Open Sorcery
This is a really interesting and addicting game. The concept of the game itself - an elemental firewall protecting her network, with the possibility to destroy or save the world - is utterly thrilling, and as my first step into this genre, I have to admit, it’s got me hooked. Scouring the game for every option, every possiblity, makes it wonderfully replayable, and I have no shame in admitting that I’ve played this game almost all day doing just that. The puzzles within the game are simple when you understand them, but have a note of complexity to them that makes them brilliant and charming in their own way, and despite being such a short game, each character is personalised and developed in such a way that they’ve stuck with me and are quickly becoming some of my favourite characters going.
– Real player with 25.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best RPG Interactive Fiction Games.
It’s amazing how much personality a colored font and some clever placement can provide to plain text…
Basically, you play as a fire elemental spirit quasi-AI tasked with protecting four locations. The game is broken into game days that involve visiting each of the four locations, solving whatever problems might be in that location on that day.
At first, the game lays on the computer metaphor very heavily, however, it starts to crumble rather quickly, as you, as a supposed program supposedly being kept from showing any signs of emergent AI are given surprisingly free reign to respond to various problems straight out of the gate. The very first (non-tutorial) spirit you meet, you have the option to destroy it on sight, call for backup, or bargain with it to answer riddles to get it to leave peacefully… and the guy overseeing your actions is more concerned about you learning about the concept of “chaos” than the fact that you just did something so clearly outside the parameters of your instruction to start with…
– Real player with 15.3 hrs in game
MARDEK
_MARDEK is my favorite game/series of all time. It is a turn-based RPG in which you play as a group of aspiring adventurers from a small village that get thrown into a world of monsters and magic after a mysterious star crashes down from the sky.
The combat is turn-based, but features a reaction system - you have all the time that you need to plan which skills you want to use, but once you or your opponents make a move, a small icon moves across the bottom of the screen (visible in several of the screenshots on the Store page). If you press the “X” button when the icon is passing over a certain part of the screen, your attacks (if you’re attacking) or defenses (if you’re defending) get a boost. The real-time addition gives combat a unique, more active feel than what one would get from a traditional turned-based playstyle. Over the course of the game, you will get access to new items and skills, including active skills that you choose to use on your turn, passive skills that are always in effect, and reaction skills that give you a bonus when you time your reactions correctly. You will not be able to use all of them simultaneously, so it’s up to you to choose a loadout that you think will serve best for whatever situation you find yourself in._
– Real player with 203.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best RPG Turn-Based Combat Games.
Since there’re dozens of informative reviews out there, I’ll just share a few of my favorite moments from the game. Some genuinely make me wonder: Was this really written by a teenager? ^^_
Sslen’ck
I find this concept of ‘gender’ the most droll of all. It ssseemsss to colour almossst all of your interactionsss, based on whether the ‘gender’ of each conversing party differsss or isss the sssame… I notice you persssonally have difficulty talking to the… what wasss it, ‘fee nail’ onesss?
– Real player with 152.8 hrs in game
Shigatari
Shigatari is a FTL-esque pseudo-roguelike game set in feudal Japan. You begin with two unlocked characters out of ten: a male and female wanderer, starting dialogue to contextualize their backstory, and seven regions of Japan to explore thereafter. Each of these regions take you through the brilliant ukiyo-e illustrations that this game has to offer; its aesthetic appeal is certainly one of its main selling points. While the dialogue consists of several typos and roleplaying related issues, your options aren’t terrible and they shape your character - and in turn: shape their surroundings. I wasn’t entirely impressed with the dialogue in this game - this isn’t its selling point, I should stress - save for the occasional insight into ronin or samurai philosophy. Combat in Shigatari is surprisingly intricate, and necessarily so, as this is where you will likely spend most of your time. The imagery that Shigatari’s combat evokes, moreover, goes above and beyond any combat system that I’ve come across in this genre. Minus its legacy system, which bestows blessings from previous character deaths, I recommend Shigatari for those interested in Japanese art, or those interested in the direction a (potentially more successful) samurai-themed, pseudo-roguelike can take.
– Real player with 58.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best RPG Roguelike Games.
Shigatari is a rogue-lite game set in late-feudal Japan. Here you pick your hero from a selection of adventurers with various backgrounds - from a generic wanderer to a young noblewoman, or even a european foreigner, and lead them on their quest to defeat seven great sword masters.
The game has three core mechanics: dialogue, map movement, and combat. The dialogue system is straightforward, with a funny quirk: you can say “Die” and engage in combat in almost any encounter, be it a humble tailor or a group of well-armed warriors of the local government. For a good example of an “always-say-die” run, refer to the game’s trailer - simple words fail to describe it. And while being tons of fun, it’s a viable strategy too, and is also a way to unlock one of the characters. There are other surprises too: some actions you perform may be MOST DISHONORABLE, and after a while you’ll have a good guess of what’s honorable in samurai’s ethics and what’s not. Postpone the seppuku, though, unless you’re in a mood for immersive role-playing - the debuff from DISHONESTY is not that bad. And be careful around supernatural beings!
– Real player with 38.6 hrs in game
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling
Paper Mario 64 and The Thousand-Year Door are touted as some of the best RPGs of all time. It’s no shock - from the musical and graphical style, to the battle and medal mechanics, and more - that Bug Fables is hugely inspired by the good Paper Mario games that series fans yearn for.
However, Bug Fables is not merely some Paper Mario clone, nor merely some game inspired by it.
It is a game which also takes the 20 years of foresight into the flaws of Paper Mario’s formula, and manages to overwhelmingly supercede its predecessor, forging its own unique identity.
– Real player with 65.5 hrs in game
I absolutely adore this game!
I have played a lot of Paper Mario way back and I have also, sadly, played a bit of the later ones. They suck. I didn’t even get through half of Origami King before I sold it of.
But this game really hits all the spots! It’s a delight to play and it is very cheap for what you get out of it. If the devs make another “paper-game”, I will be there at release to get a copy as fast as possible.
10/10, will play again
– Real player with 64.5 hrs in game
Voidspire Tactics
So, it’s been nearly 24 hours since I finished my first play through and all I’ll really wanted to do since then was play it through again. To put it simply, it is an extremely good game and it is an extremely good tactics RPG. The devs really get what makes a good RPG in general; lots of customization, rewarding progression, interesting and useful gear/loot, fun and deep battle mechanics and an interesting narrative. This gets full stars/points/whatevers on all of those in my opinion, if there’s any flaw it’s that I just wanted more, but that being said it was about 4 times longer than I expected (I think my 1 play through was around 30 hours? Crazy for an indie RPG without grind bloat).
– Real player with 42.1 hrs in game
So for the short Version…..
I am going to start of this review by saying CONGRATS! You are now one step closer to unearthing the next indie gem in your steam collection. If the numbers I have seen on steamdb today are to be believed you are one of only a relative few that have been lucky enough to do so. This game is good buy it.
And the rest of the story……
I confess the reason I initially turned my nose up at this title was the asking price vs. the graphics shown in the screenshots. My gut reaction was this was going to be another “proud” indie developed game with alot of heart and not enough direction or triple AAA gloss to cover up the imperfections. Well I was wrong.
– Real player with 36.1 hrs in game
A Study in Steampunk: Choice by Gaslight
This is an amazingly good book. Not just a game, it’s a good book. This is very well written not just as a book but as a game. Every choice you make actually does count. Branching storyline aside, every choice helps you build a character that feels very organic.
It’s also strikingly accurate to the period without boring you to death with the details. The usual choices of sexuality are less prevelent in the more descrtionary aditudes of the Victrian-esque setting. And you can’t be a woman or chose your background, likely because this is a setting where women are bared from a good number of things. Whether your character is okay with such things is up to you. As is whether you try to change them.
– Real player with 99.5 hrs in game
Of all the “Choice of” games I’ve played this one has to be my favorite. While it draws inspiration from classic tales, it succesfully weaves in creative and original storylines that keep you hooked. I usually just do a single playthrough of a game and go back to quickly change my choices and skim through the different outcomes, but I actually felt compelled to take my time and enjoyed replaying Choice by Gaslight. The characters feel real and their personalities and views make them enjoyable to interact with. They’re people and have certain opinions set in stone, but they aren’t as prone to flipping out on you if you do one thing wrong like a lot of the other games seem to do. The author was thoughtful enough to give you a whole list of dialogue options to choose from so you don’t feel as penciled in or as forced into a strong opinion when you mean to be moderate like many other Choice Of games often do. The characters and story as easy to get invested in and fall in love with (i don’t want to admit how many times i’ve replayed this to re-romance one character cough Alexandra cough) and the game gives you many chances to develop your MC. It also, thankfully, has opportunities to save your progress as the end of each act. It’s a shame that they gender-lock your MC and have no character relationship meter like some other Choice Of games have, but I can’t recommend this game enough and only pray that there’s hopefully a sequel for it someday.
– Real player with 52.1 hrs in game
Doom & Destiny
What can I say about Doom & Destiny?!
I think everything has already been told about this masterpiece!
We have a classic JRPG which takes a lot from Final Fantasy VI and similar games for what concerns graphics and gameplay (turn-based system, no ATB but fixed turns depending on stats etc.), but with an hilarious plot and literally fun on every single different screen you’ll walk into.
The soundtrack is definitely nice too!
Lots of humour and lots of references to any kind of game or franchise (and pop culture!) you can imagine! It’s really a lot of fun to find out every single reference!
– Real player with 65.3 hrs in game
I’m a bit surprised I liked this game as much as I did. I was a bit put off by the developer constantly adding “please review this game” NPCs in EVERY SINGLE TOWN. It’s like I’ll review it when I damn well feel like it. You really don’t need to badger the player to review your game while playing your game, especially if you actually paid for the game. It really left a bad taste in my mouth and its wholly unnecessary.
Getting past that this game is fun. The developer definitely made use of all the RPG Maker sprites and the writing was decent. I like it when a gmae doesn’t take itself too seriously. I also enjoyed a few of those “did you know?” random facts littered around the first town. Characters are pretty shallow and honestly I just remember them as red, blue, green and yellow. It was chock full of crass humor, game and anime references.
– Real player with 40.9 hrs in game
Tin Star
Really great game loved every minutes of it. Played it twice taking absolute opposite path and it was very fun both time, second walkthrough allowed me to learn much more about the “bad guys”, the game is not black or white it’s a lot of grey and this is very enjoyable as it adds depth to characters. I really liked how i had all possibilities i could think of in choices especially when it comes to betrayal, infiltration, extortion… The game was well written, some description were a bit tough english not being my first language but overall it was a really easy game to read and very fun to play.
– Real player with 36.1 hrs in game
Easily my favorite text-based game I’ve played (admittedly, a low bar to clear, since they are so few and far between.)
The story is remarkably multi-faceted. Chapters really do change their flow depending on what choices you make, however, each playthrough will hit the same narrative beats. To put it in a better way, i’s a bit like Mass Effect, in the sense that your choices do shape the flow of the story in between the major, “locked-in” points in the narrative. Companions can also die/try to kill you depending on your actions and stance with each of them throughout critical points in the story. My lover in one playthrough tried to kill me in the next, on account of my earlier, different choices that I made.
– Real player with 29.5 hrs in game
The Wind and Wilting Blossom
To provide some context for this review: I discovered the game a day before release, bought it on release, and am still playing it. I am a long time gamer with a particular fondness for turn based strategy and turn based RPG games of all sorts. To give you an idea of just how old a gamer I am- I started playing not long after the first personal computers (i.e. the Apple II and early IBM models) first arrived on the market, in the early to mid-1980’s. I played SSI’s turn based games (including Panzer General, Fantasy General, and the Warhammer 40K-themed Rites of War) when that company was still around . Also played the first 2 Fallout games when they first came out and the first Wasteland game (late 1980’s) upon its release. Jagged Alliance 1 and 2, the original X-Com, Terror from the Deep, the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale series, and the more recent X-Com games are among my favorite titles. Also enjoyed the first 3 Heroes of Might and Magic games and Disciples 2. I therefore found this game quite suited to my old-school tastes. The following aspects are particularly noteworthy:
– Real player with 402.6 hrs in game
I have found this to be a challenging and fun game with an immersive sense of story and aesthetics.
There are two modes of play, the first of which is the world map where you move from one position on a map to another having random encounters and visiting locations like towns, shrines and hot springs. The other mode is the turn-based combat on hex maps.
The world map adventure tells the story and asks you to manage resources like rations, money, scrolls and more. You will need your resources to level up your party, to use special weapons and to purchase supplies. All the while, a dark mist envelops the land and you’ll have to stay ahead of it or be swarmed by dark creatures.
– Real player with 131.9 hrs in game
Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition
(Review has been modified for the Enhanced Edition which is a huge improvement!)
Are Fell is a solid RPG which happens to be a hybrid of Western and Eastern styles. For example, while the character development and story is strongly Eastern flavored, the stat attribution and non-linear world is very Western.
Let’s run down the quality of some of the individual pieces that make this experience.
Characters -
The main cast is relatively likable, if you’ve played something like FFIV then you’ll have an idea what style of development is on display here. We have Lita the main, who is a tomboyish young girl dripping with sarcasm, Adrian, the typical teenage boy who aids Lita in her sarcastic banter, Doren, a quiet and mysterious man of unknown origin, and Seri Kesu, a powerful female sorceress with lots of confidence and a love for alcohol.
– Real player with 74.9 hrs in game
I have played the original and extended versions of this game and it was definitely quite an experience.
There may be some spoilers here and there, just in case.
Compared to the original, the enhanced edition:
++++ The game does not earrape you when you first start the game.
++ Rewards grinding and exploring much more than the original with its new crafting and enchanting systems, as well as relics with varying amounts of utility.
-
Has a revamped skill system.
-
Has slightly more content.
[~]Has a new injury mechanic which makes players more cautious and makes inns and the traveling merchant have a bit of a larger role. Slightly annoying but just deal with it.
– Real player with 35.1 hrs in game