Monsters' Den: Godfall
Monster’s Den: Godfall is a tactical turn-based dungeon-crawler and an all-around improvement of the previous games in the series.
Unlike the previous games, Godfall offers an open-world conquest with lots of places to explore and dungeons to delve in. Dungeons can have special properties like “lost,” preventing you from seeing how many enemies you face before battle, or “ancient,” increasing the quality of loot. There are various prizes for completing the given dungeon objective, such as special class ability manuals to unique pieces of equipment.
– Real player with 253.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Loot Games.
Just when you think this game isn’t deep… it opens a whole new dimension to you. Give it time, it’ll grow on you. I initially thought it was grindy but after upgrading my keep and unlocking a few classes, the “customization” depth started to open up. There are a lot of quality of life items/upgrades you’ll want to take. After that, you can just jump right into the action. Dollar for dollar, definitely a good time passer if you’re waiting for the next release or have a loot itch you can’t quite scratch.
– Real player with 189.0 hrs in game
Dark Bestiary
Summary
Progression / Customization: 10/10
Combat: 8/10
Economy: 8/10
Difficulty: 7/10
Graphics, Story: N/A (Game isn’t about graphics and story)
New player tips
–—- Progression / Customization: 10/10 ——
Freedom to choose
Dark Bestiary’s best feature is that you are free to choose any combination of skills, talents, attributes, items, enchantments, gems, etc. to create any build you want. The selection at character creation only gives you a few initial abilities to work with and doesn’t matter long term.
– Real player with 195.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Turn-Based Combat Games.
It plays just like an ARPG, but turn based.
It has attributes and a lot of stats, unlockable skills, passives, talents, gear with random affixes, item sets, legendary items with special effects, it’s got it all.
There is a story but it’s short and irrelevant, you can continue playing after the story ends, in increasing difficulty “Nightmare” levels.
There are no puzzles, thankfully so. Although there is a minesweeper-like minigame you can do for treasure chests if you need a break from killing stuff, which is surprisingly fun too.
– Real player with 50.9 hrs in game
Disciples Sacred Lands Gold
be me
have a semi-decent stack
decided to attack a stack with a medusa, and some random enemies
fail to kill the medusa
proceeds to get para-locked to death
Don’t forget to (de)buff fellow boomers.
Disciples Sacred Lands, is a turn-based fantasy strategy similar to Heroes of Might and Magic. Like the good HoMM games it also a bit old, and as such the graphics in particular are dated. If you are willing to look past that this game might be for you, if not maybe Disciples 2 is more your thing. I’d even go as far as to say Disciples 2 is the better game, but I still think Sacred Lands is worth playing.
– Real player with 190.9 hrs in game
Recommended for fans of Turn-Based Strategy, Fantasy, and games from this era (1997-2004).
Great gem of a game. It’s likely you are here after playing either Heroes of Might and Magic series, or Disciples 2 in your younger days. Disciples 1 is exactly like Disciples 2, except graphics are about 5yrs younger. Literally, 90% of the units, heroes, and characteristics are the same - just the graphics changed. So why play D1 instead of D22? That Old School Charm I guess. The game does hold up really well on its own - IF you like 1999 graphics. Note you can get a fan-made “HD mod” to improve them.
– Real player with 38.8 hrs in game
Hell
Hell Review
Published by Slitherine, its no surprise that Hell is a highly addictive turn-based strategy game that offers challenging gameplay for even the most battle-tested tacticians among us. Still, the game manages to offer an inviting platform for beginners, complete with a helpful tutorial and an in-depth game manual. Moreover, it is a “skirmish” style of strategic warfare, meaning that the game skips the often tedious and mind-boggling affairs found in grand strategy games and thrusts players right into the action. By doing so, the game is easier for newcomers to the genre to catch on and since combat is the central focal point, more effort and development has been put into the tactical aspect of it and the results are impressive.
– Real player with 25.1 hrs in game
Story is cliche, and text certainly has its share of spelling errors, but it seemed simple to play and a fun way to pass time. Art is decent (kind of like Warcraft, cartoonish), and relatively easy to figure out. A manual would have been nice, but most nowadays don’t provide more than the basics anyway, certainly little in the way of tactics or strategy. Didn’t find a manual for this game, but didn’t find one, just tutorials. A couple other points: Your units gain experience and level up…but that doesn’t seem to carry over from one battle to another (you have to start from scratch each battle). Also, in the later battles you’re able to choose some of the units you can bring in with you, but your choice is quite limited. For example, in some battles you get longbowmen, but others only crossbowmen. Or if you get longbowmen, you can only take two perhaps. I’m guessing this is the way the game designers ensure the game stayed balanced.
– Real player with 21.6 hrs in game
Tainted Grail: Conquest
Song: Tainted Grail Artist: Vlakabaka
“Sometimes I feel I’ve got to, run away, i’ve got to, play a chill card game for a run or two
And the love we shaaare for card games is all in d’ere, with 9 classes, lots of deckbuilding and re-play-aability
Some runs might end baaad and some might go well but with this game time seems to goo noo-where
And this Tainted Grail is full of story, voiiiice acted characters in a daark tainted woorld
So taaake Gabens tears awaaay and buyy diz game here, cause you dont want to hear any-moe from mee
– Real player with 73.6 hrs in game
It’s very similar to Slay the Spire and Monster Train but you’ll like it more than either of those if you prefer a dark aesthetic. The music and story are also more substantial here than other games in the genre. You get access to 3 classes (basically archer, fighter, invoker) which determine the type of base deck you’ll play. Every class is broken into 3 subclasses (i.e. invokers can be summoners, blood mages, or necromancers) that each have unique passives and a unique subclass ability. It’s honestly pretty remarkable how each subclass feels very distinct from its counterparts.
– Real player with 69.4 hrs in game
Darkest Dungeon®
Darkest Dungeon is a game, no an Experience that stays with those who play it.
It sucks to lose your beloved hero that you spent hours upon hours building to a occultist 0 heal bleed deathblow But yknow what, you can always make another, right?
This game draws you in with its simple yet diverse combat with every enemy bringing its own deck to the table, be it stressing out your heroes or making them close to useless in a prolonged fight, every enemy has its weakness and to see one on the field and immediately say: “Oh Shit time to employ the plan” only for it to fail spectacularly and leave you scrambling and exposed as that swine skiver crit 40s your main healer and they die of a follow up attack, only to come up at the top with 2 HP on most of your dudes or dudettes can only be described as Cathartic.
– Real player with 1042.8 hrs in game
If you’re like me (I pity you) then you’ve tried to play Darkest Dungeon several times only to be rebuffed by its repetitive nature and yet you can’t let it sit because you’ve sunk the cost and want to know what all the fuss is about. After poking around a bit I made a discovery, it’s not really the repetitive nature of the game that’s the problem. It’s the hideously slow speed at which the game plays.
Once you grasp the basics of Darkest Dungeon’s gameplay loop you don’t need —or want— to sit though every camera zoom or every slow hallway creep. And thanks to the power of modding magic you don’t have to. Walking speeds, combat, and even the tallies at the end of each dungeon can be sped up with a mod, thus making the game a far more tolerable experience. There’s also a mod to kill the camera zooms, though it does make combat look a bit silly.
– Real player with 276.8 hrs in game
Disciples III: Reincarnation
If I got to name one game which receives a lot of hate yet is one of my favorites, Disciples III: Reincarnation would be my answer without the slightest hesitation. I’m gonna go through what most people complained about then throw my 2 cents on each criticism.
“Game is too hard." While in English version the 3 difficulties are Easy/Normal/Hard, there are Normal/Hard/Hardcore in Russian’s respectively. To put it another way, there is no such thing as Easy mode in this game. For the love of Bethrezen, just lower the difficulty if you can’t handle the harder one. Also keep in mind that even though the game eventually gets away from world map strategy, exploring the map and choosing the right mobs to fight for XP are vital to strengthen your armies. If you’re wandering to a place where most neutral armies are currently out-leveled you, just head to other directions then come back another time. I’ve watched a streamer got frustrated after keeping on running into a Troll with a level-3-party (Tier 1) for like 20 times then screamed this game sucked really bad. Obviously, he was playing Disciples III: Suicide Squad Limited Edition and indeed that game sucks. While this is the case, sometimes you will find yourself in a situation where it looks like there are no neutral mobs you’re able to farm for XP and the rest of the map is just too powerful. Don’t worry, you can just grind the ruins, dungeons,… which are gonna be inactive for a few turns after being looted. Alternately, you can visit a training camp to level up any unit with a direct conversion of 1 gold = 1 experience point.
– Real player with 543.3 hrs in game
Are you SERIOUS?????? Come on….!
This game is roughly (no exaggeration) 800x better than Disciples 2.
History: so I played Disciples 1-2 (and all expansions as they were called before we had things called DLC lol) And I loved both. Haven’t played them in decades.
Bought Disciples 3 and first expansion in BOX form. Played them. Liked them. Didn’t play again for years. Then Steam had a sale for Disciples 3 and their expansions. Bought it. Played it. Liked it. Not loved it. Liked it.
Disciples 3 Reincarnation came out (Ok now this is getting ridiculous. How many expansions/DLC/Versions are there going to be for this version.) And Played it over the last couple weeks. Liked it. Most of it.
– Real player with 218.6 hrs in game
Vagrus - The Riven Realms: Prologue
When I read some of the negative reviews about Vagrus on the store page for the full game, I was hesitant about buying it and so I decided to try out this demo. One thing I’ve gotta say is that you HAVE to be in the mood for reading if you want to fully experience and enjoy this game. The first time I launched, I was not in that mood, and boy, I was really having my doubts. After getting bored during the first few dialogues, I decided to put it down and try again another day. Second time launching, I got ready to embrace the adventure ahead of me, no distractions, and it was FANTASTIC!
– Real player with 13.5 hrs in game
KENSHI in heavy text mode and turn by turn battles?
A book where you are the hero/leader as a video-game?
Conclusion in comments!
Demo offers 2 game modes:
-A tutorial campaign titled “Pilgrims of the Wasteland” which is in fact the first part of a story-driven campaign.
I completed it in 3 hours or so, taking my time to read tutorial hints and lore texts.
-5 turns in a free campaign, open-world setting.
I didn’t try it, 5 turns (days) seems too low for me to enjoy, also the tutorial has been enough of a test for me, i’m hooked.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Armello
I always come back to this game when I have time on my hands, and I’m itching for a good dice/card game. Which this game has both! I love that no matter wwhich character you use, there is always a chance to win. dlc characters are less ‘pay to win’ and more of exploring different playstyles over multiple games. there are some very pretty dice that’re so satisfying to hear/use in game.
– Real player with 171.7 hrs in game
I recommend the game but I have to put a negative review because the multiplayer doesn’t allow users to reconnect once we get disconnected for a few seconds. Therefore if we have connection issues for a few seconds. we loose our games, can’t move the character. Such a shame.
– Real player with 164.1 hrs in game
Disciples II: Gallean’s Return
!!!!! ON WINDOWS 7/10: !!!!!
Run with Direct3D turned on, stretch to fullscreen, and 800x600 res. Trust me btw, the 800x600 res looks INCREDIBLE b/c of the awesome textures in this game.
70 hours in at the time of this review, I just finished the 2nd campaign (there are 4, and this isn’t even the expansion set) on Average (normal) difficulty. This is a game that will challenge you, but also reward you. Whether you build massive armies or put all of your time and energy into one unit, you will be surprised how difficult it is to stop moving those little bastards around. Buy this game if you have the opportunity.
– Real player with 213.3 hrs in game
One of the all times favourites games : Diablo2, Age of Empires 1&2, Disciples 1&2. Special mention for Civilizations 3 Heroes of might and magic 3. There was nothing like them at that time, and there still isn’t.
For fans of the genre and disciples 2 in special, i recommend checking Atlantica Online (cashgrabber and if you are not in an active strong guild there is no way to have the top mercs and craft top equipment, but the game itself is so much like Disciples 2, only mmorpg)
Disciples 2 had lots of room for improvement, but is a fantastic game, simply amazing. Disciples 3 unfortunately turned away from the style of the game, moving units in battle ruined the tactical pre-battle arrangement of troops.
– Real player with 135.3 hrs in game