The Banner Saga
Fantastically well done story and presentation, but one of the most AWFUL gameplay designs imagineable.
Story+Dialogue: 9/10
Presentation: 10/10
Gameplay: 5/10
The banner saga tells the epic tale of individuals fighting for survival in a dying world that dead Gods no longer watch over.
The story was great, interesting characters, dramatic plot twists, and serious consequences you wont see coming.
Your choices DO matter. And while watching the overworld slowly crumble under the pressure of enemies, there are many fun choices you’ll make.
– Real player with 34.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Strategy Games.
I have mixed opinions about The Banner Saga, but I’m still very happy to have played it. Most of the time, when I find games to be surprisingly brief, it’s generally to their benefit. However, this is one title where I felt like it ended before it could really shine. I’m appreciative that it didn’t drag itself out, but at the same time it’s always a bit jarring when the end credits sneak up on you.
The Banner saga is some weird mesh of grid based strategy rpg (Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre, FFT/A) and…the Oregon trail. And Vikings (or something resembling Vikings). However, only the first part of that hybrid combination does the game feel polished, gameplay wise. The game’s most notable feature when it comes to the primary battle engagements is the Armor/Strength duality, as well as Willpower and Exertion mechanics. In order to deal a lot of damage to most enemies, especially Dredge, you first have to spend time working down their armor instead of trying to outright lower their health to zero. This is only a small wrinkle to the normal rpg standby, but it is implemented well enough to have two interesting results. One, it creates some very real consequential moments where you’ve got a unit able to do decent armor or strength damage and you can’t be certain whether you should really strip the armor down further or if you should take a chunk out of the enemy health so that they might be finished off sooner. Secondly, it creates much needed class specialization where certain units are much more adept at stripping armor while others are better set finishing weakened foes. The game then allows you to use some basic accessory-equipment to either further specialize (giving an armor-break boosting equipment to someone already well equiped to break armor) or to make certain units more versatile. One thing that I suppose I wasn’t used to is that the class-roles are specified and listed on the heroes pages, but they still don’t seem as iron-clad or strict as those in games such as the Japanese srpgs I listed earlier (where the class given to a unit is much more defining). I couldn’t tell you which units were which class off of the top of my head, only what each given unit was good at performing in battle. I suppose it feels a bit more organic this way.
– Real player with 33.6 hrs in game
Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition
This game fires on all cylinders. Combat is fun, Exploration is rewarding, Story is interesting, Humor is amusing. If you like rpgs and using your brain I can’t understand how you haven’t already played this game.
– Real player with 203.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based Co-op Games.
A really great game if you love RPG. It is really complex and challenging. It also provide you with flexibility to finish the game, be it flexibility to develop characters, freedom to completing quests and puzzles through various ways, and also variety of combos to kill your opponents in battles.
Storytelling is good. The best part is the quest design, especially the early main quest in Act 1. Several mid-end game side quest will be boring but the main quest overall is still fascinating. I also love the humor in the dialogues and character interactions.
– Real player with 171.1 hrs in game
Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars
Voice of Cards was a game I was either grinning at or holding back tears with. All your party members are, as the narrator puts it, colorful characters, and they get to express their personalities frequently through the random events you bump into while traveling. Who will you choose to break down this door? The big muscle guy is the obvious choice, but maybe you should ask the magician… basically, it’s fun to pick the wrong answer, and you’re never really punished for it. Much!
Gameplay is a lot more straightforward than you might think, with the tabletop/card aesthetic the game has going on. Anyone familiar with typical turn-based RPGs will be fine, and it’s not a terribly difficult game to begin with. This is your cue to pick your favorites and just do whatever!
– Real player with 31.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Turn-Based JRPG Games.
When I picked this game up I was expecting another wild ride from Yoko-taro; This is not that. I am fairly certain that Square Enix just slapped his name all over the marketing for this game as a marketing ploy, and it sure got me.
However, it is a nice experience in it’s own right. Maybe not worth 30 dollars/euro/whatever, but servicable for what it is. I found myself having a good time, enjoying the gameplay and characters.
The game shines in characters and their dynamics together. The mix of main characters make up a fairly unique roster, from the money-driven self proclaimed “hero” to the muscle-man nutritionist, you’ll be hard pressed to find a character you don’t like. The character writing at work here is definitely up to square enix standards!
– Real player with 25.6 hrs in game
Expeditions: Viking
STORY
Good. Is well written and very immersive. I always wanted to know what is going to happen next. I don’t know if is historically accurate but it feels so. There is at least three ways to beat up the game: gaining wealth as trader, gaining support of a powerful ally or impose the Danish law (kill, burn and pillage) which gives you replayability. The only fantastic thing is the game so you won’t fight against orcs or elves and you won’t use magic missiles and fireballs. Your choices matter and will greatly influence the way you will walk the story, the factions attitude toward you and if some joinable characters will leave or not the party.
– Real player with 158.5 hrs in game
This is probably my favorite game of all times, and I’ll definitly be honest and say I have a bias towards Vikings and the setting, that’s not why it is my favorite game of all time(though it’s a great bonus, no question!). I’ll split things into sections to make it easier to read:
Map\Travel\Exploration
The game is an isometric turnbased RPG, you travel between locations on a world map, and in\on the locations you have a local area to run around in, Like in Fallout, Wasteland, etc. Unlike Fallout there are no random encounters, but instead random events(often bad, but sometimes good), where you are given some sort of decision to handle(when sailing it could be a companion falling off the boat, or a storm closing in etc, dependant on your ship and resources depends on the effects that’ll happen and what decisions are avalible).
– Real player with 130.1 hrs in game
Lords of Xulima
Polished, entertaining game. Played through it straight twice, and I can see myself playing through it again in the future.
I could list some pro’s and con’s or repeat what others have already said, but instead I will highlight a few points which may clarify some of the mixed points you will see in other reviews. The purpose, I hope, is to help potential buyers in figuring out the perspective from which other reviewers are coming from.
1. The game is “linear” in that you are expected to go a certain path on the game world, but the path is not in a straight line. This will throw off some players who are used to the typical themepark RPG set-up where the game holds your hand on how to get to the next area.
– Real player with 606.1 hrs in game
Lords of Xulima is the game I have invested the most time into on Steam, so I kind of have to recommend it. But that recommendation come withs a lot of caveats.
I’ll start with the reasons why my playtime is so large. One simple reason is that this is a pretty long game. Depending on difficulty, dying and how much you save-scum, I’d estimate 50 to 100 hours to beat the game. The fact that I suffered a number of crashes, losing progress, extended that further. If you want to try out all the character classes available, you’ll need to play at least twice; I actually ended up finishing the game three times to 100% it.
– Real player with 398.9 hrs in game
Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Edition
I can describe Knights of Pen and Paper as a Dungeons & Dragons simulator instead of your typical RPG. There is no exploration or movement. It is all menu and dialog based. The map is pretty segmented like a Mario map and there are not maps so much as there are quests. These quests revolve around typical and simplified RPG turn based combat. The catch is you also play your own dungeon master, so you can select your enemies to fight and how many you will fight. Its as if you’re making your own busy work. The classes feel balanced, but the battles begin feel too long for the never ending grind that this game becomes. Unless you want to spend real money to buy in game gold.
– Real player with 51.7 hrs in game
Firstly I will tell you this game is a mobile port.Second it has a microtransaction of buying ingame gold for cash,but you never and I mean never need to use it.There are plenty of items ingame that increase the amount of gold you get dropped that have other stats to them.Now to the review.
Short Review:
Game has classes you can swap in and out,skills that you can level individually,upgradeable class locked weapons/armor and plenty of item accessories and consumables.The game has pop culture reference comedy all throughout it,hardly any variation in quest types and is grindy since you only turn-base fight your way through each situation for the most part.Plenty of boss fights in the game,no puzzles, and a small learning curve on how to handle things. Uses dice roll to determine things such as crafting chance,battles,etc.
– Real player with 45.9 hrs in game
Septerra Core
Note: Considering Septerra Core is my Favorite Game, my opinion may be biased.
But first the issues with the Steam version:
-It is the 1.02 version, you need to download version 1.04 or the GOG version that fixes dialogue skipping, but has a few delays with a few combat sounds.
-The Videos don’t work, unless you have a QuickTime 6 or below and you run it on XP compatibility. Sometimes that will not work either and have to search the internet for additional help.
-There is a Spell: Destroyer(Chaos+Law) that may crash the Game, usually on bosses.
– Real player with 130.1 hrs in game
This 1999 RPG is a good buy, but it is not without it’s flaws. If you are into Final Fantasy 7, or the Fallout series, you will enjoy the story of this game as it is very similar.
First the story: It’s very well polished. There are seven “shells” (hence the prefix sept), with each shell being at a different position relative to the hot core in the center of the planet. The inhabitants of shell 1 (the Chosen) believe they are trying to save the world when they just want to use the powers for their own ends. In this game, saving the world means aligning the shells so that the world is stable. But a lady on shell 2 (the protaginist named Maya) is aware of the dangers the abuse of power is bringing to her town, Oasis is sets off on a journey to stop this madness.
– Real player with 88.0 hrs in game
The Bard’s Tale IV: Director’s Cut
Great fun! If you liked Legend of Grimrock 2 I would say this is a must buy, it’s a puzzle-heavy RPG but the movement is smooth, (grid-based movement can be enabled for those who prefer that), and the combat is turn-based and somewhat tactical, and is very entertaining once you get the hang of it and have acquired more types of attacks, spells, and songs. Some combats are puzzle-like and may require to to re-equip or swap abilities beforehand-this can turn an impossible fight into a much easier one at times, as the game itself reminds you. It has a fair amount of flavor of the original Bard’s Tale series in terms of lore, street names, the prominence of the bard class, boss enemies, some locations, and interstitial scenes. Strong Celtic feeling throughout.
– Real player with 130.2 hrs in game
120+ hours of weekend play over the past few months and I finally completed the game. I think my Adventures began back in April, 2020. I wanted to play this game back when it first came out, but I was reluctant to do so because of the nasty reviews I read about it online. I usually do not let outside opinions sway my decisions but I have a soft spot in my gaming heart for this series, the Wasteland one too, and I didn’t want my childhood memory of games done right to be upset by a potential premature release. When the rumors that a Director’s Cut was going to be launched, I was happy to see InXile continued to polish the game and add new challenges/rewards. Going into this (my first) play-through of the fourth chapter in the Bard’s Tale legacy, I decided I would play as the InXile created Bard to play the story the way they intended me to.
– Real player with 126.8 hrs in game
Might & Magic X - Legacy
This game has pro’s greatly outweighing the con’s and is worth even the full price (strongly recommend the Deluxe version including the genuinely great Might and Magic VI game). There is considerable depth and rewards from exploration, party play and skillful tactics to make the game enjoyable and (if the first “Con” is solved first) well worth it.
The story diverges from the other MM games and was made to kowtow to the MM Heroes games. It is neither interesting nor fun.
Cons:
Playing, even after purchasing on Steam, requires UPLAY and a Ubisoft account. Players have had numerous problems with this and 90% of the complaints are entirely based on this. Those complaints are valid. I recently read the riot act to one of the Ubisoft developers who viisited the forum for this game, making it clear that players require this to at least be seamless. I recommend opening a Ubisoft and Uplay account first, then, succeeding with that consider purchasing the game on Steam.
– Real player with 796.4 hrs in game
Summary: Modernized retro dungeon crawler
Multiplayer: No
Completion: 90 hrs
Cards: No
Cloud: No
Windows Save Location: Drive:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\savegames[random string]\403
Might and Magic X is a square-grid-based, turn-based dungeon crawler that exudes a strong classic vibe. While it’s the tenth entry into the series, this is the first (and possibly last?) main game produced by Ubisoft since its acquisition from 3DO. MMX takes place in Ubisoft’s world of Ashan, which started with Heroes V. All the sci-fi elements are still vacant, resulting in a typical fantasy setting, with a standard story to match. Perhaps to capitalize on nostalgia, this game brings back numerous names and references from previous games in the franchise, but as far as I can tell, they are connected in name only. For instance, you may see a quest to bring a young royal to a circus as a nod to MM6, but then the quest is jokingly removed.
– Real player with 372.3 hrs in game
Blackguards
Blackguards is the 3rd Dark Eye game Daedalic has released (I believe they also recently released a Blakguards 2 which would be their 4th). The series is based on the German Table-Top RPG game ‘The Dark Eye’. Their first Dark Eye game was ‘The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav’ followed by ‘Memoria’. Those two games were directly part of the same story line. This game is not a continuation of that story line. I have yet to finish this game but have not currently found much of anything that ties it together with the other games. The first 2 Dark Eye games were point & click adventure/puzzle games. This one is a turn based RPG.
– Real player with 183.2 hrs in game
Warning : in about 35 years of playing video games, mostly RPGs and tactical games, this is one of the hardest I have ever played. You will fail some fights the first time, as you will have to discover strategies and some “puzzles” so-to-speak (traps on maps, etc.). That said, I always succeeded my second attempt much more easily. There is a sweet Retry button, which makes the pain sting less.
Still, if you do not feel like getting kicked brutally between the legs while playing a game, I really do not recommend you start this game. It is important for your enjoyment and frustration management that you know this in advance.
– Real player with 95.8 hrs in game