A true gem of a dungeon crawling RPG that calls to mind Final Fantasy (3 and 5 in particular), SaGa, and Wizardry while still having its own identity. Like most games in the genre, the plot is secondary to gameplay, but I was pleasantly surprised at the unexpected turns the story takes as the game progresses; it's minimalist but well-executed.

I particularly enjoyed the progression mechanics. While you have the typical leveling up via experience points accumulated from defeating enemies, the meat of progression comes from three levels of magic orbs that you mostly accrue via exploration and defeating bosses. These magic orbs allow you to unlock both class-specific abilities and general passive bonuses for your party members. This, coupled with sub-classes that you can unlock in the latter half of the game, provides good amount of variety in potential character builds, which will be fun to explore more on replays.

If I had to make one critique, it's that the battle system is perhaps a bit too indebted to some of the aforementioned classics, and while the random encounter rate felt reasonable, I wouldn't mind it getting a bit more experimental in a theoretical future game.

I spent time with both the demo, itch.io and the full game, so while it might not look like I’ve clocked hours but I have.

This game is... weird, in a good way.

Kudos to the devs for building an RPG Maker game that doesn't feel like one. Genuinely didn’t realize it was made in RPG Maker until 4+ hours in — that’s an accomplishment on its own.

The aesthetic hits hard: 8-bit chiptunes, minimalist but effective spritework, and an atmosphere that feels like someone took Final Fantasy 1, polished it with modern hindsight, and sent it back through a time machine. It doesn’t just imitate NES-era RPGs — it improves on them in meaningful ways.

Scarmonde is a turn-based dungeon crawler with real meat on the bone. It’s one of those games that’s “one foot wide, but 100 feet deep.” And in a landscape full of shallow, bloated open-world games, this is refreshing as hell.

The class system is smartly designed, the orb upgrade system adds actual strategy, and there’s an obvious reverence for party-based RPG design. You can tell the devs played the greats and knew what to steal.

But let’s talk about the elephant in the room...

This game grinds hard — and not always in a fun way. Random encounters slow things down significantly, especially when you’re just trying to regen MP or backtrack. No encounter rate options or battle speed toggles which are two QoL features that are practically standard in modern retro-inspired RPGs and very missed here.

Status effects matter in this game — which is both a blessing (adds strategic depth) and a curse (can really slow your roll if you’re not prepared).

The grind wouldn’t be so bad if there were some control over pacing. As it stands, it can turn dungeon runs into slogs.

Despite the friction, I’d still wholeheartedly recommend Scarmonde to fans of old-school JRPGs. If you're the kind of player who wants to min-max, experiment with party builds, and take time navigating tight mechanics, there’s a lot here to love.
It’s dense, thoughtfully designed, and unafraid to be challenging. You just have to be ready for the grind that comes with it.