static full screen brightly colored comic book-style art. When I say "true to the late 80s", I mean it. Unlike many other games that took what was great about that era's RPGs and left the rest, Underworld really makes you feel like you're playing a game created in 1990 but with a unique art style. Your characters start out pitifully weak with nothing but an extremely low level melee and ranged weapon. No armor, no gold, One slap of the RNG god and you're going down to a random encounter due to how pathetic your characters are- one hit knockdowns are the norm until you reach level 2 and/or get some better armor and even at level 2 they're very common. Fortunately theres an "unconciousness" state that incapacitates a char before death, but one hit while in that state and its off to the temple to pay a fee for res. To get even semi-decent, you're going to have to run around town grinding random encounters for gold to get your chars even marginally equipped. I feel like I'm playing the early Wizardrys here. Did I mention how much I *hate* grinding? I did way too much of it in the actual 80s, I guess. There's a reason many RPGs dont have grinding anymore, its not fun to most people. Fortunately, there is an item repeatably dropped by a certain random enemy type you can trade to the guard blocking the catacombs for 100g and 20xp. Unfortunately, you have to run all over hells half acre trying to encounter that specific enemy type. Oh, and you can't just level, you have to train which costs gold. And it takes a *lot* of XP to level, but all you get out of it is 3 skill points. Theres a mini-map in the corner (thank god), and apparently a larger world map that has places of interest marked. I still like making notations on maps - guess it comes from my graph paper and pencil days. Still, the minimap is nice - no graph paper needed. Once you get yourself equipped, you can head off to the catacombs and continue the plot, which revolves around a giant demon somehow being released and taunting the party when you leave the inn. Of course you are told by someone that your party has a great fate, which is, of course, to try and stop the demon. Theres also sidequests. I'm currently doing a fetch quest at level 2. Level 2 seems to be a bit easier, not so many one hit knockouts. If this game progresses like most of the 80s games, you should get strong enough that the grinding isn't as required once you're out of the early game, but its still annoying and not a good start to the game. The UI has some weirdness. Like most games of this style theres a bunch of quick icons on the HUD (char sheet, rest, system etc). I find it odd however, that in order to cast a spell you must go to the spellcaster's char sheet, then hit enter, then select the spell, but theres a quickbar icon for the tutorial. Which is a player going to use more? The tutorial, or the spellbook? But yet theres no quickbar "cast spell" icon? Also, to pick a locked door, you must bump into the door, which flashes "locked" on the screen. Then you must select the "unlock" icon. If you fail the picking, instead of just hitting unlock again, you have to bump into the door, get the "locked" message, then hit "u" or click the "unlock" icon all over again. For some unknown reason, when you fail picking a lock, it makes the same sound as the noise of someone going unconcious in combat. Which sounds like a punch/swing, and then a thud like someone getting hit and dropping to the ground. When you fail to pick a lock. Why? The first time I heard it, I thought there was a trap that went off. But no, thats just the noise it makes. The sound of succeeding to pick a lock is what youd expect, a metallic tumbler shifting and *click*. So why the weird fail sound? Speaking of sounds, they are minimal at best. Theres a nice bird sound when you're in town. However, it plays even in areas that would be considered "inside". The rest is just the typical grunts, clangs, swoosh, growls and so on that are standard in RPGs. Nothing like that cool weird chant the brigands made in Wizardry 6. Overall, Underworld is just OK. If you're a fan of the genre, its worth picking up ON SALE. But I hope you like grinding.
Really a cool little blobber. You're gonna have to figure some things out though. Like the priest needs to make Holy Water asap. Edit: Put some real time in and this is the best blobber I ever played, besides maybe wizardry's when I first got addicted to games. And that was because, you know kid. And yes I own A lot of the more modern ones. So Many things are done with thought of the game mechanics. I mentioned the holy water thing above here is some other cool stuff. 1. Character power level. The game really purveys a sense of level of power progression. for instance my first encounter with a vampire was when my party were level 3. It dang near wiped the group. Later at level 7 those same vampires go down in 1 or 2 hits. And the game displays this power by having you travel through those areas which were oh so difficult at first to reach a higher threat level as you progress. Its catacombs under a city you see. And like most blobbers the different areas contain different threat levels. Now I know some of you people are rolling your eyes thinking tedium and no fast travel. but the levels are easily navigated with 2-4 random encounters traversing to the next level that usually only last 1 round when you get powerful. So your characters power is on display through these areas that used to be frightening. so many games these days just dont have that. all enemies scale with your party so you heroes never really feel powerful. 2. Magic. the developer was really clever here with ssorcerers gain runes from defeated enemies. not sure wht all monsters are running around with bags of ruins so I use my imagination and pretend he/she make them from corpses. some kind of wierd magic rituals or whatever. What this does is make you think carefully about just using your most powerful spells every encounter because of the components required. 3. enemies. there are over 100 monsters ranging from the classic giant rats to major demons. And you can encounter 1 to maybe 8 or more. (not entirely sure here because the ui only shows 8 but i could swear sometimes others drop in) Now you dont know anything about the enemies until your priest cast an identify monster spell called read minds. And that information is kept in a party book called a bestiary (naturally) so you only have to cast it once on any creature. The monsters themselves have various abilities they use quite well. It is probably more random than it appears but you sure will get the impression of intelligent enemies. For instance everyone knows how powerful magic users can get in these types of games. well when you encounter mummies they immediately and magically use some of their bindings to cover the mouths of these same magic users. and only the priest can dispel negative effects so if the mummy attacks him/her anyone silenced stays that way for the remainder of the battle. So you are gonna duke it out martially and mummies are pretty tough. other monsters cause fear or summon more monsters, spread disease or poison etc. And it all plays out very cool. you never feel like you were cheated even in defeat. 4. Death. your heroes can and will die. any hit on a character that drops your hero below zero HP goes into a state of unconsciousness. If an unconscious hero is damaged....death...period. but resurection is fairly cheap at the chapel back in town. but remember you have to retrace your steps back to town. Until your mage (I aint gonna keep writing sorcerer because it is a tedious word) can cast a gateway to bring the party instantly back to town. This is a fairly powerful spell so you have to be pretty high level. 5. Equipment. no rpg worth its salt would be complete without more powerful equipment. But the outfitter in town sells basic equipment only. you are gonna have to find the cooler stuff. That outfitter does sale some much needed minor stuff that you wont be able to afford for a while. Half the fun is in levels 1-3 is acquiring enough gold to purchase this equipment. One such great example of this equipment is magic salt. you cant stuff a healing potion (there are none btw) down an unconscious part member. The developer ingeniuously addressed this with magic salt. You could imagine other members reaching into a belt pouch and tossing this on downed friends from a belt pouch. Magic salt very slightly heals the wounds of downed party members and burns them enough to shock them into consciousness. This is simply a brilliant design choice because remember unconscious heroes die if hit. The salt heals a whopping 4 hp. so your characters may very well go down again the next round but then again the party may reduce the threat enough to make everyone survive. and this happens quite a lot. BUY MAGIC SALT! you will thank me later. 6. The characters. They all play differently. the knight is similar to the paladin as far as fighting but at least one of them should weild the 2h weapons and they other the great shields and 1h weapons. the difference being the paladin can cast some priest spells. This allows him/her to heal minor post battle wounds to save the priest for the powerful stuff. and this game has powerful enemies in droves. The archer is absolutely deadly and the non spell casting heroes gain abilities. for instance, my archer now can notch 3 arrows and spread them across large groups of low level enemies. This is important because of the unconscious death thing. I have had my knight die to rats simply because there were so many of them. 7. the rogue. not merely a chump to disarm traps, this guy/gal might be the most powerful of all your heroes. he slips into the shadows almost 100% of the time thereby avoiding being a target, Then he rains absolute death on even powerful foes with his melee or ranged assassination. And unlike most games he stays hidden about 70% of the time to do it again the next round 8. Magic users. Undead of any type (yeah even lowly skeletons) can only be harmed by weapons blessed with holy water. the good news is, that blessing remains until camping and is immediately cast the next morning..but at the cost of holy water. Not the best of fighters the priest can help with staffs but is essential to keep your part alive with healing and removing debuffs. The mage has to be wise in casting spells. many games just get rptitive with the mage just spamming fireballs or whatever. here is another example of the developers brilliance, remember runes are burned up when using the powerful stuff. both the priest and mage have a few spells that dont require spell components. you get the idea. 8. The
Great tribute to old school dungeons like Wizardry and Might and Magic. I found atmosphere close to Black Crypt, but game mechanisms are close to Might and Magic III. As it comes with this kind of games, It rewards grind somewhat - but it is by no means grindfest. Your are punished for grinding too much as experience gains are very small for weaker groups. You will do fine proceeding systematically, without need to spend too much time in area after fully mapped. Puzzles were not too easy, not too difficult. I finished game in ca 30 hours - maybe a bit short, but more than adequate for a price. It is not beast like Wizardry 7, but by no means small. If you are old school dungeon gamer, this will fit nicely. Dungeons are quite rare these days. BTW, Author provides great and prompt support for game even five years after going live. Rare sight these days and my commendation. I hope to see more games from Charles.
I played Bards Tale in 1985. Lovely game. 99 Barbarians. Only being able to save in the Adventures Guild. The eerie music from the temples. Brian The Fist. El Cid. A bard that needs to take a swig of his wineskin before playing some musical tunes. Four mage classes. A mad monk that fights with only his hands and feet. I could go on. A masterpiece. Played it again for 60 hours a few years ago when the original games were included in the later and mostly useless comedic Bards Tale remake. Between 1985 and this day I have always asked why no developers have wanted to create something like that. Where are the mainstream Bards Tale games? So huge, HUGE credit to OlderBytes for not only asking the question but for putting their money in and developing this gem. A dungeon crawler, turn based combat. Grid based movement. Locked doors. Treasure. Healing. Items. Experience points. Exploring. Exploration is one of the game's best points. You would think that map design on a grid is pretty easy. But I can tell you about some awful, awful games where the maps were obscene or even retarded. The maps in this game feel really well thought out. They really made me want to explore every nook and crook and are quite varied. I reckon the game developer must be a proper gamer himself as in every town I visited, the place I wanted to visit first was the last place I found. Last place - each time. Diabolical game design or bad damn luck for me? I am talking about the shop or that one time I needed food. Where the heck are they? The games graphics are very competent and unusual. Encounters can be interesting as the bestiary is quite varied. The game is smarter than it looks. Old school game play has been upgraded in some ways, such as requirements to plan ahead and create holy water for your priest. My Thief had a Stun option. I loved my thief as once hiding in the shadows he could one shot kill some nasties. He was also able to find daggers that had extra assassin damage - lovely. I can't imagine having a party without a priest as healing in the midst of battle was crucial to my experience. Undead. More of those folks than in an episode of The Walking Dead. Another thing new to the genre is that my party had to be "Blessed" before they could apply any damage to the foul creatures. I even came across a lava/ fire area I could not traverse until I remembered I had a "levitate" spell. Cool. The combat itself is quite interesting and requires full concentration as it is easy to get whacked if you assume spamming Attack will get you through. Combat is almost like little puzzles where you need to figure out who to go forward, who to heal, who to drop out of melee. There is even one option that allows one party member to protect another. My priest has a spell that allows her to read minds in combat which then builds up your Bestiary. At this point, I can't be sure whether this is useful in game or useful building a Steam Achievement. Still interesting reading the text. It's not all hugs and kisses though. Just one thing. One shot kills. Save scumming. I hate it and this game positively encourages it. I would really love to know how many fights other gamers can go before saving. Really. What is the record so far? It breaks the immersion of what could be a fantastic game. Behind every nook and cranny there is an encounter that can wipe out your whole party and kill you stone dead. No notice. No warning. Return to "GO". Behind every nook and cranny and even in nooks you have even visited before. It's the random encounter generator or level list or something. Something that can really spoil the flow of the game. It stops me from giving this a "I love this game" to "I recommend you try this game". I will ponder on this final criticism of the game for now as I would like try it out for more. Other thoughts? Loot. Would be nice if some encounters left behind food or water. Scrolls that can raise the dead if your party finishes an encounter a few men short. Encounters that leave behind food you can eat and heal yourself. Cough - some directions in town? Some unique save locations instead of save anywhere - would help immersion. Better armour/ equipment/ spells of mages. Those guys just die all the time.
UPDATE: I have changed my review from negative to positive. I took a break from this to play some other games and have come back to try it again. UNfortunately, it's been long enough that I can't remember how to get back to where the specific crash issues occured, so I'm going to start a fresh game. I still experience the freeze ups just not as often, but am going to attribute these to the possibility of my graphics card not playing nicely even though it should. I've had a couple of other odd experiences outside of this game that may be related. Just remember experiences may vary from one PC to another. ORIGINAL POST: I only give this a negative recommendation because it suffers from constant fatal errors. If these were corrected I would say it is a fun and challenging game for its style and genre. However, I played the game past level 5 when it starts to make sense and becomes somewhat easier, but it just becomes too much work and less play to be enjoyable. because this is hasn't had any updates for over a year and is stated as Definitive Edition still having these issues is a big detractor. The developer has stated some of these issues are related to Win 10 and to apply a fix listed in a post. I have done this and the reponse from the fix was there were no issues with my system. I have experienced three types of fatal errors which are likely all the same at the root of it all. The three types of errors I experienced were: 1) Game freeze with no error or debug message which required closing the window and killing the process.; 2) Out of Memory causing the game to close upon clicking OK. I'm not sure what language the game was written in, but I've seen tons of these in programs written in C and C++. 3) Fatal crash with a debug window. I've had this happen twice, one at the entrance to the Lake and in the Goblin Hall. ___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ FATAL ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object scr_block: DoAdd :2: illegal array use at gml_Script_monsterspecial ############################################################################################ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- stack frame is gml_Script_monsterspecial (line 0) gml_Script_defend gml_Script_combat gml_Script_write_monsters gml_Script_paintwalls gml_Object_scr_block_Draw_0 I really want to like the game more but it has gotten to be a major pain to play. I tried saving often, but when it crashes within 5 minutes (literally) of startup saving every 10 steps, again, is a detractor. I hope Sovereign doesn't have theese issue as I'd like to play it too. I like these type of games.
I grew up playing these sorts of game, obsessively graphing every square on graph paper in Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Might & Magic. Each of those games were finely honed to be exasperatingly difficult but achievable. This game pits your party of 2-6 hp adventures against monsters who do 74 damage per hit in the tutorial room that you first appear in. Party Creation to Party wipe in four mouse clicks courtesy of a single Vigilante and then back to the Party Creation screen. In my opinion, the developer(s) have taken the idea of a critical path far, far too literally. I was supposed to walk two squares forward instead of one forward and one to the right. Note: there's no prompting or visual cues that one of the seven doors you're presented with is the "right" way. There are no clues even to what kind of building you are in to let you know that maybe some of the identical doors are instant death. This is literally the first split second of the game after it's told you the controls. You are in a room. There are seven doors. Here are the movement controls. Oops you're dead. Talk about worst foot forward! EDIT: Read the comments for this review to see the developer responding to constructive criticism. Also, please note that this review was for the initial launch version and not the version currently being offered.
This is one of the best old school, turned based RPG that I have played for years. BTW, I am an older gamer that has been playing RPGs for the last 35+ years, starting from Wizardy 1 in 1980. I played all the Wizardrys, Ultimas, Bard Tales and Might & Magic Series. This game reminds me of all those past games that I have played in the past with its square grid layout and its very engaging storyline. You can also have a team of 6 different members and there are 6 different classes each with very different and unique skills. This game is also slightly different than most normal RPG in that Sorcerers need to collect Runes to cast spells, and Priests needs to prepare a supply of Holy Water. Of course you also need to be near some water supply like Stream or Lake so you can have access to water. It is little things like this that makes the game more interesting and different. The developer also put in a lot of effort into creating different kind of dungeons with different mechanics and behavior that are uniquely distinctive. For example, in the Water Realm, there are currents and you get swept away to different location based on the current. In the Air Realm, you will fall to your death, and can only teleport to certain location using a transdisplacer device. In Earth Realm you might have to re-materialized behind the rock to discover new tunnels, etc. In Fire you have constant Inferno effect damaging you with every move and lots of other surprises. I love games with Steam Achievements, and it is possible to get all 20/20 steam achievements in a single playthrough. I spend about 70 hours in a single playthrough. This game especially reward grinding and have monsters that repopulate so that you can grind till your heart content. You also get decent drops and experienes through grinding too. Overall, I loved this game and would highly recommend it to any old school RPG gamers. Its definitely worth the money spent.
OK - I made it through about 1/3 of this game and really wanted to like it. However I just got bored. Its clearly a homage to the Might and Magic Series (similar ideas to World of Xeen) however you are better off just playing that series rather than this game. There is no animation, no voice, very few NPCs - the world is pretty bland and lifeless. I understand that its the product of a small shop however it didn't capture my interest. You pretty much use the same battle tactics over and over while progressing through a pretty shallow story grinding away through levels. Playing this actually inspired me to go back to an old Might and Magic Game for another playthrough. The quality of those games still shines today. My advice - if you want a grid based crawler like this game, just go play the best (Might and Magic games). GOG has them running nicely on modern machines.
I cannot stress enough how much this feels like Might and Magic 3-5, and how much that makes me happy. This game doesn't hold your hand but the interface makes amazingly good use of keyboard inputs and showing you what does what. Honestly the user interface alone is something that every modern take on this type of game should implement. Automap works great but you can turn it off if you're into that kind of masochism. Everything is smooth, good artwork. The soundtrack is a bit lacking but nothing's perfect I guess. Combat is fun and the sound effects are satisfying. I haven't found it too grindy yet - you can definitely walk into places where you'll get crushed, but I find that if I do the quests in an area and do a full clear of the dungeon floors, it provides a good amount of exp for leveling up. If you are a fan of anything even remotely like the old Might and Magic games from the early 90s, don't even hesitate just buy this now.
A FANTASTIC TURN-BASED RPG THAT'S ENJOYABLE FOR NEW AND OLD RPG FANS ALIKE Swords & Sorcery is a grid-based RPG with turn-based combat where you lead a six-person party of your creation through a large underground cave complex. By the time your quest is complete you'll have explored several cities, gained the support of dwarfs and elves, traveled the elemental planes, and saved the world. The game is heavily influenced by the first two Might & Magic games and the classic Wizardry games. It takes the combat and character advancement from Might & Magic and combines it with the overall structure of Wizardry V. That means the structure is generally linear as you explore one dungeon after the next, but will have to backtrack often to reach previously inaccessible areas or handle your typical town chores (leveling up, healing, shopping, etc.). Like with the best classic RPGs, I found myself having difficulty tearing myself away from Swords and Sorcery once I gained a few levels and started to get into the swing of things. The game never requires grinding levels to proceed and you'll typically be at just the right level at all times. The game can be played with keyboard, mouse, or a combination of the two. I was pleased to see that the game can be controlled entirely by keyboard, with intuitive hotkeys for casting spells and even for shopping and moving equipment around! It was easy to get used to the keyboard controls, and once I did it was a pleasure to play. The level design is absolutely fantastic. Each dungeon has its own unique theme with interesting monsters to slay, quests to solve, and puzzles to figure out. There are even some optional but very powerful artifacts to find throughout the game that are a joy to discover. The artwork for monsters and other characters is done in a comic book style and is quite good, although I personally am not a fan of the style. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I very much enjoyed the 15 hours it took to complete Swords and Sorcery and ended up with very little to complain about! Although the 2D artwork for monsters and characters is fine, I found the tile artwork on walls and floors to be a bit too simple and dull. Likewise, although the interface is fantastic when it comes to usability, it lacks character and looks a bit amateurish. Finally, the artwork seems to have been scaled somewhat awkwardly up to 1920x1080 and has some scaling artifacts. A cleaner look would have been nicer. The combat sound effects are actually quite satisfying, but music is limited to a few pieces here and there. The music that's in there is fine, but I would have liked more of it! Finally, I ran into some minor bugs. There were a few times where defeating the last enemy during combat didn't trigger the end of the battle... I had no choice but to terminate the game and relaunch it! Still, this only happened a few times over 15 hours, so it wasn't a big deal at all. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swords and Sorcery is just fantastic. It's been a long time since I became so addicted to a game, and while it's a bit short at 15 hours, it also ended just as the structure began to feel routine—having said that, the final few areas of the game are far more puzzle-centric with much less combat, so it was a nice change of pace during the final hours. I know the sequel has been in development for some time, but I am eagerly looking forward to it, and will definitely buy it when it eventually (hopefully) does come out!
Coolest game in a while. I totally reccomend it. If you played and enjoyed any of the Might & Magic games you will feel right at home here. I'm in a game hole now that I'm finished with it. I hope there is more depth to character build, dungeons and story in the expansion. That doesn't mean this game doesn't have depth, but you can tell the designer wants the game that comes in the box with three 5-1/4" floppy disks instead of one. Any gamer from the 80's recognizes what I'm trying to say. Bigger! I appreciate a game designer that recognizes where it came from. Thanks Older Bytes.
Short: Recommendation bonus if you enjoy 80's style grid-based RPGs such as the early Wizardry and Might and Magic series or if you enjoy games with that retro feel such as Dark Spire or Class of Heroes 2G. If this is unfamiliar, then read on to see if this game may be a good fit for you. Warning: The game is untraditionally balanced and is not for everyone. If you go in with modern RPG expectations and are unwilling or unable to adapt, you will be disappointed and/or frustrated with this game. This game will slap this expectation in the face in the first couple encounters. You can reduce the probability of luck playing a role in your victories by grinding some, but this game presents many tools in combat and many encounters are like tactical puzzles that you'll need to solve before you can survive consistently. I'm still playing through this game and am deeply appreciative of the developer's responsiveness and taking into consideration suggestions and tweaks. I look forward to future products that they produce. Noting points, whether they are pluses for some, minuses for others or neutrals. Controls: * Use a full-sized keyboard and mouse to control the game with nearly every option accessible by a key alone * Keybindings cannot be reassigned at this time, so a mouse is strongly recommended if you do not have a full-sized keyboard with number pad for the NumPad Plus or NumPad Minus to adjust attributes at creation and level ups * If you're using a gamepad emulator such as Pinnacle Game Profiler or Xpadder, I would recommend assigning to WASD (or QZSD) for movement and mouse controls at a minimum ~ other options such as Escape, Enter, as well as the letters A through D may be convenient as well * There does not seem to be a strafe option at this time, but can get through without it Gameplay: * Create up to twelve adventurers, deploy six party members at a time including one that looks kind of like an Arnold-style Conan * Choose from one of six classes (knight, paladin, archer, thief, priest, sorceror) with one of four races (human, elf, dwarf, gnome), one of four face portraits per race and gender combo and assign attribute points among seven attributes * Level ups have random health and spell point gains based on influencing stat, allow for three attribute points to be assigned, and award new skills or spells depending on the class * Options to quick save and load in most locations on most screens * Navigate first-person through dungeons, moving one square on the map grid a time, engaging in combat and dialogue, managing party and inventory * Combat options allow for moving party members into or out of melee range individually or all at once, waiting or protecting allies, using melee or ranged attacks, using spells, fleeing, using other abilities and possible others that I'm forgetting - to succeed in this game, it is strongly recommend to take advantage of as many of these options as possible while adapting to enemy tactics * Combat is turn-based with each character taking a turn per round with the ability to postpone their turn toward the end of the round * At least 50 save slots in-game, if not more * Sound effects match most actions * The music has been intermittent in my game, such as a discovery scene, quest reward scene or the sound of a battle that just turned grim * Occasional game crashes and bugs, but the developer has been communicating regularly with the community and addressing these issues Aspects that I enjoyed/opinionated in addition to the above points: * Enjoyable art style with realistic art for most portraits and strong contrast on most other aspects that may have a comic-book feel for some Untraditional Balance and Modern RPG Expectations Expounded: * The beginning area is a tutorial area with shockingly high damage values, however, once you adapt to the mechanics, you may be able to easily run through this beginning area without any deaths or the need to save (though saving is recommended in case of an unexpected crash) -- armor does make a difference, but most importantly, positioning can prevent enemies from attacking altogether * Dipping your toes into the next area can lead to brutal defeats and force you to scrounge for all your options to counter fear, counter silence on your casters, denying archers clean shots to your healer, changing your leader to a faster character to order people into a safer position or sometimes going as far as leveling a new party member to counter situations in those areas * Sorcerors in most fantasy games have easy access to ranged attack spells - this is not initially true and sorcerors may fare better in melee range until you have more runes or until you're a higher level where you do have those rune-free ranged attack spells * Initial combat positioning is not static and misreading a situation can and will get you killed - do not assume that your character in the bottom portraits is out of melee range, double check their movement choices and portrait for cues ESRBish/Content Advisory: * Mostly nude outline of a spirit woman with no nipples and some enemies in busty garments * Some art with female cleavage - do not recall if there are any bare chested men or man nipples * Random chance of fighting some violent leopards and you may need to kill them or reload if you do not like hurting animals, even virtual ones * Lots of brawling in the streets and in different establishments * Ability to break into a woman's home where she sits up in bed startled... just before returning somethings precious to her * Well drawn undead and some scenes depicting villagers being terrorized may instill images of unrest in some
Really good old school 'blobber'. It's a little rough around the edges sometimes, don't expect AAA dungeon textures, but it's got charm and that crucial feel of exploring a dangerous area where every step counts. If you played any of the recent crop of grid-based dungeon romps like the Grimrocks and wished they had turn based combat, get this game. If you like the Etrian Odyssey series or Dark Spire on the DS, get this game. If you liked the more recent Elminage Gothic or M&MX, get this game. Look past the textures and the lack of flashy animations and there's a great game with challenging and varied turn based combat here. Very glad I bought it and I've already got more enjoyment out of it than a lot of AAA games released recently. A couple of tips- save OFTEN early on and make sure to (D)rop your squishies out of melee range if they start combat in it.
If you are looking for a great turnbased game like the old might and magic roleplaying games, this is for you. Beautiful artwork, great loot and spells, and its fun to start weak and to build up your guys. I can't wait for the sequel.