Sacred Fire: A Role Playing Game
Where to start?
I do not write many recommendations (almost never), but this game deserves one.
Please ignore all and any negative rating, because this is a game in it’s early days.
ABOUT THE GAME:
This game is one of a kind. As a gamer that focus on RPG genre I would say this is an untold gem.
The creator of the game created a wonderful world, with an exciting story line, interesting characters, and what most amazing are the real world and life choices you have to make.
Unlike other games which focus on loot, leveling up, etc.. THIS game focus on the spirituality and morality of one’s very soul. You are faced with choices that sometimes leave you breathless as there is no good choice. Other times, you will make a choice and the way things unfold will surprise you in disbelief.
– Real player with 59.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Singleplayer Narrative Games.
TL;DR - Clunky UI and Easily manipulated dialog/combat check system. Too many statistics that have no discernible impact on game-play. Good story telling and choices actually matter.
So far I’ve played this game a bit, I’ve gotten through the content for the first act relatively quickly. Take your time with the choices you make and think carefully about them as they WILL affect the rest of your play-through. Some choices completely change what story elements you see and will entirely remove various story branches. You character does not have plot armor, you can and will die if you make stupid choices.
– Real player with 6.7 hrs in game
Shinobi no Okite/The three female ninjas
I only found out about this game because I searched on Google for the name “Panther Software” – developers of obscure games like Space Griffon VF-9 for the original PlayStation and Metal Dungeon for the original XBox – and I found out that they released this game on Steam. I mean, I believe it’s the same Panther Software, but after playing this game, it’s hard to tell.
Shinobi no Okite is a Qix clone. It’s basically an action-puzzle game where you move your character around the screen and draw lines that will, slowly, uncover a picture. Reach the required percentage in each stage and you can advance to the next. Easy enough to understand, but hard to master. As far as I know, this is the only Qix-style game on steam with controller support, both digital and analog. Since it’s dirty cheap, I didn’t have much to lose.
– Real player with 6.2 hrs in game
After more than seven months, nobody has posted a review for this game? Talk about unusual. In any event, I posted a video with a full overview here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6ngbt4xtck
To summarize, this game is one part history lesson, one part advertisement (on why to visit Japan) and one part mediocre “Qix” clone, and is incredibly Indie/Doujin in just about every way. If you’re not familiar with 1981’s “Qix”, the basic idea is that you move around a perimeter (most often a square or rectangle) and “draw or cut” a portion of it out to reveal an image until you’ve revealed the majority of it while utilizing power-ups and avoiding enemies / obstacles. There are subtle differences between the various Qix-esque games, but they are mostly the same at their core and most of them are better offerings than this (some examples include “Battle Qix”, “Dancing Eyes”, “Cacoma Knight”, “Gals Panic”, the Doujin “Gal Pani X”, etc.).
– Real player with 4.5 hrs in game
NOBUNAGA’S AMBITION: Sphere of Influence
Writing a review for Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sphere Of Influence is going to be tough the game is truly amazing. please dont let my hour’s make you think differently of my review, I played this game quite a bit offline when I had no net where I played it at times, anyway lets get down to business!
Nobunaga’s Ambition: Sphere Of Influence is an historical strategy simulator game, where its based of of the warring states of feudal Japan the Sengoku era that was between 1467-1615 when the last of the Toyotomi oposing the Tokugawa shogunate was finally defeated.
– Real player with 154.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Singleplayer Grand Strategy Games.
As someone who was just a wee lad playing on his NES when the first Nobunaga’s Ambition hit the US, I was definitely turned on when they announced the 30th anniversary edition. The story of the Warring States Period is a crazy part of world history, not just Japanese history, and SOI adds infinitely more flair and backstory to this than previous editions of the game.
The game’s combat has some similar elements to Total War: Shogun, but there’s more art to it and fewer technical options available for directing your armies… The personalities in this game are more important, and your generals and their special talents can make or break you in a tough situation. The game has stronger RPG elements in developing their individual traits that can turn them into some serious powerhouses on the battlefield.
– Real player with 106.4 hrs in game
Svoboda 1945: Liberation
Svoboda 1945: Liberation was created by Charles Games in collaboration with the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. It blends fiction and historical accuracy and uses a diverse range of gameplay and storytelling techniques to recount experiences in Svoboda, a village near the Czech-German border during and after WWII.
The game includes historical documents, photographs, video footage and an encyclopedia that ground the stories in reality making the often harrowing accounts all the more emotive. In addition to the various real elements and factual information, the game also uses a mix of fictional aspects such as FMV video clips and conversations, explorable scenes, animated comic strips and mini-games to deliver the narratives.
– Real player with 5.0 hrs in game
Svoboda 1945: Liberation is the newest game to come from Czech developers, Charles Games. Following the critical success of Attentat 1942, the developers continue to convey history in innovative and engaging methods. Integrating FMV interviews, minigames, comic-style scenes and an abundance of factual documents to read, the game was fascinating from start to finish.
Pros
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Varied gameplay and minigames throughout.
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Immense collection of factual documents to read (optional).
– Real player with 3.8 hrs in game
American Conquest: Fight Back
I remember playing this game a long time ago, when I was a kid. I really enjoyed it back in those days and I still do now. When I was younger, I almost exclusively played random skirmish maps since I did not always fully understand the mission objectives in the campaigns.
After some years I picked it up again and I decided to finally give the campaigns a try. After completing all the campaigns and some of the extra missions and battlefields, I feel the time has come to express my thouhts in a short review.
– Real player with 436.6 hrs in game
After feeling the old times again, I thought i help the interested people with this review, a bit out.
Alright let’s begin with the basic informations about this game.
American Conquest: Fight Back is the standalone add-on for the “American Conquest” the RTS succesor in year 2002. (Fight Back was published one year later [2003]). The Ukrain developer “GSC Game World” (Who also developed the famous Cossacks games) set a great step towards the massive fights in RTS games, we currently play. With a limit of around 16.000 Units on the map, a big step was made.
– Real player with 112.0 hrs in game
American Conquest
When it comes to strategy games, this is probably one of the best you can find. For its time the graphics and gameplay are amazing. The different civilizations you can play require different kinds of skill levels. Though it can sometimes feel like the game is a bit unbalanced. (Britons fight with guns and mounted musketeers, Aztecs fight with bows and spears). By having the opportunity to mass up a huge army of spearmen as a native American against a Briton that can only have a limited amount of musketeers, you can still fight quite a fair battle. The campaigns are also really well made. The maps look absolutely beautiful and the kind of strategy you’ll have to apply to each campaign can get you some more variety than just a random map game. There’s definitely plenty of stuff left for you to find out when you’ll start playing this game. You’re going to love it if you’re into strategy games (like me ^^).
– Real player with 94.7 hrs in game
American Conquest!
American Conquest. Back when it first showed up around 2003; I was quite young and I didn’t understand “strategy” games but somehow this game kept me playing it, if It was the campaign or fighting against the A.i and even on the editor mode. I never made maps, I just spawned Units and played for hours and hours on end
Skip to a few years later(this year) I’ve came back to love this little game again after all this time.
Playing the Campagin is all fun and it helps you get used to the controls and different units. Options are there for you to change your mouse and scroll speeds and the Game/Music volume sliders are serviceable but has no options for re-binding keys.
– Real player with 72.1 hrs in game
Cossacks: European Wars
BEFORE YOU BUY THIS GAME THERE ARE KNOWN PROBLEMS WITH PERFORMANCE, YOU SHOULD LOOK AROUND THE WEB FOR SOLUTIONS IF YOU HAVE THEM YOURSELF
Once I managed to get the game working it was great to re-live the experience of playing one of the best RTS games I know of, nice graphics and simple enough to pick it up, though with some bugs in the game that the programmers never corrected. Cossacks European Wars is great for 1-2 hour sessions, the campaign is pretty tedious and unforgiving however, a simple mistake or a bug from the game could cost you the entire match (Though they do give you the option to load and save whenever you want). It’s great to build up your colony with peasents, extract resources, form a big army (Building one of these asap is crucial for defending your small village so it can grow into a major threat to the enemy) and it’s a great historical game that can really teach you about the many facts about wars in the past couple of hundred years, the strategies they used and what each nation looked like back then.
– Real player with 395.3 hrs in game
Much like Shogun 1, there was nothing quite like Cossacks when it first came out. An RTS in the age of pike and shot (still an EXTREMELY rare setting for games) where you could have literally thousands of troops on the field. I played this one a ton because it was so much more interesting and different than anything I had played before it. I don’t even think I ever got into the single-player campaigns of this games, too wrapped up as I was in setting up random matches with the AI and engaging in great battles.
– Real player with 50.7 hrs in game
Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars
Despite all of this disappontment by small maps and less number of features, on which complains fans to, i am enjoyed by this game. It is real hardcore strategy where skirmish battle may continue for a two hours and more on easy mode. Because computer uses skilful tactics and advantages of landscape. Because you must think about resorces constantly: in any moment you may deplete gunpowder and your brave infantry will be beaten. Many fans moans about graphic, it look good for 2D nonetheless and game have perfect animations, especially of reloading infantry weapons - it is awesome
– Real player with 11.6 hrs in game
About all the negative commentars, I would say one thing, thats right! THANK yOU STEAM FOR SUCH A GIFT… . It was a buggy game on a CD and on the Steam its the biggest crap. The game doesnt have the internet server anymore. Skirmish: the combination by Russian (I played) vs England is broken. They are friendly, and you cannot attack them ._. Well at least the campagn doesnt work: first mission ok, second, The game says no ^^. The game crash, and after you try to get in again, your saves are all lost. Well 10 point for such a full game. No seriesly patch that online button out, and dont give the players the game-codes, or even dont sell it^^.
– Real player with 11.5 hrs in game
Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come
This game is reallny bullshit doesn’t work correctly on Windows 10. Game was really good on Windows XP but the troops has came from the fantastic world simillar like a Lord of the ring not XI century definitivly.
– Real player with 28.7 hrs in game
A great surprise by a unknown developer. I bought this game through a Christmas sale one year but didn’t play it right away. I finally got around to playing this and I’m extremely glad I did. It’s a solid game and it doesn’t try to be more than what it is, a great RTS. I thoroughly enjoy the time period in which this takes place and the true history behind the story within the game. It plays really well and I never once had any issues with crashes or glitches. I did also enjoy the option to restart a mission without a penalty against me. I actually “cheated” a little in this game to earn extra gold at the beginning of each mission (editing the .sav file through a hex editor). Even with doing this I fould the game still very challenging but very rewarding. The last mission was diffcult but I feel it really capped off the game well. It was what your army was fighting for throughout the game and it was a very satisfying end to a solid game.
– Real player with 27.7 hrs in game
Dark Renaissance
From the Author of the best-selling Medici series Matteo Strukul, comes a new exciting Interactive History Drama, pushing the boundaries of video game storytelling and narrative depth.
Dark Renaissance is an adventure game with RPG elements and a compelling and dramatic story, true to historical events, characters and places of the 15th century.
Embark on a journey through key places of the Renaissance world, from Italy to China, going through the fascinating lands of the Middle East and Transylvania. Lend your sword to Lorenzo de' Medici and fight formidable enemies, such as the cunning Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, the treacherous Anguana and the impetuous Duke Ercole d’Este.
In a land of immense Beauty and ageless mysticism, where families of ruthless powermongers wage battle through generations, the mother of all wars is bound to happen.
In the heart of Firenze, Italy’s cradle of culture and art, Lorenzo il Magnifico, heir to the Medici Family, sits on his throne of riches. After having conquered the economic power of Italy, the Lord of Florence senses a new threat coming, meant to jeopardize his ruler’s status quo. With its power and financial establishment at a stake, The Magnificent must recur to the most legendary soldier on the battlefield: Marco Badoer, a tormented Capitano di Ventura who survived the twilight of Middle Ages to be born again in an age of discovery and wonder.
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The darkest and grittiest Renaissance epic ever built in a game.
Discover the story of Marco Badoer, one of the last knights of the famed Ordo Draconis, a chivalry order so bloodthirsty that counted Vlad the Impaler himself among its ranks.
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Meet the rockstars of Italian Renaissance.
From Lorenzo de' Medici to Leonardo da Vinci, you will walk on the shoulder of giants and explore world-famous landmarks such as Venice and Florence. But be wary: ancient pagan magic, Eastern mysticism and occult knowledge will drag you into the darkest corners of human mind.
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Countless options for roleplaying.
Shape your path through nuanced branches in an intricate web of political conspiracies and moral dilemmas. Will you unleash your vengeful primal self? Or you’ll rather stay balanced as a monk through wise decisions? The choice is yours.
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The art of War.
Choose among several weapons of the time, face your enemies in strategic duels and lead your troops in open field battles. Get ready to become a strategist, thanks to unique staged combat sequences blending opera and brutal RPG action.
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Sex, drugs and gambling.
From the opium-filled hammam of Constantinople, to the alcova of the most beautiful courtesans in Florence, the darker side of European history will unveil in front of your eyes, while a romance and social linking system will let you decide to desecrate your body as much as you wish.
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Enjoy high-class Renaissance living.
Behold the beauty of Italy in all of its splendor during the Main Quest, and kick back with a glass of wine at Villa del Drago, home to Marco Badoer. To transform this old house in a luxurious mansion, filled with fine Tuscany spirits and tasty food, it’s up to you, thanks to the currency and historical accurate card games.
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A political manifesto from the past.
After condemning the horrors of totalitarianism and datacracy in the award-winning Dry Drowning, Studio V goes back to its roots, to push again the boundaries of philosophical and political discourse in gaming. Swept under the rug of a beautiful world, tales of corruption, violence and dirty money await for the player to be discovered.
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Original soundtrack.
An original symphonic score by the award-winning composer David Logan, mixing and matching ancient and modern styles.