Alder Forge
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An Adaptive Turn-Based RPG, and an easy-to-use Combat System.
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A Story-Driven Adventure through the eyes of the 5 Members of your Party.
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A Cast of Characters with their own stories and a unique world, handcrafted and built for your enjoyment.
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An easy-to-use Camp Menu and Crafting System with equipment, party, and skills management.
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Special Skills for each Player Class, unlocked either by solving mysteries, finding new Anima Stones, or just Leveling Up.
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Plant harvesting and Alchemy Craft made simple to help you easily acquire usability drinks during or out of battle.
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Fight, Explore and Walk the path of heroes in the world of the Alder Forge.
The Alder Forge story is set in the western part of the Ertheryan Continent, the game will take you during its 4 chapters to the Duchy of Elysia, the Kingdom of Royne, the Mighty Kingdom of Orvys, and the Atlas Court (The seat of your employer). In your adventures you are going to face a dark plot that will try to engulf the continent and break the two centuries lasting peace, meanwhile, you will discover that nothing is ever simpler than that while facing the complexity of human behavior and the lines that draw good and evil in each character you encounter throughout your journey, secret organizations, political entities, and other groups, each has their agendas and plots, meanwhile, the 5 protagonists will be in the center of those events.
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Adriel: Party Leader, known by his intelligence, pragmatism, and powers, Age:21
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Mirabelle: Anima Caster, funny with a massive appetite, but serious when things get heated, Age:13
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Cassandra: Heavy Arms, and the strongest defense of the team, Age:21
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Leo: Archer and a disciple of the legendary Dead Eye, fun and quick to spot threats, Age:22
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Fiona: An Elysian Knight, serious and unforgiving, she’s equal if not stronger than Adriel, Age:21
The Alder Forge environment was carefully designed to convey the world you will engage and invest your time in, but it is also full of enigma, hidden secrets, and backstories, each element placed, sculpted, and handcrafted is there for a reason, The Fate of Ertherya is now in Your Hands.
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Forklift Load
As you can probably tell by my hours played, I like this game. It’s a nice way to sit back and chill out. I just did my first speedrun of it, clocking in at around an hour and a half. I plan on getting faster. Overall, it’s the perfect speedrunning game with lots to discover, some nice music, and a world that’s kind of nice behind all the jankiness of the physics.
Except the jump upgrade mission, that one can burn.
– Real player with 16.5 hrs in game
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I 100% it in one 6 hour extended playthrough. So it’s not exactly a long game, though not easy ether. Especially a certain rooftop mission.., anyway it’s impressive for a project that I think was made by one dude though overall it is very rough around the edges. Like on a technical level there are a lot of glitches and bugs. That said the word that comes to mind when trying to describe this game is artful.
There is something about the whole experience that was simply enchanting to me. It may be flawed but it most certainly is a work of art (and a fun game with decent challenge to boot). I haven’t played anything quite like it.
– Real player with 6.0 hrs in game
Muv-Luv Alternative (マブラヴ オルタネイティヴ)
It is really worth its #1 VN in VNDB, it was worht the time i spent playing the 3 games. Muv Luv Extra, Unilimited and at the end this one, i might be one of those who really liked extra a lot and was meaningfull for me, so people who wants to play it and looking at this review for a chance, give a try and just stick with it, feel it and enjoy it, dont play it like challenging you to finish it asap, just enjoy the game and you will feel like living like Takeru in their world and understand and suffer all the things he had to endure with, and avoid spoilers, it might be obvious and for some people it normally doesnt kill the thing, but believe it kills like 60% of the feelings if you know what is going to happen, and when you finish the game you can go check all the awesome info about Muv Luv you can find, it is worth it and very interesting
– Real player with 116.8 hrs in game
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It’s good, but I don’t recommend it.
Overall - one of the best and worst VNs I’ve read. World presentation and history itself were superb. Although scenario had huge dips where I struggled not to skip dialogs about “resolve”, long- and short-term goals, unconvincing drama etc. The same stuff was talked about over and over again. Also, for the game this long there is not enough music tracks, so they are overused. Apart from that - great presentation, action scenes (not typical for VNs) and EPIC story. There are not many FMVs but there are moments where reading it feels like watching big budget sci-fi movie.
– Real player with 114.3 hrs in game
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
Just finished the game. And, I plan on going back in for New game +. Because, you know… gotta do something til part 3 comes to PC.
First, If you’re new to the series, I recommend playing the first Trails of Cold Steel before this one as this is a continuation and you’d be missing out of great story and character development. Also, your clear data from the first game works with this one if you want to start the second game with a bonus. I actually got into the entire story from playing the Trails in the Sky series, but I don’t think its required to play before this one.
– Real player with 193.7 hrs in game
After the Sky games I never thought I’d actually be giving a negative review to one of these games. But after slowly becoming more and more irritated with this one I have to acknowledge that the Cold Steel ones, or at least the two we have, really aren’t as good as their predecessors to the point I’d frankly recommend against buying this one. I enjoyed the first one well enough, but since it leads into this one I wouldn’t get it either.
I won’t say any twists but this does give away the general plot of the game, if the description up top didn’t, so click away if that bothers you. I’ll also be mentioning a twist of the last game, but I assume you played that if you’re reading reviews for the second one.
– Real player with 168.0 hrs in game
Heaven Will Be Mine
This game is hands down the best game to come out this year.
i am a big fan of Worst Girl Games' previous release, “We Know the Devil”, a visual novel which Heaven Will Be Mine is the spiritual sequel to, and found it hard to believe that even this game could live up to the powerful writing and atmosphere of its predecessor.
And indeed, when i completed the first route i chose, (LT/CM), i didn’t find the game lives up to WKTD. It was a much more subdued game, in many ways, and much more drawn out, with a heavier, more explicit focus on ideology and worldbuilding. Even when i finished the second route i chose (S/MF), though i thoroughly enjoyed it, i found it hard to put the game on the same level as its predecessor. i did remember, however, that as much as i adore We Know the Devil, it took completing all four routes in the game for me to realise what a truly special thing Aevee Bee, Mia Schwartz and Alec Lambert had created. So, i stuck with it.
– Real player with 40.9 hrs in game
Oh man. I really feel like I’m not smart enough to write about this game. That’s a really cool feeling.
I didn’t particularly fuck with the first VN from this dev/artist duo, We Know the Devil, which turned out to be a detached prequel to this game. I was a little hesitant going in, but I’ve heard incredible things and a friend of mine in particular loved it (I bought it for them and they said it changed their life) so I figured, what the hey, it’s fighting robots in space, let’s try again.
Heaven Will Be Mine follows three girls in the last days of a pointless war fought in space, far separate (in more ways than one) from humanity. You play as one girl per playthrough as she confronts the other two through mission sorties—each girl is in a different faction, each faction has a different idea about what the future of the pilots and support staff in space should be. The real looming threat isn’t the Existential Threat they were sent up to face—it’s Earth.
– Real player with 33.6 hrs in game
Baldr Sky
I’m not really sure what to say about the experience that is Baldr Sky. There is so very much I could get into, but saying anything too specific feels like reviewing Muv-Luv Alternative as if it was a stand alone work.
While being nothing alike in ways, Baldr Sky does check a lot of the same boxes and as it is much lesser known, I’ll just mention those similarities first.
-It is very creative, well thought out and complex.
-It is very sci-fi centric and technical without being dry.
-It is an incredibly engaging, edge-of-your-seat read.
– Real player with 275.7 hrs in game
Baldr Sky is one of the best recent VNs and JRPGs to have been localised to the West, delivering an entertaining story, memorable characters, and robust action RPG combat.
It’s set in a cyberpunk vision of urban Japan in the aftermath of a tragedy called Gray Christmas, which left an entire city in ruins. Local and federal governments, a private corporation, a research team and a religious cult are implicated in the event, with each party blaming the others. The survivors who comprise the bulk of the main cast include alumni of an esteemed school, who believe they had been witness to suspicious events prior to the disaster during their school days.
– Real player with 196.1 hrs in game
Sierra Ops - Space Strategy Visual Novel
Update after episode 2
This first episode is good but also very very very short. Might be one of the shortest I ever tried. It has an interesting sci-fi setting and introduces the characters but doesnt let you get to know them since you barely get a few lines. It also makes use of flash backs as the main characters clearly has mental wound attached to past incidents. Battle system is ok and unusual for a VN but not too hard to figure it out. The design of characters seems to fit a game like this quite well. Overall it got me interested to see next episode and decide if its good enough to get the season pass.
– Real player with 42.2 hrs in game
I won’t lie, this barely tips the needle into recommend rather than neutral. Sierra Ops is basically a visual novel with a light fleet command and time management mechanic attached to it. I think the issue I have with it is that none of the component parts of terribly good. They aren’t BAD, but in trying to cram all of that in here they’ve cut a few corners on each section. Battles are a mixed bag of good, bad, and frustrating. I like a lot of things there but you have to go through so much story to get to them… and when it turns out they’re one the token five minutes and done type battles that can be frustrating. Not to mention the difficulties of introducing various new mechanics and ideas with that pacing. There’s a similar problem with upgrading your ship, by the end of chapter 2 there’s still not that much to choose yet. On the visual novel side the story is… it has potential but I don’t want to give it too much praise or condemnation yet. It’s not completely sold me so far, in either plot or execution, but I have to admit there are some good foundations here and it could make me eat those words in future chapters.
– Real player with 36.2 hrs in game
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV
Good conclusion to the Cold Steel arc. The trails franchise is my favorite JRPG franchise, and this game keeps with that. Structurally, the game is sort of like Cold Steel 2, with a lot of wandering around Erebonia with no fixed base for a lot of the game.
By now the series has a lot of characters and plot arcs, that are a bit unwieldy at time, but it works pretty well. My only real grips is the forced character choices at times (normal for this franchise) and that there’s guest characters whose gear you can’t change, even if they were in your party and you gave them better gear previously. I hate seeing characters I gave top builds to just toss that away and be outright mediocre later on when the game gives them fixed gear and orbment setups that just don’t get it done.
– Real player with 208.8 hrs in game
If you love continuity in games then this is the game for you. The build up of playable and non-playable characters (love them or hate them), the world, and the story throughout the series was phenomenal and really hooked you up for the next chapter in the series.
– Real player with 208.3 hrs in game
Astebreed: Definitive Edition
First: ignore the “TOO EASY” reviews. They are jokes. None of them took note of score, 1CCed Hard mode or even COMPLETED it.
One of the best, most underrated indie games out there, made doubly impressive by the development company’s obscurity & status as part-time devs. Despite classic arcade-like design principles, it’s not a “nostalgia game”; it can hardly be described as “X meets Y”. Maybe Sin & Punishment’s cinematic on-rails presentation + a shmup’s bullet dodging + Alien Soldier’s sheer variety of stuff to do… but that wouldn’t really do it justice.
– Real player with 48.1 hrs in game
This review will be primarily focused on the Definitive Edition release and it’s new features. Owners of the original version will automatically receive the Definitive Edition update for free.
SCORE: 8/10
Pros: Extremely fast-paced action with varying degrees of difficulty, absolutely stunning visuals (further enhanced particles and blur for the Definitive Edition), extremely memorable soundtrack (new tracks have been added), high replayability even for a considerably short game. Extensive (and even slighty interactive) gallery provides fans of the game a more in-depth look at virtually everything involved with the lore. Further enhanced optimization options (including higher resolution support).
– Real player with 43.1 hrs in game
BE-A Walker
Be warned, im gonna include a few spoilers here and there in the review, if you dont want to see them, skip this review
I saw some gameplay from a youtuber and i was immediatly attached to this game, i played the demo and had a ton of fun, even just being 2 missions, it was still very fun (but i did have my problems with the overheating, however it has been fixed with the patch so i guess it can slide) i did have my problems with the walking since it had a QWOP feeling but i learned it after a bit and slowly started to master it and it wasnt that bad to learn.
– Real player with 19.1 hrs in game
BE-A Walker is a sidescrolling re-enactment of the plot of James Cameron’s Avatar. You pilot a bipedal mech across the surface of an alien planet blasting and stomping on the natives as you go. Except you do that exact same thing…. repeatedly. For the whole game.
This game is definitely fun for a bit, but every mission is pretty much the same, broken up occasionally with a ‘walk through the base without stepping on the blind scientists’ mission or ‘walk through a minefield’ mission, which mostly just slow the game down, without improving it much.
– Real player with 16.0 hrs in game