Gruta: Prologue of the Gloomy Whispers
In this narrative-driven platformer game, you play as child that was living on the edge, trying to escape of her family. Running away, the kid wants to fight the monster she thought was causing trouble between her parents. What she found was not what she was expecting.
Using a sword and shield based combat, you have to fight different types of enemies and mechanics through the levels and reach your goal: Find and face the monster to save your family.
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Stylized pixel-art and original artstyle cutscenes;
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50 hand-crafted levels with increasing complexity;
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A action platformer game with a stunning and polished game feel;
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Tight controls - optmized controls for gamepads and keyboards;
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Original Soundtrack;
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Lore-Rich Games.
Demonic Blade
I thought it will be a regular story, but it was so much better than expected. The gameplay is negligible -from what i’ve seen, the decisions doesn’t affect the ending in this one-, and it limits to tell the story and branch just some dialogue by the choices you make. Not a revolutionary storytelling, but the characters were memorable for the duration of the game, and for the price, it was a good shot for me.
Recommended for anyone who is curious about it, and who wants a small and self-contained story. Not a game changer, but a good one, at least for any sensible soul.
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Linear Games.
Great game. Very exciting!
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Monads
The game is quite entertaining, the content is good enough.
PROS:
Good story, Nice characters. Interesting world. Feels like an Anime fantasy series.
CONS:
The english localization is awful and the skill variety feels ridiculously complex for the simplicity of the battles.
I mean, you got like 985679 skills for each character but you won’t ever need them. Just use “the one that kills stuff” with any character and win the game. Also, many of the battle conditions are either not shown or explained correctly so the “kill stuff " is always a valid path.
– Real player with 10.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Turn-Based Games.
No Reviews? That’s a shame…well It’s a SRPG Puzzle(like) that’s fun to play. So play it. Real good. 8.1/10
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
Eon Altar
THE GOOD:
Starting up was super easy. We only needed one copy of the game so I downloaded it, we all downloaded the app (onto our Galaxy S7 Edges) and connected to my wifi (on 2.4Ghz because my 5Ghz seems to sputter sometimes with everything I try to connect to it), started the game and put in a label, started the app on our phones connected and hit “Start” on the game (on the PC). We waited for only a few brief moments for each player to get their starting dialog and get connected with the other players. It was literally that easy.
– Real player with 46.9 hrs in game
pros:
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The local co-op. A unique opportunity to play the game on one screen with 5 friends. Players are not required to sit at computer or hold a joystick. Each player can take their favorite place in the room and play with their smartphone.
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The battle. Interesting and intense battles with multiple abilities and friendly fire.
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Semi-turn-based combat provides time to think over your tactics and at the same time, there is virtually no waiting time for other players or enemies moves.
– Real player with 41.7 hrs in game
Thorne - Death Merchants
Thorne - Death Merchants is an action RPG based on the RPGMaker engine, and the very beginning was quite a shock to me, based on the language and innuendo being used. I was surprised, but I will make note that this is a mature type of game. It’s more along the lines of something like Secret of Mana in terms of the style of action RPG gameplay.
Anyway, you start as a captured prisoner, and you begin to tell your story of why you are not responsible for the current crime they are holding you for, and the parts where you are moving about and interacting with things are the flashbacks from the past as you tell the story to the officer in the place where you are being held.
– Real player with 9.6 hrs in game
I got this key from the developer in exchange for a review. This however does not sway my opinion.
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Interesting world, combined with wonderful maps
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Nice soundtrack
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Cheap
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Nameable Pet wolf
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Achievements are easily attainable
+/- Battles aren’t too hard
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Slow transitions and typos
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Missable optional cutscenes
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Missable items
Thorne – Death Merchants is a short game (2~4 hours), the first of a series of eight standalone episodic games. It’s a well-made game by experienced developers that is also being sold quite cheap! It features an interesting world with lovely looking environments and gray characters everywhere. The soundtrack is great and fits the game well. The game also allows you to have a pet wolf, whom you can name, pet, feed and command to search around for treasures. This was a pretty neat idea, though my wolf got stuck from time to time and it took me a while to realize I needed to let the wolf follow me, instead of using the whistle to call it to me. While the treasure hunting idea was fun, I didn’t really get into money or health trouble, so it was moot most of the time. In fact, if it wasn’t because of the achievements I wouldn’t have searched around at all. For the achievement hunters, this game has 22 easily enough attainable ones. Some of them are linked to optional and time-sensitive cutscenes, side-quests, treasure hunting, so you might miss a few of them at the end of the game.
– Real player with 8.9 hrs in game
The Journey Down: Chapter One
Overall, this is a solid P&C Adventure game, with reasonably logical puzzles once you immerse, and no Guide-Dang-It solutions- it’s possible to work out all the solutions given the information available in the game. That said, there was at least one puzzle that refused several plausible solutions in favor of what seems to me to be a less-plausible (though more amusing) one, and several in which I knew the concept of the solution, but there wasn’t much of an indication about how to actually do that. Plus the traditional complex “solve it because it’s there” puzzle that turns out to massively help your protagonist progress in a somewhat illogical way, but that’s so common in the genre that it might actually be considered a lack if it weren’t present. :-J There is the usual complete refusal by the protagonist to clean up after themselves- I wish more of these games would let us give people their stuff back once it’s not needed any more. Hopefully, there will be uses for the items still in Bwana’s pockets at the end of the chapter, instead of the traditional “lost everything during the cutscene” trope.
– Real player with 6.7 hrs in game
This title really surprised me with how well it was made. I came in having no expectations. I had bought the game as part of a bundle on indiegala, and was only really going to try it out while waiting for another (and much larger in size) game to download, and was frankly blown away right from the start.
You start off in dire straights with your electricity having been shut off because you hadn’t paid your bills for a while. This means you can’t make any money because the pump in your gas station that you own an operate relies on the power to run. However with some cheeky DYI smarts, you’re soon back to normal… If normal means no customers, which… it does.
– Real player with 6.1 hrs in game
Grimm
Cons:
Terrible repetitive gameplay with laughably unreliable controls. You’d think a bog-standard platformer would have the basics of running, jumping and “special moves” down to a science. Nope. Wonky, uncertain and many times completely unresponsive controls paired with a camera angle that will change to a fixed or limited range, making it impossible to see (or plan) ahead. It is frustrating to play.
The developers obviously knew the jumping was crap, as too many deaths (by falling, drowning, lava, etc.,) in any area will result in Grimm magically teleporting to the next safe area. Huh… Thanks? Grimm will pee if you stand still (but not always-especially when you most need it) to indicate where he will land if you jump. This mechanic rarely works as intended. A powerup changes this to flaming pee on a few levels, but getting the stream to hit “cleaners,” (generic name for enemies who undo your level progress) is almost impossible. In fact, all the powerup mechanics seem like an added afterthought and rarely appear, despite the constant tooltip reminders about their use.
– Real player with 20.3 hrs in game
Brief Synopsis:
Grimm is an episodic game that takes you through versions of different Fairy Tales. In this game, you play as Grimm, a gross little imp-like man who wants to turn all Fairy Tales back to their gruesome originals. To do this, you simply walk through each scene, dirtying up everything around you. Your main weapon is “butt-stomping”, which dirties up larger areas than simply walking. There are also special power ups such as “Flaming Pee” and “Sausage Stomp”, just to name two.
– Real player with 13.9 hrs in game
Chronicles of Tal’Dun: The Remainder - Act 2
If you’ve read my review on Act 1 of this game you know I not only recommend it but love it. It is a truly unique work of art from my perspective. I adore the artwork in this game, the story and the music.
I am only an hour in but like to take my time going slowly through this game.
The character of Ilar is mysterious and compelling as always throughout the game. I enjoy that the game allows the player to choose their own gender and Ilar is also not defined as a gender so it is up to you to determine that for yourself. The game also uses gender-neutral pronouns implemented in a very natural way. Using they/them or xe/xer. I usually don’t mind if a game does determine genders for the player but this was a refreshing take that really, in my opinion, makes the characters more mysterious and wonderful.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Chronicles of Tal’Dun: The Remainder - Act 1
This is the first chapter in the story and new chapters will be released in the future. It’s pretty short, but it packs in a lot of beauty and story-building.
The characters are very mysterious and surprisingly fleshed out considering how short the story is. The music is beautiful and the art is amazing. This story also has characters that use different pronouns (they/them, xe/xir) and it’s refreshing to see.
If they make the next chapters cost money, I would pay for them because I love this so much. 10/10
– Real player with 3.5 hrs in game
This is one of my absolute favorite visual novels. Esoteric, foreboding, and romantic vibes beautifully written and rendered in digital ink. Playing and replaying (which I’ve done several times now) gives me a feeling similar to watching Mushishi at 3am or reading too much poetry before bed: strange, melancholic, and sort of comforting all at once. Goes well with tea.
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
Trap welcome to Beryl Part 1
Dear Developer,
I have played Parts 1-3. All I have to say is this: hurry up. But don’t hurry, because I want Part 4 to be as good as the rest. But still, you know, hurry up.
Guys, this is a great little gem. Yes, the first part is literally a half hour and it’s free. Part 2+3 bundled together are 1.99 AND IT’S WORTH IT. If you are a lover of horror, we need to support this developer. Imagine the film 1408 mixed with elements of Silent Hill and then add tropes of all the good horror movies worth mentioning thrown in.
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
Every so often a game just hits that spot. Mine is deformed and nestled in an inoperable area so that’s a tall order, but TRAP manages it and is very much worth your time.
You play as a generic dude traveling to one of those European cities whose major industry is providing spooky shadows and a skiiing experience without the benefit of modern medical care. Your brother is missing and he picked an ideal location to disappear: a town with an impossibly evil-looking hotel at the center of multiple disappearances that somehow still baffles what passes for the local authorities. I should mention right now part 1 is free and lasts about 20 minutes. Just buy the DLC. Two bucks for a four-hour game with some great puzzles and scares is an excellent investment.
– Real player with 4.4 hrs in game