Fury of Dracula: Digital Edition
I hadn’t played this game since the 1st edition that came out in the 80s. Back then three Hunters chased a nearly-impotent Dracula around the map, eventually slaying him. Nearly every time, anyway. Dracula had hidden movement behind a screen, and left some rumors in his wake, but the damnable hunter cards would give him away at horrible times, and if you encountered him he would get caught during the day more than half the time (you rolled a die, but the hunters had more cards) - a vampire during the day is as feeble in combat as you would think. We called it “The Frustration of Dracula.” He was fun to play, but it was very difficult to win with him. Still, I have fond memories.
– Real player with 37.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Old School Strategy Games.
While no game is ever going to translate perfectly from the board to digital I have to tip my hat to Nomad games for taking on Fury of Dracula, not just for doing it, but doing a very capable job.
*When you read negative reviews about the lack of 1 vs 4 during initial roll out of the game, I have to point out that this was clearly posted on the store page well in advance and in the discussions. It shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone and it’s a poor excuse to give a thumbs down. It was perfectly clear and the developers have repeatedly stated why they released it as 1 vs 1 and 1 vs AI initially, along with their plans to work on and release 1 vs 4. Understandably, the developers want to get it right, so we just need to be patient. Their professionalism and consistent feedback to our inquiries leads me to believe they will get it done.
– Real player with 30.8 hrs in game
Paradiso Guardian
Paradiso Guardian is an ARPG in Metroidvania style.
Play as Lenga Valentine, a battle angel from the Paradiso Army,
you are going to reclain a floating castle invaded by unknown forces.
Friendly or hostile, Lenga will encounter a few of interesting guys during his journey.
Once defeated, they will lend a hand to Lenga, helping him reaching the top of the castle,
where the truth shall be revealed.
PG is an ARPG in Metroidvania style heavily influenced by castlevania series.
Players will explore different areas of the whole map and unlock new abilities in order to gain access to new areas.
Main Features
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Explore a Semi-Linear castle with various enemies.
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Satisfying battle with tight and fluid control.
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Handcrafted 2D pixel art aiming at 16-bit era.
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Persuade your friends and enemies and make bond with them.
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A bunch of food/equipment/relics to collect.
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Discover the world of Paradiso.
Read More: Best Old School Action Games.
Avalon: Sacred Crusade
“Beware the schemes of mortal men. For all the shortness of their lives, they lust to leave their mark. Before this hubris, even the Gods can be tumbled.” - Merlin the Outcast
To some, Avalon is an idea, a myth, an ideal, perfection; it is a place outside of time or space, an eternal edifice. To others, it is home. The Avalonians share much with Humanity, but one cannot remain in Avalon for long without becoming something… else. Long ago, in the forgotten age of The Migration, the Covenant was formed: the bridges between realms would be closed.
Their greatest criminals, however, continued to be cast out forever to languish in the mundane realm. Some lived as Oracles, Saints, or Wizards. Others we remember in legends of darkness: Sorcerers, Shapeshifters, Blood-drinkers, scattered across time.
Now though, the realms grow close once again, the veil between them weakening by unknown machinations. The Grail has been stolen, and without it, evils long buried are rising in ever greater numbers. The call to battle has gone out for the first time in this age, and many have answered it. These new defenders of the ancient Covenant must not fail, for the fate of both realms now hangs in the balance.
A Blast From the Past
Return to an era before all stats were homogenized into just health and mana. Avalon: Sacred Crusade takes heavy inspiration from popular RPG titles of the 1990s and features rich character customization that allows you to select your character’s origin, attributes, spells, and equipment.
No easy recoveries or quick wins here. Deal with a classic death penalty system where you drop your items on the ground and need to retrieve them. Experience what it was truly like to play early MMORPGs and graphical MUDs.
You may choose to adventure alone, however, the game features a robust party system which allows up to six players to work together in the same group. For the best experience, bring your friends - or make new ones in the game!
An Authentic Retro Experience
Listen to classic 16-bit Sound Blaster effects while you slash away at pre-rendered 2D sprites. You can experience all of this without the usual hassle of running a retro game on a modern system. Avalon: Sacred Crusade will run on any DirectX 10 capable PC!
A Note To the Community
We are passionate about maintaining a good relationship with our community. We welcome any feedback that you might have involving the game or its development, be it positive or critical. We are running regular community events that you can participate in and earn special achievements. If this interests you, consider joining our discord! https://discord.gg/Bv5MreE8zn
Read More: Best Old School Fantasy Games.
Darkness Maze Cube - Hardcore Puzzle Game
Amazing game!
any mistake ends up leading to your death, pay attention to every detail. test your skills and memory, solving puzzles and trying to stay alive every second.
Participating in the closed test was such a great experience,
now I’m trying to improve my score!
– Real player with 197.0 hrs in game
Amazing!
I participated in the closed tests and it really is a game for those who enjoy challenges and strong emotions …
Not taking the save and dying … makes you think “Why, why didn’t I go to get the save first?”
The team is to be congratulated, the game was thought of details, paying attention to the paths, sounds and details of the environment really helps to prevent traps.
I took several scares … rsss
Very cool!
Congratulations!
– Real player with 42.8 hrs in game
Napoleon Maiden
**Change your destiny. Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.
Shoichi Sakikawa was a normal, second-year high school student.
Or, he was, until he woke up from a car accident only to find
himself trapped in mid-revolution 19th century France.
What saved him from an onslaught of bullets was a girl armed with a sword.
“I am Napoleon Bonaparte. And one day I shall be ruler of all France.”
Having been saved by this “Napoleon” in the form of a girl,
Shoichi ends up accompanying her on her quest.
But in this world, not only is the past distorted,
but the gods grant chosen girls the gift of greatness,
who in turn fight one another using superhuman abilities known as “Tenkei.”
Will Shoichi be able to return to his own world?
And what will become of his growing bond with Napoleon?**
Scenario：住本優 (Sumimoto Yu)
Original Painting：咲月ゆうの (Satuki Yuuno)
Live2D Model：ADD
Weapon Design：軍火Snake
SD Original Painting：咲月ゆうの
Background Art：ナコモ (Nakomo)
Movie: hinod
The Hunter’s Journals - Tattered Sails
The interactive mechanics are not like other interactive fiction I’ve played. It is much more like a table top game. Combat is actually handled in rounds with randomly generated dice rolls. You can speed this up to just show the final result but it’s still a table top way of handling things and I didn’t like it.
In table top games you can build your character to weight the dice rolls through backgrounds, stats, gear, race, etc. This game’s character creation was so minimal that I felt that the outcome of combat was very random. This was a huge interruption to the story because poor results weren’t injuries or delays. Poor results (at least early on for me) meant death.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
Alisa
I just played through Alisa from beginning to end and I just cannot praise it enough. I’ve seen a lot of attempts at recreating that 90s survival horror experience, but nothing has nailed it with the perfect execution that this game has. I could go on forever about everything I loved about this game (the flawless retro aesthetic, the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack, the nostalgically familiar gameplay, the myriad unique features that make it something new and exciting…) but to get to the point of what I think people need to know, I will start by stating it simply as this: If you love old school survival horror games like Resident Evil 1, Silent Hill 1, etc., you will love this game. If you have not played games like these or haven’t played them recently enough to remember the difficulty of fixed camera angles, tank controls, and the like, then this might not be for you. It seems to me that most negative points in the reviews I’ve seen here fall either into the category of the game being too difficult or into the category of problems with bugs, so I will address these two points.
– Real player with 15.3 hrs in game
I just finished my second playthrough of this game, and, god, what a great game it is! It captures the pure essence of PS1 survival horror games in absolutely every aspect, from gameplay and graphics to voice acting and cheesy moments. I’m a big fan of this genre and beat RE1-3 hundreds of times and if you are just like me then you will enjoy this game!
This is probably the survival horror game with the most enemy variety in genre. Every location has their own enemies and sometimes you might get some surprise encounters while visiting old locations. Bosses are cool and dope and each of them is completely unique in design and combat. What I really like is that upon entering a room you know instantly that there’s going to be a boss battle and you have a chance to go back and get ready, instead of being like “no please I wanna go back, I don’t have much ammo :c”. There’s a lot of weapons and costumes with various effects that might suit your gameplay style just perfectly! Puzzles might be hard and frustrating at times, but they are so much fun and so different from each other. These are probably the best puzzles in a horror game I’ve ever seen, the perfect balance of difficulty and fun. Music and graphics of this game are just PHENOMENAL! Preserving an art style and feeling of a PS1 era is challenging, but they did it flawlessly! This game has a lot of surprises and you never know what’s going to happen next.
– Real player with 11.9 hrs in game
Risen 3 - Titan Lords
Risen 3 is a third person open world action roleplaying game made by Piranha Bytes, the team that gave us the Gothic games and of course the first two Risen games. It’s hard to talk about Risen 3 without referring to the previous games, which I’ll call ‘PB games’ for short.
To summarize: Risen 3 is definitely a step up from Risen 2 but all in all, it is probably still a game that only fans of PB games will love and a game that only fans of the genre may learn to like.
To talk about this game more in-depth, I’ll take the list I used for my reviews of ‘Risen’ and ‘Risen 2’.
– Real player with 94.2 hrs in game
This is a long review, so just read the bottom paragraph for a simple summary of my thoughts.
It surprises me that the general consensus for this game is worse than Risen 2: Dark Waters. To be fair, if you hated Risen 2, there likely are not enough redeeming factors about the end of the trilogy to be worth your while. But nevertheless, some substantial improvements to the overall experience have made this a promising step in the right direction for Piranha Bytes as a developer.
Risen 2: Dark Waters was ultimately a failure as an open world, engrossing RPG. It was extremely shallow, overall having one of their smallest and most lackluster world designs to date, with most of the islands consisting of winding pathways with few interesting landmarks leading between major locations. These locations were greatly devoid of life, as the characters were as dull and two-dimensional as wooden boards. The combat wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen in a game, but it took forever to get the necessary skills to stay on top of combat, and by then you just got used to button mashing between prayers. Beyond combat, half the skills in the game were worthless or used in only scripted situations that were easy enough to do without.
– Real player with 84.7 hrs in game
ENCHAIN
You are the Last Deprived, the final corpse to ever rise from the stone depths, dooming all creation to a ceaseless death. This underworld does not welcome you. Unlock the secrets of the crypt, take back life from your fleshless brethren, and fight your own way out of humanity’s tomb.
ENCHAIN links hack & slash juggling and frenetic platforming with fast-paced retro FPS gunplay. Inspired by platform fighters and Quake, smash the undead into pieces with your lantern hook and arsenal of guns. And, with progression and verticality influenced by Dark Souls, tackle a single interconnected world chunk by chunk, retreading old paths and secrets.
Get lost in the chasm. No one will be holding your cold, hollow hands along the way.
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Grapple, shoot, kick, and dive between platforming and combat
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Fracture and harvest the bones of the undead for resources
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Explore an intertwined, non-linear underworld
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Rest at cozy lantern posts to store the fruits of your travels
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Listen to atmospheric music by Oliver Trinidad
The Black Heart
CHECKLIST
☑ A stabby, murderous child
☑ Grudge noises
☑ A tree that can, and will, kick fruit in your face
☑ An undying, genderswapping masochist
☑ A sexy spider lady
☑ A Lovecraftian worm creature that just-so-happens to be purple
The Black Heart features these six vastly different playable characters, each representing a different aspect of horror. They all mesh together into a smooth, satisfying fighting game that is wildly underrated in the mainstream FGC. The story and presentation are top-notch, as is the music and sound design.
– Real player with 12.8 hrs in game
A cool looking fighter game with horror and gore? sign me in!
At the time of writing this review I haven’t played the game a whole lot, but what little I did experience was very good!
…for the most part at least.
The only negatives I can think of are: the lack of content, and the lack of characters (although considering the price it’s no wonder that there isn’t as much content as in other fighting games). I understand that this might drive some people away from it. But if you happen to be brave enough I can guarantee that you won’t be dissapointed!
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game