CrossCode

CrossCode

Like Zelda but the puzzles and story are good. The best game I’ve ever played. 100%:ed it, not because I particularily enjoyed it, but because it felt wrong to love a game so much and not do it.

Admittedly, the story gets a little bit wack around the major conflicts. At one point the cast is shown a torture dungeon, made by the antagonist to extract information, and yet when they confront him that is not even brough up.

! The game also does not treat AI as real people with the exception of Lea. Vermillion wasteland contains AI, just like her, having gone actually insane, but that is a-okay and never brought up again. I assume the developers wished for a lighter story, but God almighty is it jarring when contrased with that part of the game. This isn’t Deus Ex. This would be my major gripe with the game, but I understand why they stepped away from that part of the script.

Real player with 114.5 hrs in game


Read More: Best Action RPG Female Protagonist Games.


Crosscode is what I like call a “P/P-RPG”, Puzzle/Platform RPG.

While the elements of classic RPG’s are there such as leveling up, status, equipments, sidequests etc, the majority of the game is made out of Puzzles and Platforming. Dungeons are usually 2 to 3 rooms made of intricate puzzles followed by a small wave of enemies. Going from point A to point B on general gameplay is simple but if you’re going for completion such as all chests, maps are huge and mostly platforming oriented with some puzzles on the side.

Real player with 111.3 hrs in game

CrossCode on Steam

Arcane Waters

Arcane Waters

Arcane Waters is an online pixel RPG, featuring trading, exploration and combat. On your own, or with friends, explore handcrafted sea and land maps, travel in your ship to visit remote towns to trade goods, and hunt for treasure in dangerous waters and lands filled with monsters. In the meantime, tend your farm to grow crops, buy and upgrade your fleet of ships and craft items to use or sell.

Create and customize your character and begin exploring a huge and open world full of surprises!

TRADE

– Whether you grow your own food, or buy it from traders, you will need to find the best price to sell and make a profit. This will mean sailing far from home to discover new continents and towns where your goods are highly sought after.

FIGHT

– However, if you do decide to delve into the darkest regions of the world, you are bound to end up having to fight to survive! On the high seas, fight tense real-time cannon-blasting battles against pirates and huge monsters. On land, take part in thrilling active-time fights with strange creatures to reveal hidden treasures. Whether you fight with swords or pistols, you’ll need your wits about you!

JOIN

– Form a team with friends and go on adventures! Explore six different biomes, each with their own unique towns, valuable goods for sale and dangerous monsters, to complete quests and help each other level up.

LEVEL UP

– Stay neutral to avoid being attacked by other players, or join a guild to help fight for your place in the world. Level up by completing quests, finding new locations, and utilizing your skills. Use Perk points to increase stats based on your chosen specialties, and use your hard-earned gold to buy new equipment to help you progress even faster.

FARM

– Starting with a humble farm, plant seeds, water them and pick your crops. Eventually you will unlock other farms to increase your yield and diversify your produce.

CRAFT

– Use items dropped by enemies or sold at stores to make your own weapons and armor, and either use them yourself or sell them on the public Auction for a profit!


Read More: Best Action RPG Open World Games.


Arcane Waters on Steam

Clarice Clairvoyage

Clarice Clairvoyage

Clarice Clairvoyage is a traditional roguelike adventure where you’ll need to navigate the open seas while exploring the islands which offer ‘choose your own adventure’ style quests. Venturing to new lands and fighting zombies (and killer mermaids) will reward you with different abilities and spells to become the ultimate naval spellcaster!

-Traditional roguelike gameplay where skill is more important than progression

-Manage your ship between naval navigation and mermaid ship defense

-Explore islands with ‘choose your own adventure’ decision making

-Combine spells to become the ultimate spell wielder of the seas


Read More: Best Action RPG Action Roguelike Games.


Clarice Clairvoyage on Steam

M.E.A.T. RPG

M.E.A.T. RPG

I like this game a lot and really wanted to get more hours before I reviewed it but I feel like it would be better to get my review out there to help counter some of the bad reviews I have read, because most of the negative reviews I feel are terribly faulty and wrong, written by people who obviously haven’t played the game very long thus not seen many of the mechanics or content.

I guess it’s gonna be a long review so long story short: If you are interested in this game I truly believe it is well worth your money!

Real player with 26.4 hrs in game

very nice

Real player with 24.2 hrs in game

M.E.A.T. RPG on Steam

Mystiqa

Mystiqa

Non-Linear and Randomly Generated

The whole overworld, caves and dungeons are randomly generated and designed in a non-linear way, so every playthrough is truly a fresh experience of the game.

Secrets & Puzzles

There’s a secret on almost every screen in the game!

Solving puzzles is integral to overcome the game’s dungeons.

Equipment, Combat & Boss Fights

There is large playstyle diversity using different types of equipment and magic.

Boss Fights are a major key gameplay element of Mystiqa and will challenge you greatly!

Built-in Randomizers

There are multiple built-in randomizers on top of the base random generation of the world, including an Item Randomizer with fully configurable randomization settings.

Multiplayer

The game supports local and online multiplayer for up to 4 players.

Mystiqa on Steam

StoryArcana

StoryArcana

The realm of Nox was created to separate magical and non-magical beings. Clay Quilt is an ordinary boy transported there and to attend Azufelt, Academy of the Arcane, as an exchange student. As the only one of his kind, he must learn what it takes to be accepted and stay true to himself!

  • Relive life in a realm of wizardry

    Become the only earthly wizard in the realm of Nox! Learn about this new realm full of magical creatures, wizard duels and puzzles for those with a magical mind!

  • Balance Academics, Quests & Mystery Solving

    Solve mysteries as you help out the locals in Noxrose City, earning money to upgrade your wand or cruise around on a new broom.

  • Customize your wand and make it yours

    Unlock new parts as you progress in the story or try your luck with a gasha machine in Noxrose City.

  • Participate in side activities in your daily life

    Find rare trading cards for Artimus and play against the other students attending Azufelt Academy. There’s never a dull day in the world of Nox.

StoryArcana on Steam

Undungeon

Undungeon

I’ve got thousands upon thousands of hours invested in ARPG’s of all types, and I absolutely love Sci-Fi. Was looking for something that hit the spot in that department. I am about 8 or 9 hours in so far and this has not disappointed at all. I’d still be playing but I gotta sleep. So I can get up and play again tomorrow!

I did receive a copy to review, but am not being compensated for my thoughts. This is my personal honest opinion.

TLDR: Would I recommend? Yeah! I enjoyed my time very much. Love the aesthetic, the unique mechanics/features but the real gem is the story!

Real player with 55.6 hrs in game

A decent game that can still have some polish

First about what is good

Game has a great visual style, has a lot fun smaller details in environment and character designs and overall decent though very repeatable combat, interesting initial plot and character design. Also looks like devs very inspired by Hyper Light drifter =)

Then what could be improved

I really wanted to finish this game but in the second half it gets like reeeeeeally boring

! Finishing Q-Dimention I thought that the game will be over and was surprised when saw absolutely same world but now green withsame stuff to do again And one of the reasons is that there is no character development in means of items or combat abilities and the story is same as in the first half but in different decorations. I mean items should be really redesigned and rebalanced. When Void gets the weapon type that is called torpid something or somehow like that you just have to stick with it because otherwise you don’t get enough resources unless you do the extra action trying to finish the enemy with the knife every time. So the game forces you to ether play with weapon you like and experiment with other weapons or get the precious resources so you can craft the organs that brake all damn time. Same with the flaming core and some organs that helps you farm essence and give health buff when you have particular nodes equipped. Without this synergy you just won’t be able to play normally and will die so player is forced to use items from mid game because the items you get later in the game are just not worth it. The game is ether not working properly or has not that good item description because when I equipped ancient core and had max essence I didn’t see any buff to damage so I don’t know guys, please think of more informative item descriptions. The fact that there are no sound effects for character speech doesn’t add to the atmosphere of the game. It would be great if you would add some speech imitation rumble like they used to do in older 8 and 16 bit games

Real player with 25.3 hrs in game

Undungeon on Steam

Crystarise

Crystarise

The player becomes a guardian god apprentice girl,

We aim to rise up a sky island while going back and forth between the extremely vast field that continues to be automatically generated and the island that serves as the base.

First, let’s get down to the field to collect resources.

In an isometric 2D world, monsters, items, dungeons … various things are reflected on one screen.

Combine shooting and slashing actions to defeat monsters and get resources.

Once you have the resources, produce a variety of things and customize the island to your liking.

Crystarise on Steam

LandTraveller

LandTraveller

See the full review here: https://saveorquit.com/2021/01/14/preview-landtraveller/

The simplest explanation is “It’s Minecraft in Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past’s perspective.” Also, there’s a story mode with a linear plot in the procedural sandbox world, and you play as catgirls. You’ll probably enjoy it around as much as that elevator pitch appeals to you.

It’s SNES-inspired sound and graphics aside, LandTraveller is an “and the kitchen sink” dabbler in many different genres, including some born after the 16-bit era, and not all of these ideas play well together. LandTraveller wants to have the base-building of Minecraft or Terraria, however, it doesn’t want to let you actually use those for fighting bosses like in Terraria, and in Story Mode in particular, bases are almost entirely just a storage bin and crafting bench. Why bother customizing something you only see for 5% of the game? LandTraveller wants to have difficult twitch combat focus like a roguelite such as Binding of Isaac, but it has old SNES controls instead of twin-stick shooting, making the game character too difficult to control for some of the high-precision combat it demands. RPG mechanics mean that level and gear can render enemies that were one-hit-killers toothless, further undermining twitch-based action focus. In fact, since movement speed is also based on RPG-style stats, and there is no “run” or inversely, “slow down” button, a slow character (bears) might find it impossible to evade attacks, while fast characters might find platforming or just plain fitting through the one-tile-wide doorways nearly impossible, as it’s extremely difficult to line up on a single block when your character is only a couple pixels narrower than a block.

Real player with 219.7 hrs in game

This review is for Story mode using the beta version with the latest updates. You can opt into this version from game settings in Steam.

Seems like a great game so far. I’ve run into a few bugs but overall it’s been pretty enjoyable - moreso than I expected.

There are plenty of open world crafting sandbox games but this is one of the few that is also a complete RPG and didn’t just contain a few RPG elements. There’s an Explore mode that leaves the story out. It also has multiplayer, which I haven’t tried yet.

Real player with 159.0 hrs in game

LandTraveller on Steam

No Place for Bravery

No Place for Bravery

No Place for Bravery is a 2D top-down action RPG which weaves together high-quality visuals, a stirring soundtrack and intense combat moments into a deep and affecting tale of moral dilemmas and personal reflection of choices. YOUR choices.

The game will focus on parries and fast-paced combat. Making mistakes will be punishing and you’ll experience a lingering sense of fragility while facing the dangers of Bravery’s world.

Thorn, a retired warrior plagued by nightmares, stumbles on an opportunity for redemption after finding clues to his daughter’s disappearance from long ago. With the company of his disabled foster son, Phid, it will be up to the player to decide how far Thorn will go, not only to rescue his daughter but also to fulfill his ambitions.

The story of Bravery carries a strong message on the role of parental figures and the consequences of their choices in a troubled world. This message is informed by the developers' personal life experiences, and the game aims to impart these real, resonant feelings with competence and depth.

Thorn is a competent warrior in a world where people like him perish all the time. Under your control, Thorn will have the capacity to kill and survive from the word go, but you should expect to find Thorn’s fragility starkly reflected in your own series of likely defeats.

A captivating blend of the low fantasy setting, highly detailed pixel art, and beautiful hand-painted textures makes this decrepit world croak with breathtaking life, as Thorn carves his path through it. Every second that passes in No Place for Bravery pulses with an immersive, intense atmosphere that you’ll feel in your veins.

No Place for Bravery on Steam