Clash: Artifacts of Chaos

Clash: Artifacts of Chaos

You are Pseudo, a powerful warrior living as a recluse in the strange land of Zenozoik. When you become embroiled in a quest for the Artifacts of Chaos, everything changes. Explore the world and defeat your enemies, but never forget the sacred rules of the Ritual.

The Mysteries of Zenozoik

You are about to enter a strange and inhospitable world. During your quest you will meet unusual characters, travel across breath-taking landscapes, and discover ancient secrets.

The Protector and the Protected

Pseudo is a formidable warrior. Despite his outer stoicism, he is haunted by his memories and chooses to live apart from civilization. This quiet existence is upheaved when he meets a small orphaned creature whose incredible healing powers have attracted the attention of Gemini, the terrible mistress of the Artifacts. Unable to leave the boy to face this threat alone, Pseudo decides to protect him – not realizing that larger forces are at play.

The Only Law

In Zenozoik, there is only one law. According to an ancient custom, the rules of combat are determined by a game of dice using artifacts with special properties. To succeed, you will have to search for the most powerful of these artifacts, fighting your battles according to the ever-changing rules of the Ritual.

Martial Arts

To succeed in hand-to-hand combat, you must master all the ancient techniques. Every warrior, no matter how strong, has weaknesses that can be exploited. Grab your enemies, block their hits, stun them, dodge attacks… every opportunity seized takes you closer to victory, but mistakes can be fatal. To bring down the toughest opponents, you will have to perfect your skills.

One Night, Infinite Stars

Every night, Pseudo’s dreams are so vivid that they literally come to life. Enter his mysterious dreamscape and embark on a multiplayer adventure. Play co-op with up to three players or challenge other players in arena combat.


Read More: Best Martial Arts Action Games.


Clash: Artifacts of Chaos on Steam

Slash or Die

Slash or Die

I gotta say, I really like this game. You control one of three characters (warrior, berserker and mage, although you have to complete the first boss to unlock the berserker and the second and third to unlock the mage), each with different mechanics,

stats and upgrades. Using just the mouse you can maneuver your hero and perform an attack, which costs mana, to kill enemies that keep spawning. The enemy diversity is good, each one with different attack types and harder enemies appear as you progress through the story.

Real player with 19.9 hrs in game


Read More: Best Martial Arts Hack and Slash Games.


This is a very disappointing game, can’t say it’s THAT bad, you decide:

+The one and only plus - battle mechanics - 1st time I’ve seen it in indiegala minigame made by the same person I guess, and what can I say - there it was WAY better - to move around you click left MB, to dash and kill you click right MB - now about the problems of the game

-You can’t dash while moving - you have to release LMB if you want to click RMB - like, what’s the problem? When a lot of enemies around you even the slight stop can kill you.

Real player with 17.6 hrs in game

Slash or Die on Steam

The Wind Road 紫塞秋风

The Wind Road 紫塞秋风

Playing this game made me understand the inner secrets of Qi Gong, so i opened my own practice and i ride to work on a silver cloud.

Joke aside, the combat system is heavy on this stuff, you have the different styles of move sets, but also an inner Qi style that acts like a general buff/debuff and can also be leveled and changed. In combat you can suffer “internal injuries of Qi” that can be yin or yang and must be treated with the correct medicine or meditation with the correct inner Qi.

Autumn Wind in the Purple Pass (translated as Wind Road) is a good quality action-rpg with some rough edges that could be deal breakers for some players so i’ll start with that.

Real player with 29.1 hrs in game


Read More: Best Martial Arts Action Games.


I will put it as “thumb in the middle with a bit up” as encouragement.

Yes, the game has plenty of problems atm. I feel like the game still hasn’t tutorial me enough especially the special mechanics such as counter and block. Sometimes during the fight my chains combo forced me to go out of the fighting parameter and I forced to brake my combo or straight-up fail me. In gang-up situations, you barely survive it cuz everyone will just gang up on you (which is realistic but frustrating af). I would love it if dev can add a lock-on target function.

Real player with 20.6 hrs in game

The Wind Road 紫塞秋风 on Steam

Slavania

Slavania

Immortal hero with his soul imprisoned in his magic Spear, travels around the fairy tale world.

The spear is a source of his power and weaknesses. When the hero dies, the spear brings him back to life at the same place.

Hero must complete his monster hunting and feed the Spear. And decide who’s the real monster here and how the world will change when the hunt is over.

Game Features

  • Classic side-scrolling action, with all the modern trimmings.

  • 2D Souls-lite Action: Tough but fair combat with acrobatic fighting system

  • Hunt the bosses: collect a piece of knowledge about the boss: his habitat, his weakness, behavior and how the hero can track him down and, after all, kill. Or not to kill.

  • Explore a vast interconnected folk inspired fantasy world with unexpected routes and weird locals

  • Evolve with powerful new skills and abilities! which opens new ways to move and fight.

Spear

Spear is a universal weapon and a tool. It is used both in close combat and as a throwing weapon. Hero can enchant spear tip with magic.

It can be thrown into walls, making new ledges to lift. The spear comes back to the owner as a boomerang by order. Also the spear breaks stones, helps to get items, opens floor hatches, turns on mechanisms and it can be used as a leverage or pole.

The «living» spear can warn its owner against dangers, help doing magic and communicate with otherworldly powers.

“The fern blooms for only one moment, on the one night in year. Legends say that the one who rips it off will have clairvoyance and will know where the treasures are buried. But it is very difficult to get a fern flower, because Navi will intimidate a person and mend all sorts of intrigues”

Slavania on Steam

古剑奇谭三(Gujian3)

古剑奇谭三(Gujian3)

After series of disappointments to find a decent story-driven RPG among modern games and tired of replaying classics I’ve decided to give a chance to a Chinese RPG. So I’ve bought Gujian3 and… put it aside after the first mission considering it to be some mediocre slasher. Last year I gave a go to another Chinese RPG - Xuan-Yuan Sword VII and was relatively satisfied by its story ang gameplay. After that I checked my Steam library and found long-forgotten Gujian3. Struggling to drop it during the first mission I’ve reached Skyelk and finally found what I seek in games - a decent RPG with involving story and interesting characters. And it appeared to be so involving that became my “second reality” for two weeks. Thorough gameplay took 100+ hours and almost none was boring.

Real player with 188.4 hrs in game

This review has no spoilers and is very long.

Before you buy it, you should know this game is heavily story-driven and exploration-based. If you are a gamer that like exploration, collecting rewards, and/or storytelling, you are in for a treat!

This single-player game does require internet connection to run. This very inconvenient function might have something to do with IP protection during its initial release in China to prevent pirated copies. Unfortunately, the IP protection was carried over to the Steam version, likely because the developer wasn’t planning to release the game in English during its initial release in 2018.

Real player with 184.1 hrs in game

古剑奇谭三(Gujian3) on Steam

Xuan-Yuan Sword VII

Xuan-Yuan Sword VII

I don’t recommend this game.

I actually pre-ordered this, as I’m a huge fan of the old Xuan Yuan Jian Series; I enjoyed Gates of Firmament even though the combat was very bad, the story made up for it. I played this game in Chinese (audio/subtitles, which don’t have a text skip option so you have to wait for audio tracks to finish playing or skip the entire cutscene).

In-Depth Explanation:

XYS series has always been well-respected for it’s plot development, the gameplay has been on and off (with the migration to 3D gameplay basically killing all elements of FUN because this studio seems to not really have the skill to manage 3D development). So let’s start with the plot, your character starts off as a caretaker of his sister, the advancement of the story is closely linked to this situation, thus the entire game can be summed up as “hero tries to save the sister”. This is the entire plot of the game. There is no over-arching goal to defeat evil, save the world, learn about other cultures, visit other countries (which was common in other XYS games), this game is just “save the sister”. This plot is delivered through a strict on-rails story advancement.

Real player with 48.9 hrs in game

The franchise of Xuan Yuan Sword has a long history, its ever-lasting life could go back to 90s, if Final Fantasy is well known from Japan, then Xuan Yuan Sword is that well known from China. It’s its 30 years anniversary now, with Chinese Paladin: Sword and Fairy franchise also from Domo studio, the shiny two famous titles were widely recognized within the RPG genre in Chinese gaming community. As folks say, “the Two Great blades are the guardians of Domo.”

XYS VII is the 13th instrument of Xuan Yuan Sword games. It also brings some big changes along its release, e.g the first time in the entire franchise being an ARPG game with open world(previous titles are turn-based on). Although there are 12 titles before this one, you don’t need to play its ancestors to understand the story. Though all Xuan Yuan Sword games are based on Chinese dynasties history and mythology, but each one’s story happens in a different time, there aren’t any close connections between each other, only sharing the same universe as a whole.

Real player with 42.3 hrs in game

Xuan-Yuan Sword VII on Steam

Your Sword Is So Big

Your Sword Is So Big

The Final Boss of Asset Flips

This game is a very cheap & obvious asset flip comprised of stock content. There are a number of stock maps for you to progress through as you fight stock enemies whilst gaining XP to unlock more stock moves from the games stock combat system. One such move allows you to perform “a series of strokes” - this is the only series of strokes you will be performing as there is no nudity in this game despite the nudity and sexual content tags on the steam page.

It’s cheap, so there’s that, but it does cost time, and your time is better spent elsewhere.

Real player with 3.7 hrs in game

Bugs and missing features

The trailer for the game is quite nicely done, but shows essential mechanics/features of the game which do not work or are not available yet! This is real bad.

[[[[- When I press TAB (ingame on the left screen side), the control should actually be displayed. However, this is immediately hidden again. (there is no menu for controlls in the main screen just graphics settings).

  • When I press the left mouse button, I hear a sword swinging, but the character neither picks up the sword nor swings it. Nor does anything happen when I press the right or middle mouse button. So the complete attack animations are missing (for more read below)]]]]

Real player with 2.0 hrs in game

Your Sword Is So Big on Steam

Absolver

Absolver

There’s something about it. the fighting style and technique is well done. I like the soundtracks the most. Looking at the ruins you feel like a part of it.

Real player with 379.4 hrs in game

Its not always about victory.

Its about the mets baby, cmon baby love the mets. Lets get a home run, love the mets.

Real player with 52.7 hrs in game

Absolver on Steam

Eastern Exorcist

Eastern Exorcist

I’ve seen people ask if this is a metroidvania. No, it’s completely linear. A tough challenge especially on hard mode. I really enjoyed getting all the achievements. The character has some moves but nothing like the amount say Dante has in DMC. Mastering parry and dodge is the key to this game. Managing stamina can be tricky and sometimes I felt overwhelmed by repeated enemy attacks however a change in approach/strategy will get you through. I found that taking out the guys with arrows/projectiles first a necessary strategy. The hardest achievement was completing the game on normal difficulty but without levelling up, it was kind of brutal but fun and rewarding. Some people might say that the game is short on content. I think it is adequate at the price. On your first play through on normal it’ll take about 4 hrs. On casual mode you can expect a NewGame+ time of 1hr 45mins once you have mastered the moves and levelled everything up. Not going to be for everyone but if you are a fan of hack n slash platforming combat this one is well presented and fun to play imo. After finishing the game you get a hint at further content which will be nice. There is also a Trials mode which is basically survive as long as possible during a shorter version of the game no cutscenes etc. gotta kill all 17 bosses in order with a few mobs in between. It adds a bit of replay value but soon gets boring when you can do all 17 bosses in about 10-12 minutes if you know how. I’m looking forward to updates and the next instalment so it’s a thumb up from me.

Real player with 73.1 hrs in game

What do you do?

  • You sidescroll and kill all the bad guys that appear in the screen.

  • Similar mechanics to Souls-like games adapted to 2D: Attack, defend, parry, dash, counterattacks all rounded up with a stamina bar.

  • You lose a % of your “power” (which is the resource used to buy skills or lvlup) each time you die, but it isn’t something “super punishing”.

    ! Tip: Before a boss battle, you can spend all your power in skill trees so if you die you will lose barely nothing. After the boss fight you can just unlearn the skill nodes and you will get your power back ;).

Real player with 27.6 hrs in game

Eastern Exorcist on Steam

Ninja Simulator

Ninja Simulator

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1662230/Cowboy_Life_Simulator_Prologue/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1578940/Vampire_Clans/

Be like a ghost

Silence is your ally. Darkness is your most trusty friend. Use them to get close to your enemies, so they will never even see your blade cutting them into pieces.

Take on impossible challenges

For a true ninja warrior there is no such thing like an impossible challenge. Three enemies, seven, maybe an army? What is your definition of impossible?

Sneaking Around

There are over twenty words for sneaking in the Ninja’s vocabulary. He knows even more ways to stay unnoticed by the guards. In the game you’ll use all of them. You’ll also have a variety of malee weapons at your disposal, which will help you in resolving problems in different ways.

Eliminate Enemies

Perfection is the most important skill of a ninja. Perfection in combat. Perfection in planning. Perfection in execution. Without it, you will be punished for every mistake.

Ninja Simulator on Steam