King’s Quest
I absolutely love the original King’s Quest series. I remember playing the originals as a child when they were the cutting edge of computer gaming and was the flagship series of Sierra Games. I even continued to replay the entire series once every couple years. When I found out that they were finally going to make a new King’s Quest, I was both excited and concerned.
The original minds, writers, artists, etc… who had created one of the most treasured computer game series of all time were not going to be involved in the game. On one hand I wanted to love it because it meant new life for this beloved series. On the other hand, I wanted to hate it because I feared it would also fall short of the original series. After playing it, I still have some conflicted feelings about it.
– Real player with 54.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Fantasy Story Rich Games.
A downward spiral
Episode 1 = Great
Episode 2 = Good
Episode 3 = OK
Episode 4 = Bad
Episode 5 = Awful
First off, let me say that Episode 1 is currently free, so I highly recommend everyone plays that. It’s smart, interesting, and pretty long. I wouldn’t, however, recommend anyone then purchase the following episodes. They’re simply shadows of the first chapter, and it’s simply not worth supporting developers like this.
Allow me to elaborate by breaking all the chapters down.
Chapter 1
Full of different characters, interesting puzzles, and wonderful humour. Although you’re not held by the hand, the game allows you to go off in any direction and either come across any of the 3 above mentioned gems of this game. You may stumble upon a sneaky trader, or perhaps dance with a giant troll. Perhaps you’ll accidentally ruin a romantic meal, or even fight a dragon.
– Real player with 47.0 hrs in game
Light Fairytale Episode 2
MUSIC
well…it has one great song. i’m not sure if there are more. generally i don’t pay attention to this aspect of games.
STORY
though i enjoy what we got, i would agree with others that it’s barren. not a lot going on here.
more world building would be nice. the elder could have gave some good exposition on the region which haru knows nothing of. instead of just asking a stranger for help and mentioning someone that just happened to be right there. where do these people sleep anyway? too cold to sleep outside.
– Real player with 6.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Fantasy Exploration Games.
A pretty interesting game
Builds on the foundation of 1
Looking forward to ep 3
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game
Errant Kingdom (Chapters 0-5)
I’m at Chapter 3 for now, but I don’t know if I’ll ever finish this game so I’ll write my review now.
I can’t not recommend it because the game is beautiful, the characters are nice and diverse, the story is interesting, the writing isn’t boring, the music is fitting. You can choose your character’s gender and race, you can choose your backstory.
But. And this is my one big but - the romances. There are 6 “love interests” out of which 4 are involved with eachother. 2 were a couple that you can help get back together if you so wish and other 2 are implied to sleep together, without a lot of romantic interaction. You have the option to go “poli” with these 2 couples as well as just pick one. I’m not a fan of this - two’s company, 3s a crowd. I always feel like I’m third wheeling when there’s already couples in the game or that I’m breaking them up or butting in where I don’t belong.
– Real player with 109.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Fantasy LGBTQ Games.
I Cannot recommend more highly
Errant Kingdom, by Lunaris Games has easily become one of my favorite visual novels despite its status as an early access game. Yes, the game is still in development, and yes, content for it is still being produced, but what is there is quality. The art is stunning, the story is engaging and mysterious (It takes a good few chapters to finally realize why you are in Novus), the characters are unique and enchanting. I cannot get enough of this game.
– Real player with 35.1 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
Tarzan VR™ Issue #1 - THE GREAT APE
I grew up reading graphic novels and Sunday newspaper comics. Tarzan happened to be one of those syndicated comics and that’s how I discovered the legendary character and a whole cast of supporting characters.
Stonepunk Studios has taken that hand-drawn comic aesthetic and drops VR players into the jungle as Tarzan himself. Well, technically, his hands.
The first issue, “The Great Ape” sets up a big adventure where you have to swing, swim, fight and explore in an effort to save the jungle from “bad men”.
– Real player with 8.6 hrs in game
I’m using i7 7700K (4.5 Ghz), GTX 1080 8GB and 16GB 3200 MHz - and both Valve Index and Rift CV1. Although many textures are very low-res, there are also many nice/great textures, but none even remotely close to Alyx. Still the game looks great - and I like being able to just explore.
The world feels alive and breathing. Did go into the water and it suddenly got deep - and in my mind I started hearing music from Jaws, and I was very quick to get out of the water, lol.
Performance and image quality are great with the Index - 4xMSAA, render scale 1.0 and all other settings maxed make the game look close to the best it can. Motion smoothing is my friend, not my enemy, and I’ll probably need a 3080 to use render scale 1.5 - but MSAA seems most important to reduce jaggies.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
Dreamfall Chapters
The thing about stories and settings, in modern-day fiction, is that there’s very little room for innovation or unique ideas to craft worlds without feeling like it’s something we’ve seen before but executed differently.
I’m the kinda of person who loves stories that are self-contained without being treated as a brand that inevitably needs to be pumped for money, or more sequels, faster than an OD’ing alcoholic solely for the sake of the former, and not so much for doing something new with the subject matter.
– Real player with 79.8 hrs in game
You know that totally dreamy guy who you really want to get together with, but when you do; it turns out that he just doesn’t meet your expectations of him, and no matter how much you want to love him, he just doesn’t let you? Well, I know his name. He’s called ‘Dreamfall Chapters’.
Overview
Chapters concludes the story which began with the wonderful The Longest Journey, and resolves the cliffhanger left at the end of Dreamfall. We pick up where we left off, taking the part of Zoe Castillo, still in a coma; and will switch control during the game between her, Kian Alvane the “reformed” Apostle, and “Saga” - the girl who walks between worlds and appears to be disconnected from the main story until apparently completely unrelated threads finally intertwine as we approach the climax.
– Real player with 57.2 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
Thorne - Son of Slaves (Ep.2)
- ### Morlan’s shorts:
There may be an ok story here with some ok jokes and ok graphics, yep, just ok.. but the game is badly programmed and has random crashes in, well, random places; the pacing/delay/“loading screens” are too slow for this type of game but the top-of-the-crop that breaks it for me is the collision detection. Battles are in real time and the character gets stuck everywhere there’s an obstacle, collides with the enemy and sticks to them and it becomes a chore of repeating a level to finish it because you keep getting stuck to the enemy and die. In particular the first “Troll” cave where you have to run between trolls/skeletetons/whatever and even if you have space to go through them, once you touch an enemy you’re basically glued to them! Tried that 4-5 times..NO! Wasting time because of bad programming is a BIG NO! This alone, made me r-quit it.
– Real player with 19.4 hrs in game
Thorne - Son of Slaves is the sequel game Thorne - Death Merchants.
This Action-RPG from Aldorlea Games and Lone Wolf Games.
I recommend this game.
Beautiful drawing and animation.
Interesting story.
Atmospheric musical accompaniment.
A lot of accessories to choose.
Dialogues are exciting and include a portion of humor.
In Thorne - Son of Slaves all the dynamic, no preludes, you immediately thrown into the thick of things.
Perhaps this genre seems to be outdated, but if you do not find fault with this game, and compared with similar games in the genre - I to recommend!
– Real player with 16.4 hrs in game
Plot of the Druid
A disgraced druid apprentice goes on a quest to prevent the world from going crazy by restoring balance to the forces of love, wisdom, and wealth.
A mystical comedy adventure with sarcastic British wit, hand-drawn cartoon art, and an innovative shape-shifting ability for solving puzzles.
Plot of the Druid is a classic-modern point-and-click game that’s reminiscent of Simon the Sorcerer, Discworld, and Harry Potter.
• The player can decide whether to deal with a situation as a human or as a ferocious animal. Well, maybe not that ferocious, but one with a unique skill set.
• Harness the powers of nature in order to solve puzzles. After all, sometimes an earthquake is just what’s needed to get people’s attention.
• Beautiful hand-painted HD artwork in the style of old-school pixel art.
• Dozens of wacky characters, ALL fully voiced.
• Cool references to classic LucasArts and Sierra games.
• Two difficulty levels: Young Apprentice and Master of Disaster. Finish the game to earn a digital certificate with your name on it, signed by the Elder Druids themselves!
• Many MANY smooth 2D animations, including thrilling cutscenes.
• Over an hour of immersive, charming music.
• A hotspot reveal option to avoid pixel hunting.
• Lots of achievements to be gained by exploring the world.
• A journal to help keep you on track.
• Available in English with German, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and Hebrew translations.
• And the wind cried Mary!
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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