Masquerada: Songs and Shadows
Masquerada: Songs and Shadows really took me by surprise, it really did. The game claims to be a RPG but there are very few elements to support that claim, especially given the fact that the story is quite linear and there are no choices for you to make, you’re basically just watching how everything unfolds. That said, there is a lot to say about Masquerada, both good and bad, and I believe it’s a game that went under a lot of people’s radar and I truly believe it deserves a lot more exposure and credit than it has received.
– Real player with 38.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Real-Time with Pause Isometric Games.
Once again, this is the type of game where the “Yes” actually means “Yes, but-”, as in “Yes, but only if you like linear story-focused games with lots (and I mean LOTS) of reading”. Let’s get this straight: any mention of this game being an “RPG” is very misleading. There are no choices in the story at all; the protagonist (Cicero) is a defined character with his own personality and backstory, which I don’t think is a bad thing. There is very little exploration, aside from a few tidbits of lore and equipment sprinkled about, and since the game almost never lets you backtrack, it’s easy to lock yourself out of getting a certain lore entry or mask forever if you’re not careful. Pretty much the only RPG-like mechanic is the skills, masks, and enchantments you can pick between, so if you consider XCOM an RPG, then sure, I guess this game counts, too.
– Real player with 27.4 hrs in game
Drakensang
A party based RPG with great potential but quite unfinished and unpolished. Some people compare it to DA:O, NWN, BG, etc…(that being the reason I bought it) but that’s a big overstatement.
The bad:
1. The story/main quest - linear, blurry and uninteresting - does little to motivate the player to save the world.
2. The side quests are scarce, petty, uncomplicated and unrewarding.
3. The companions are plain, stereotyped and boring. They have no personal quests (except one), don’t develop with the progress in the game, rarely have something to say about quests/environment. Puppets with no personality, no conflicts, no banters, no life. The majority of them can be recruited too late in the game, so, for the first half, you will probably be stuck with the barking amazon and the cliché dwarf.
– Real player with 178.9 hrs in game
Ah, so this is where Dragon age origins stole all their ideas.. Of course that most likely isnt true. Judging by the release dates, the guys and gals over at Bioware were almost certainly unaware of the osbcure German title Drakensang, even tho Drakensang did come out first.
After beating Drakensang and enjoying it greatly, I couldnt help but notice similarities. Four member party- check. Pause and play tactical combat- check. Mages have magical skills and fighters get erm, fightery skills. Your archers stand back and sling arrows, you’ll need a rogue to open locks, disable traps and even smooth talk out of a situation or two. Its all done well, and made with obvious care, so if your into that sort of thing, your gonna like this.
– Real player with 138.8 hrs in game
Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness
Cant recommend this yet. I have no problems with the usual early access stuff; broken game mechanics, bugged quests, and balance issues. Those are all easy to fix. However, I do have some main concerns that the small dev team may or may not be able to fix for main release:
1. Performance issues. Long load times and poor frame rates on high end machines with SSDs. Not acceptable from a game that looks like 1998. Since you get a loading screen every time you enter/exit an area or building, long loading times severely impact the overall experience. Pretty much every streamer who streamed this said the same thing.
– Real player with 66.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Real-Time with Pause CRPG Games.
Party-based computer rpg similar to NWN, Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, et al. If you like those type this game should fit your needs. It is RTwP for those who only play one type of combat.
I think there is enough here to support for sure:
Pros:
Quite a large variety of stuff to find for the hoarder in all of us.
Melee combat is fairly robust and healing gets the job done.
The painted map backgrounds are mostly pretty.
Good variety in classes.
I will cover cons in detail since they need fixing:
– Real player with 23.3 hrs in game
Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition
Baldur’s Gate is truly a masterpiece. Despite it’s beauty, tactical depth and great story, the game does not take itself too seriously. This cannot be said of many other leading RPG titles, which I soon begin to find rather corny. If you like RPGs and have not played Baldur’s Gate, then this is an absolute must, you do not even need to waste your time reading this review but of course you are welcome to. If you have played the original BG and are curious about Beamdog’s boob job, I share with you my opinion.
– Real player with 425.6 hrs in game
Classics are often thought to be timeless for future generations to enjoy, but the same cannot be said for Baldur’s Gate—and it’s not because CRPGs are uncommon. To go blind into BG in 2016 is practically impossible because how modern expectations are at odds with the brutal accessibility of ’90s computer games.
Baldur’s Gate, simply put, is an sarcophagus; it is a coffin of a bygone time of design philosophies and of late ’90s player expectations, immersed in the counter-culture of D&D and of fantasy-fiction that is written in its code like hieroglyphics to modern eyes. The game’s reverence is both a nostalgic call-back as well as an appreciation of BG’s systems as a traditional role-playing experience.
– Real player with 203.9 hrs in game
Dragon Age™: Origins Awakening
Dragon Age Origins Awakening is in no way an anomaly. It does what is expected from an expansion pack, adds a little here and a little there, rehashes everything that was in the original and doesn’t add anything new or major. And, like most expansion packs, stand alone or otherwise, it is only worth it for fans of the original as taken by it’s own merits, it’s not much of a game.
Awakening starts you off short after the end of the original Dragon Age, you can choose to either import one of your old characters or just from scratch. The latter option gives you an Orlesian Grey Warden background which adds plenty of interesting dialog concerning your heritage throughout the game. Importing a character however, yields almost no interesting dialog throughout the game and even in places and with characters that you original play through should have had a profound effect on you will find that nothing changes regardless of your actions in Origins. This leads to a highly disappointing experience for those of us that have actually played the original and like to think our choices actually mattered, if only in terms of storyline.
– Real player with 71.3 hrs in game
If you were a fan of Origins, you would like this, featuring your gray warden and a whole new cast of colourful companions (and Oghren.) This Expansion deals with the aftermath of the war, and you need to quell another darkspawn uprising. I didn’t find the game as compelling as base, but it was entertaining enough.
However, I wouldn’t really recommend getting it as is because it’s as expensive as the main game but with only a quarter of the content. And don’t play this if you haven’t played the main game either.
– Real player with 16.1 hrs in game
Drakensang: The River of Time
It started really well and I really began to enjoy this game, then the awful combat system kicked in during critical times, which can be a real pain. Though I like the pause and ensuing tactical planning elements, it does not always work. For example, I could be hit by ranged weapons and despite having high level ranged combat, I could not fire back despite pause, select targeting, etc. I could set the attack up and… waited… and… waited… Nothing happened, all the while I was getting hit until my party was decimated by three low level dwarfs with crossbows. No matter what I did or where I stood I could not fire back, yet they were in clear line of sight and within range. Whether or not I was being a numpty, I don’t know - it just seemed to spoil what is a good game from being a great game.
– Real player with 80.8 hrs in game
Like Drakensang the Dark Eye, this is a totally underrated RPG imo, and almost all the bad reviews refer to it being “unplayable” on newer versions of Windows, although it only takes a few min online to find a fix. I have Win 10 and I typed -windowed and -novideo in the Steam preferences (rightclick on the game in Steam Library and select Properties - Set launch options) and it didn’t crash a single time, which is more than one can say for a lot of older games by non-defunct companies, so so much for that. The -novideo did actually disappear later, so idk if it did anything; so as is clear I have no real idea what I’m doing but still managed to get the game to run with next to no effort. There are few loading screens in spite of large areas and the loading times are fast, unlike some other games I could mention where I end up going online all the time as I get bored waiting.
– Real player with 77.2 hrs in game
The Red Solstice
I’ll skip the stuff about it beeing 8 player coop and sooo on and start talking about the stuff that might not be mentioned as often in short reviews:
The game offers multiple difficulties.. however the base difficulty is intended to be rather challenging for Players.
Which is definitly a good thing since it’s all about improving your own skill and after many defeats rewarding yourself with your very first win… somewhat darksouls-esque..
Classes:
So far there’s a total of 8 classes and depending on what the player wishes to accomplish every class has one or more distinctive roles.(Tank, Healer, DmgDealer,Scout….)
– Real player with 2514.4 hrs in game
I played this game when it first came out and I immediately fell in love with it.
It’s a slick tactical shooter. With hordes of alien zombies trying to kill you. Meanwhile your team of husky voiced men attempt to complete your objectives.
Again it’s a great game. I stopped playing it for some time and decided to get back into it and immediately fell back in love.
Great set of classes
Assault-great all rounder very good beginner class. he’s great with light weapons and rifles and he even smokes a cigar. Do you want to live forever?
– Real player with 1210.3 hrs in game
Aarklash: Legacy
Great title, considering the price. It’s sort of like Diablo and a turn-based squad game had a baby – Active pause lets you give orders to your squad of adventurers, and then things unfold in real time.
Pros: 1. GREAT atmosphere and novel setting. The STORY itself could be a bit more polished, but the characters have personality and variety. I thought not being able to create your own character (you choose from pregens) would be an obstacle but it’s NOT, the players are likable and learning their story is interesting.
– Real player with 50.5 hrs in game
Great game. I give it 8/10.
Pros:
-Puzzles to unlock goodies on about every level
-Awesome puzzles to complete storyline
-Good storyline
-Combat is intriguing and makes you think–must be very strategic.
-The number of companions that you can control and deck out with gear
-Pausing the game to plan out strategies
-Talent trees to cutomize for each companion; it adds a deeper level of gameplay
-Decent graphics
Cons:
-Game has some bugs–sometimes the abilities for a companion will not show up. Or, when you click on a companion, another companion’s abilities show up. When this happens, you have to restart the game to fix.
– Real player with 38.7 hrs in game
Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition
Dragon Age: Origins is a God-Tier RPG. However I like to elaborate on my reviews, and so let me elaborate. I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but please note that I might let a couple things slip.
Now as a prelude, I’ll cover the gameplay, graphics and mechanics. Personally in RPGs this matters so little to me. I still play Fallout 2 and enjoy the hell out of KOTOR and Mass Effect. But…lets be real here. They suck. The graphics are…okay-ish? The gameplay has the pacing of tetris and the mechanics are just…old. None of it is fast paced nor are there any really cool abilities looks-wise. None of this is important to me, in fact, its clunkiness brings out a personal enjoyment. But yeah…its definitely really aged. It would also be remiss of me not to mention the fact that the game is ancient, and therefore crashes on newer PCs. About once an hour for me personally. Now I was able to fix it by way of a guide a while back, but going into it expect performance to be less than stellar. Now onto the meat.
– Real player with 182.8 hrs in game
❤ Audience ❤
☑ Beginner
☑ Casual
☑ Hardcore
☼ Graphics ☼
☐ Bad
☑ Alright
☐ Good
☐ Beautiful
☐ Fantastic
♬ Music ♬
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☐ Beautiful
☑ Fantastic
☠ Difficulty ☠
☐ Easy
☑ Average
☐ Challenging
☐ Hard
☐ Brutal
§ Bugs §
☐ Bugs make the game almost unplayable
☐ Lots of bugs
☑ Few bugs
☐ Insignificant or contains humorous glitches
☐ None encountered during normal gameplay
☯ Story ☯
☐ There is none
☐ Bad
☐ Alright
☐ Good
☑ Fantastic
⚔ Gameplay ⚔
☐ Frustrating
☐ Repetitive
☐ Boring
– Real player with 170.9 hrs in game
Iron Vulture
Features:
- Command 6 unique soldiers. Defend and hold the line at all costs!
Command your squad in real-time combat, covering each other while moving across lanes to eliminate enemies.
- Use unique abilities to turn the tide of the battle.
Every soldier has a unique fighting style. Take advantage of their specialties and turn the tide of the battle.
- Battle 30+ enemies.Engage in Epic Boss fights.
Face over 30 monsters, and fight giant bosses in epic battles. Every monster has its own unique abilities.
- Upgrade and customization.Create your own playstyle
Utilize the talent tree, tactical chips, and cooking system to customize your soldiers and squad, creating your own playstyle.