Osteoblasts
Target Audience: Those wanting a solid RPG
Summary:
Let me start off this review by saying please don’t take the number of hours that I’ve played of this game pre-release as the game’s length. It’s around 12 hours on a typical run, but I tested a bunch of stuff to confirm some thoughts about the combat system here.
With that said, Osteoblasts is actually underpriced for the solid combat system and the equipment/skill system the game throws at you. I spent hours upon hours playing with the different configurations of skills for the shaman, but each class only serves as a starting template to make a character that you want. Worshipping to the various gods and the stats that they give becomes the molding clay of how to make your ultimate character. The different equipment and stats and how enemies react to different strategies is smart and intelligent. Stats are a little familiar to other RPGs but all the secondary effects and different stat combos and the strengths of different enemies means that you’ve got to make strategic decisions each turn: conserving your marrow and using defensive and counter skills to take enemies down little by little. Really, a lot of the time in this game is just seeing how you can maximize your self in the enemies you’re facing RIGHT now, and then adjusting to the next set of enemies that you come across.
– Real player with 52.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Class-Based Adventure Games.
This is a pretty quirky one and it’s very hard to review, as a result.
Given the time I played and the overall enjoyment and general lack of bugs or whatnot, I’d give it a decent ‘yes’, with a few caveats. The story/dialog are all kinda ‘wacky’ to say the least. It’s a strange one. I got quite a few pretty good chuckles out of it, but it feels like later in the game tries to really hammer in a bit of actual story and whatnot and, frankly, I could not make full sense of it.
There seem to be a few endings and even an unlockable or two but nobody seems quite sure how to get them or what triggers what, and the writing and pacing makes it a little extra hard to tell.
– Real player with 20.0 hrs in game
Darkest Valley
CASUAL, CHALLENGING, OR IMPOSSIBLE?
However you want to play, choose your difficulty and hack and slash through 4 story acts. Each playthrough contains pseudo-randomly generated maps, ensuring that every playthrough is different. Hidden challenge bosses, extra magical loot, and comedic stories can be found for those looking!
UNCOVER THE MYSTERY
Journey through a dark fantasy world, as you uncover the strange happenings in the valley. Help your new friends and a town of misfits face off against the looming threat that has followed you from your past.
EMBRACE THE CLASSIC
Darkest Valley is an homage to the many great 2D action RPGs from the last twenty years. The original soundtrack, the visual style, and the story is a meld of our favorite elements from the classic and unforgettable titles in this genre. Relive those experiences in this modern indie creation.
HIGHLY STRATEGIC, POWERFUL BUILDS
Wield customizable weapons and armor with 8 item types and a wide variety of potions. Skills apply weapon hits to enemies with interesting effects, combining with crafted attributes to allow huge customization in the way you attack and defend. Coordinate with your skill tree selections, stat points, and the items you salvage for crafting materials to find the perfect build for your play style.
MANY VERY DIFFERENT WAYS TO PLAY
Choose to be an agile melee fighter, a point and click ranged tank, or a strategic summoner. Build your way across an interconnected skill tree with 5 starting points: Melee, Ranged, Summoning, Defensive, and Passives. Leverage your fast reflexes, careful positioning, or thoughtful planning to defeat the hordes you will encounter.
GROW YOUR POWER WITH MAGICAL SHARDS
There is no grind-based experience system in Darkest Valley. Increase your level and grow your strength by seeking out and finding otherworldly crystals shards that bestow great power upon those who wield them.
FACE MONSTROUS CREATURES
Throughout your journey you will fight against an array of creatures, from at first seemingly harmless slimes to monstrous trees that can walk, to horrors that come from the darkest depths. Dodge traps and find unexpected allies, where danger lurks around every corner.
FAST TRAVEL THROUGH THE MUSHROOM TUNNELS
In Darkest Valley there is little need to backtrack. Each area contains a mysterious enoki-like waypoint that acts as a portal and can be used to instantly teleport you from one area to another. If you die, you can simply teleport back to the latest waypoint and continue on your journey.
Read More: Best Class-Based Dark Games.
Crystal Project
Explore the world, find Crystals, and fulfill the prophecy to bring balance to the land of Sequoia.
…Or maybe you’d rather spend your time collecting neat equipment and artifacts? Or tame strange creatures and fill out all the entries in your archive? Or perhaps you’d rather hunt down every monster and conquer the world’s toughest bosses. Or maybe you’d rather travel to the farthest reaches of the land and uncover the world’s greatest mysteries.
The choice is yours, as it should be! Or is it? They say that those who stray out of line will be punished, killed, or worse. Maybe it’s for your own good that you stick to collecting Crystals, just like everyone else. But where would the adventure be in that?
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No random encounters!
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Manage Threat to control which party member a monster will attack.
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No hidden information. Preview turn order, damage, and probabilities like in TRPGs.
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Discover and unlock new classes.
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Assign sub-classes, pick passive abilities, and equip all kinds of special items.
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Invent unique team compositions, or stick to the MMORPG Holy Trinity.
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No missables!
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Seamless transitions between zones with no loading screens anywhere.
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Uncover the mysteries of the world all on your own.
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Metroidvania-style progression.
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No invisible walls! Try to jump and climb anywhere you want.
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Overcome platforming challenges to discover neat loot… and other stuff.
Read More: Best Class-Based Adventure Games.
Dungeoneers
Very very fun. Counting the web version, I’ve put hundreds if not thousands of hours in to this game. Strategy is very important. Like backgammon, it’s still skill even with RNG. My review is mostly using the version from about a week ago. I’ll update it when I’ve spent some more time with the new version.
Pros:
Strategy is easy to learn but hard to master
Art is pretty cool
Very few bugs
It manages good variety without excessive complexity
I can’t say exactly what it is, but I really like the gameplay
– Real player with 175.5 hrs in game
A great casual hex based strategic beat em up rpg, like a classic D and D one shot campaign. Weigh the options of attacking vs. sneaking and grabbing swords, bows and shields vs. counting your potions and scrolls for the dragons. No story lines to remember, just dragons to beat up, and mummies, and trolls, and those pesky firebugs.
Run in the daily hunt against all other players, how many skeleton elbows can you collect in one run? 100? Inconceivable!
A lot of strategy in each room, should I sneak by the orcs and just grab the loot, hoping to not be spotted? Can I take out the casters and snipers before I get clobbered? Can I handle the rain of fireballs? (p.s. if you get stuck in a rain of fireballs, you are doing it wrong).
– Real player with 116.1 hrs in game
Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2 is an online role-playing game with fast-paced action combat, a rich and detailed universe of stories, awe-inspiring landscapes to explore, two challenging player vs. player modes—and no subscription fees!
#### Explore a Living World Tyria comes alive with thousands of stories that change based on the actions of players like you. You never know what you’ll discover each time you play!
#### Action-Oriented Combat Experience Guild Wars 2’s high-impact, fast-paced combat. Attack on the move, dodge and roll away from enemy blows, and team up with other players to dominate the battlefield!
#### It’s Your Story Tyria is irrevocably shaped by its past, and you play a crucial role in its future. Create a unique character, decide how their story evolves, and uncover new revelations, questions, and truths with every choice you make.
#### Competitive Play for Everyone Competitive play in Guild Wars 2 is easy to learn but offers challenges for new players and hardcore PvPers alike. Whether you decide to jump into quick, furious matches between small groups of players in organized PvP or join hundreds of other players in the grand battles of World vs. World, PvP is where you’ll find the ultimate challenge!
*Please note that existing Guild Wars 2 player accounts cannot be accessed via Steam
Extreme Peg Solitaire
Very fun and unique twist to an old and classic game. A lot of content for the price charged, with varied levels and mechanics. And the art is minimalistic but still cute. Would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys puzzles.
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
Phantom Hysteria
Phantom Hysteria is a 1-4 player, online co-op paranormal investigation and banishment game. Take on ghost-hunting contracts with your taped-together equipment as one of four playable P.I.N.E characters. Hone your skills for your designated class, utilize an array of equipment to decipher your clues, and use that to identify your contracted apparition.
Choosing from a variety of thrilling maps, you and your team will be required to do everything you can to document, and then eliminate the entity from this plane; if you manage to banish it, you’ll have a satisfied customer and a job well done. Afterward, it’s on to the next contract. But, if you are unsuccessful, something from beyond the mortal coil may be waiting to enter this world…
Phantom Hysteria’s Early Access will have four playable characters, four maps, and four entities available at launch.
“The Paranormal Investigation and Neutralization Experts guarantee results in no less than one night. With state-of-the-art equipment and field agents with expertise in lore, UrbanEx, technology, and show business, P.I.N.E will deliver a cohesive report on the ghost and its activities upon payment. All additional services will cost extra.”-CEO Michael Evans
It was supposed to be a simple job. Get in, get footage, get results. But the things we call paranormal, these ‘entities’, are lingering manifestations of fear, sorrow, and fury. The reason they linger is the same reason they are hard to exterminate. Whatever happens, be sure you keep the red light of your camera on. The camera should be live, even if you aren’t.
The entities in this game are influenced by the events of American history. The entities you hunt as P.I.N.E agents are connected to the fabric of who we are as a nation; it’s up to you to unbury the worst horrors of the American south, even if it means giving up your life in the process. From antebellum houses to abandoned sanatoriums, investigators are guaranteed a road trip of a lifetime.
Minds without bodies, feelings without souls. Entities linger on the edge of our reality, reaching over from the other side to manipulate the physical world in terrifying and lethal ways. To properly approach hunting these entities, certain clues will reveal how these entities manipulate the world; and you.
Phantom Hysteria’s missions put four P.I.N.E field agents into your control. Each agent has multiple customization options and dialogue that are unlocked through play. Agents of P.I.N.E have backgrounds and aspirations that fuel how they interact with every mission; but much like the ghosts, they have secrets that bleed into the world. Everyone is running from something.
P.I.N.E doesn’t mess around; but if they did, it would be within their southern United States headquarters. P.I.N.E’s warehouse is available for agents to access their accolades, outfits, and career information. Agents can pinpoint their next move, train using the warehouse’s Paranormal Investigation Training Center, and purchase their consumables.
“WARNING-REDACTED”
Regardless of who you choose to play as, agents of P.I.N.E will be offered a selection of careers to choose from at the start of the game. More missions lead to further experience in that career, but investigators are free to change careers between missions for any reason.
*** Engineer
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Media Specialist
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Communicator
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Investigator
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(Soloable) Jack of All Trades**
Careers will not only assist in your exploration of haunts but allow you to further capitalize on the entities you find lurking within.
When every crucial detail of the entity is recorded, the real mission begins. Consisting of multiple phases, haunts will task you with challenging objectives that bring out the survivalist of you and your team. These objectives will assist in your attempt to banish entities from this mortal plane; but missteps in doing so could risk releasing something more dangerous onto the world…
Sea Wolf: Tactics
Sea Wolf: Tactics is a tactics RPG that aims to honor the best parts of the genre while introducing new systems.
Features
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Drive Back the Empire: The empire has conquered and expanded for centuries - now they are at your doorstep and threaten your way of life. Although they vastly outnumber you, use cunning tactics to destabilize their hold of territories, incite rebellion and disable their empire.
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Explore Midgard: Accomplish quests that will have you exploring every corner of Midgard, capturing empire strongholds, completing trading missions, and hunting down dangerous bounties.
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Customize and Train: Build your raiding party up using new warriors you encounter on your journey and level them up. Carefully choose abilities from each classes' diverse skill tree to create warriors that can adapt to any situation.
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Honor the Gods: Provide the Gods some amusement by willingly accepting additional burdens in battle and they will reward you with their favor. Burdens change the rules of combat in challenging ways that will force you to adopt new strategies.
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Raid or Trade: Coexist peacefully with neighboring villages and they will offer you lucrative but dangerous trading contracts or chose to raid them and steal their resources for yourself.
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Tactics Modernized: Sea Wolf: Tactics was created from a love of classic tactics games. Sea Wolf: Tactics aims to honor those iconic titles by adding new systems and streamlining old ones. Combat is responsive and quick. Battles are smaller scale to limit action-less turns but Battle Campaigns challenge you to survive multiple battles in a row.
Shattered Worlds
This is another GREAT game by Orfeas. I played the demo at Aldorlea, but waited for the game to come out here on Steam.
This game has so much going for it: great graphics, full screen, secret rooms to discover, great story, visible enemies who don’t respawn (yayyy), several game modes, including Story mode as the easiest mode, and Nightmare as the hardest mode, and - something I haven’t seen before - you can choose “Followers on/off, which means that if you go for off, you won’t see the other characters trailing behind you, which always annoyed me in other games.
– Real player with 39.4 hrs in game
interesting game - beautiful graphics with secret rooms and extra special secret rooms - a skill tree allows the player to build up each character and there is plenty of places to gather monies for items- a detailed quest guide helps with the game- story wise - an interesting one. the help sheets available do help with the game but detailed maps would be helpful in some of the caverns as would a portal to be able to return to same place after voiding out instead of having to repeat going through again. battles are not that hard in the normal mode as long as you have plenty of items. would recommend this game
– Real player with 32.2 hrs in game
Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West
I’ve loved this game for many years now and have logged near countless hours but I feel this negitive review is nesscary.
The developers have been contated about known exploits and hacking and have blatenly refused to do anything about it.
As not only a server owner but an avid fan of the game this upsets me to no end.
Not only do I not reccomend purchasing this game I recomend staying far away from all FatShark games. Why waste your time falling in love with a game that will only be tossed to the wayside.
– Real player with 1460.5 hrs in game
As of patch version 2.0 that came out several months ago, this game is completely broken and dead. Every dedicated server you try to connect to gives you the “FAILED TO CONNECT TO SERVER” message (you can start a local server, but it’ll be insanely laggy) and the developers won’t even acknowledge the existance of this game now that their new game (WOTR) is out. Even though I had hundreds of hours of fun in this game when it worked, it does not excuse the developers from breaking their game and jumping on their next cash cow without so much as even an attempt to fix this.
– Real player with 363.7 hrs in game