Recent reviews by dustin1280

This game definitely needs to cook a bit more before it's ready for the masses. Right now I would give it a Thumb to the Side.

The bones of this game are great and it is definitely going to turn into something amazing...

But I would probably wait a month or so to see how much it evolved before you jump in.

• There are model issues (hands overlapping sights of guns)
  
• Enemies can spawn DIRECTLY on top of you
  
• Gunplay leaves a bit to be desired, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of impact on guns, and it's hard to tell if you are actually hitting weak spots or not. Having played a lot more now, gunplay feels good if you make headshots, otherwise it still is rough around the edges.
  
• Enemy AI leaves a LOT to be desired
  
• This game does NOT hold your hand, there is BARELY a tutorial and no quest markers to follow. You have to figure everything out on your own...

I wasn't part of the MMO debacle that happened with this game, but what I can tell you is that this game is a STEAL for the price now. Worth every penny as long as you like ARPG looter games.

It has NUMEROUS progression systems, lots of customization options, great aesthetics (if you like the cartoony fantasy look), and good solid gameplay/combat.

Whatever crap this game was in 2023, it has done a complete 180 at this point and is now a EXCELLENT game well worth the money.

TLDR: If you like ARPG looter games, this game is 100% worth it, maybe a 7/10 with room to hit higher as they evolve the game in early access. If you have friends to play with, it's even better.

For more detailed information about this game, see below:

Story:
This is definitely the weak point of this game, while the story doesn't suck, it doesn't really have anything that makes it special either, this game is PRIMARILY a dungeon crawler with the goal being the loot/progression cycle.

Gameplay
Solid hack and slash combat. 7 Characters in the game, each plays very uniquely from each other and they are divided into archetypes:
Tank, Ranged DPS, Melee DPS

This game does NOT however use the holy trinity, and ANY character can do any role and solo the game on their own. So find the playstyle you enjoy the most and max THAT character.

You can also freely switch to any character (that you have unlocked) at any given time as long as you are not in combat within the same account.

The statistics in this game are:

• Crit Rating -- translates directly into critical hit percentage
  
• Crit Power -- translates into a critical hit modifier
  
• Magic Defense
  
• Physical Defense
  
• HP
  
• Weapon Power - each swing of your weapon is boosted by this
  
• Ability Power - every ability used and all healing is boosted by this
  
  
• Break Power - this is how much damage you do to the enemies "armor" which is described below under resiliency.
  
  
• Resiliency - this is basically player armor, while you have armor you rarely flinch and take reduced damage, once your armor "breaks" you take extra damage and flinch much easier. This bar recharges on its own when not taking damage. Enemies also have armor and get the same benefits from it.

Each character has 4 abilities unique to them + a unique passive.
There are 4 main weapon types in this game, and any character can use any weapon type, those are

• Guns - subdivided into shotguns and rifles
  
• Daggers - dual-wield daggers -- has a parrty option
  
• Sword + Shield - for more defensive oriented playstyle, can block attacks
  
• 2 handed weapons - subdivided into maces, axes, swords, and scythes.

Each specific weapon that exists has it's own unique attack that can only be used when that weapon is equipped.

Finally this game technically has an open world, but the VAST majority of your times will be running instanced dungeons for loot.

Progression/Customization
There are a TON of customization and progression options in this game.
Below is a list of "gear"

• 5 pieces of armor - each piece of armor boosts 2 stats by a certain percentage
  
  
• 3 Accessories - each accessory has 3 stat bonuses on them, and each bonus has a specific affinity associated with it. Most accessories also offer set bonuses (% based boost to stats) based on equipping 2-3 of the same set. Finally each accessory has multiple slots for "echoes"
  
  
• Weapons - Each weapon that exists in this game is unique and scales towards specific stats (usually 6 different stats), as well as offering a unique weapon specific attack. These ARE leveled, so you could have a level 5 Punisher and a level 30 (max) Punisher. The level 30 would have MUCH higher base stats, but the unique weapon attack would be the same. On top of that each weapon have multiple slots for "echoes."
  
  
• Echoes -- your character, every weapon, and every accessory has slots for echoes. Echoes function similarly to gems in a game like diablo. 4/5 of those echoes types are focused on various stats bonuses while the "rush" echo actually unlocks special abilities. Echoes can be freely equipped/unequipped at will and you cannot equip two of the same echo. So if you had a Slime echo, you couldn't equip it into two different slots, you could only equip the slime echo into ONE slot regardless of how many of them you have.

Below is a list of progression options:

• Character Progression - Level 1 - 30, unique to each character unlocks better stats/more echo slots/stronger abilities.
  
  
• Wayfinder Progression - skill tree unique to archetype. This works similarly to "paragon" levels, so no matter what character you are working on, the way finder level will continue increasing regardless on what character you are playing.
  
  
• Weapon Progression - each unique weapon has it's own progression and can be "awakened" 5 times. This requires various materials and resources to do. Every awakening level increases stat scaling of the weapon as well as echo slots. This applies to ALL weapons of that type, so if you awaken the "Earth Shaker" every instance of "earth shaker" you have (regardles of level) will get the scaling and echo slot bonuses.
  
  
• Echo progression - Echoes can ALSO be awakened, at the cost of "echo dust" basically you can dismantle echoes you aren't using for "echo dust" and use that dust to boost echoes you are USING. Every awakening increases the echo stat scaling. Keep in mind, a level 10 Goblin echo and a level 30 Goblin echo BOTH would need to be awakened separately. So it's not recommended that you upgrade echoes till you have a full set of level 30 echoes available to upgrade.
  
  
• Affinity progression - remember how I mentioned "affinities" briefly when describing gear options? Well there are three affinities, and each accessory has 1 stat bonus tied to each specific affinity while each weapon has 2 stat bonuses tied to each specific affinity. You get affinity points by leveling and then later awakening your characters. Each affinity category has a bonus perk you unlock at 5 points, 15 points, and 25 points. On top of that, every single point you spend in a specific affinity scales the stats of ANY piece of gear that is associated with that affinity. You will get a max of 40 affinity points per character, so this is generally an end game decision you need to make based on the gear you are using.
  
  
• Character Awakening -- So on top of character leveling, each character can be awakened up to 5 times. This requires NUMEROUS different resources to achieve. But each awakening boosts that character stats, echo slots, and affinity points.

World Scaling/Coop Gameplay:
Scaling is handled EXTREMELY well in this game.

First each player can turn on world scaling in the options menu, if it is on, enemies will ALWAYS scale to whatever your level is and you will get properly leveled gear at all times.

If disabled, enemies will scale to a certain point and killing weak enemies will result in low level, useless gear.

Now COOP scaling works exceptionally well.
The same character you and your allies see will be scaled to fit YOUR level in your game, and scaled to fit your allies level in his game. So if you are level 30 and your friend is 20, then he will only see level 20 enemies and you will see those same enemies but they will be level 30.

Obviously, the more awakened and min-maxed a character is, the better they will perform in coop content. So even though scaling is on point, a highly min-maxed character will do significantly more damage then a non min-maxed character.

Added bonus, all loot is instance to each person, and scaled to fit your level. So if you are helping a level 5 friend and you are level 30, you will STILL get level 30 gear! This is awesome because it encourages coop gameplay and the higher level character doesn't suffer for helping out lower level characters.

This will probably get buried in the reviews, but the goal of this review is to answer one question, is it a souls-like? The answer is somewhat complicated:

* There is a bonfire mechanic (souls-like)
* There is a estus flask mechanic (souls-like)
* Your primary defense is dodging (50% souls-like)
* You get level up points to spend in a number of skill trees (not souls-like)
* There is NO death penalty and you don't have to recover your body (not souls-like)
* In terms of difficulty, it's much easier then most soulslikes, but starting out is VERY difficult till you level up a bit and expand you capabilities.
* This game seems to have numerous bosses and mini-bosses, I am not even done with chapter 1 and I have fought 5 Bosses, and like 4-5 elites.
* Inventory feels more like a souls like.
* Weapons -- I believe you will have the same weapon throughout the entire game, but that weapon has different stances which change it's feel
* Armor/Gear -- you can both craft and find armor and each armor, each piece of armor seems to have unique bonuses to it and most of the craftable armor has set bonuses. You also have two ring slots and a "gord slot" which is another form of upgradable gear (but also controls your estus swigs)
* I haven't unlocked upgrading yet, but I suspect it's in the game (based on the numerous differnet upgrade materials I have found)
* Stats are basically set in this game, they are gear based and upgrade node based, but leveling up is NOTHING like a souls like.

All in all this game plays like a souls-like early on, but as you level up your character it starts to feel more and more classic GoW or classic Darksiders.

As for my thoughts on this game, I think it is excellent and worth every penny.

Solid game but EXTREMELY short, it took 8 hour for 100% completion.

Positives:
+ Skill tree is great
+ Movement is extremely fluid and responsive.
+ Combat is excellent
+ Plenty of accessories to choose from, do you want to focus on guns, swords, defense, a little of both, etc...
+ Once you unlock fast travel, getting around is easy
+ As you progress and explore the game you get items that make it easier to find things you missed early on.

Neutral:
+/- This game is VERY story heavy, I personally like storyline, however if a ton of text bothers you, this game is going to piss you off.
+/- The map style is not my favorite, I prefer Classic metroidvania maps (each room = 1 square) or Ori-style detailed maps. This game unfortunately uses massive blank squares and rectangles with no landmarks, which is my most hated map style for games like this.

Negatives:
- EXTREMELY short, 8 hours for 100% completion
- Game is VERY easy, and bosses only get easier as you progress. I was killing mid game bosses in 20-60 seconds.
- The story feels incomplete, at the end of the game certain plot points are wrapped up, but there are a TON of loose ends. It feels like part 1 of a story...

This game is a wonderful love letter to classic JRPGS of the golden era of rpgs (mid-late 90s).

For anyone who loves the classics like FF1-6, Chronotrigger, Breath of Fire, Lufia, etc... This game should be right up your ally.

It is made by a one man dev team and it is 100% clear how much love and time he is putting into this game. I cannot recommend it enough for anyone wishing for more classic JRPGS.

As of this moment I am halfway through chapter 5 and 35 hours into the game.

Here is a quick list of positive, negative, and neutral thoughts I have on this game.

Positives:
+ Story is interesting, and unique
+ Lots of class options (called "Guise"), each class is fairly unique and is clearly themed very well, classes can be changed at any time.
+ Full gear options, limited by class (1x weapon, 1x offhand, 1x armor, 1x helmet, 2x accessory slots, 1x badge slot)
+ Exploration is rewarded with loot and/or secrets
+ Solid Gameplay in the vein of class turn based JRPGS
+ Classic "Worldmap", with eventual ship and airship options for exploration
+ Navigation is easy and the game takes great care in making sure backtracking isn't a pain because of it's use of teleports, and transportation shrines.

Negatives:
- The performance can be grating at times, something about the engine used for this game causes slowdowns during transitions and depending on what effects are currently on the screen (like snowfall). To be clear, it is FULLY playable, nothing gamebreaking or silly like running at 20FPS at all times. The performance issues usually show themselves in the form of transitional slowdowns, which after a few seconds fix themselves, but they can be annoying. The "collection" menu for whatever reason also runs very sluggishly on my computer.

Neutral Points:
+/- I am playing on the hardest difficulty and there is a weird balance when it comes to bosses vs normal enemies. At mid-chapter 5, most enemies have around 2k HP and come in packs of two. While bosses usually have around 4k-6k HP So bosses can be beaten almost as easily as any normal random mob pack. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it does feel weird when I take down bosses almost as fast I can take down any random mob pack in the field.

Update 07/16/24:
The developer listened to feedback and mastering a class gets you a mastery bonus now which is awesome!

It took me a long time to figure out how I want to review this game. The ENTIRE game was made by 4 people and I don't want to crap all over their hard work. It is clear they put a lot of time, money, and love into this project and did the best they could with the limited resources they had, but it just wasn't enough.

If I could rate this game between yes and no, that is how I would rate it, but since I cannot I am going with a BARELY thumbs up because I don't want to discourage the developers from making their game better, and if this games tanks on steam ratings it's going to be hard for them to come back from it.

Negatives:
-- Ranged characters are better than melee characters, melee characters are absolutely useless. You are better off with a party of one healer, and a bunch of mages/rangers than you are with a single melee unit.
-- The reason range is supreme is this game, is because there are NO height limitations to how range works, and NOTHING (not even walls) block ranged attacks. So a ranged unit is at full potential ANYWHERE on the field regardless of height/obstacles. Ranged units also do more damage than melee units on average.
-- The reason melee sucks is because they are to damn weak to do anything. If you send them into the fray to "tank" the enemy ranged units will laugh at you and proceed to slaughter the melee unit before they can do anything. The best way to play a melee characters, is to move up with your team (so it's not focused down) but your melee characters gets to sit there and twiddle his thumbs while your ranged characters get to move AND attack. By the time your melee character has gotten in range of any enemies, your ranged characters have already killed most of them.
-- Story characters are IDENTICAL to recruitable units, there is NOTHING special about them, they don't have better stats, unique jobs, or even unique gear they can equip. They are identical in every way (except for sprite) to recruitables. To me, this makes story characters boring.
-- Gear in this game is very much just a stat stick, the next piece of gear in the list will ALWAYS be better than the prior piece of gear. There is little to no choice or customization in how gear works. The accessories are the closest to be able to customize your units to your liking, but even they are generally down to WHICH stat do you want more of. NOTHING unique about any accessories. As a side note, I used the same accessories throughout the WHOLE GAME, because the starting power ring, and starting channeling ring were simply better than any other accessory that showed up. Also note, I completed every side quest and optional event in the game that exists (to my knowledge).
-- Character classes are boring, and while they do have a skill tree, there just isn't enough meat in the class options to make them interesting. You start out with 4 options (cavalier, ranger, battlemage, apothecary) Those 4 classes each have two advanced classes (ronin, inquisitor, reaver( rogue), hunter, sorcerer, druid, monk, shaman)
Since range is superior to all, ronins, inquisitors, and reavers are worthless.
Sorcerers are far more efficient than druids when it comes to magic killing power (though druids ARE interesting, I will give them that)
Monks are more efficient then Shamans (again shamans are interesting, but less effective then monks)
Classes are also permanent, and once you go to an advanced classes, you lose access to the old skill tree (though anything you purchased from the core class DOES apply towards the advanced class)
-- All recruitables are identical to their counter-parts (all rangers are equal, all cavaliers are equal, etc...) There is nothing that separates them from the rest.
-- The UI has all sorts quality of life issues between scrolling units, maps, navigating menu's etc...)

The good:
-- The story is pretty good, but unfortunately it isn't good enough for me to overlook my concerns.
-- The framework for a good game is here, but it really needs to be expanded for this to become anything better than mediocre
-- The pixel art is wonderful, they clearly put a lot of detail and effort into it, and the game is just gorgeous to look at.

Some final comments:
-- In my opinion, the music to me, simply doesn't fit the fantasy setting, i feel like what is happening and the music are clashing at all times. Other people might hold a different opinion so that is why this is neither a negative or a positive.
-- It took me about 16 hours to complete every side quest and the full storyline.

To the devs:
I know this is a passion project, please don't be discouraged by this review, I can tell how much love and effort has been put into this game and I truly wish you all the best of luck in making it amazing. I am sure with some time and effort you can turn this into something truly special, it just isn't there yet.

I have been reading up on the negative reviews in this game, and I just can't get behind any of them... I think the people that gave this game bad reviews because of difficulty or "damage sponges" simply suck at building actual synergetic teams and working within the systems of the game. The one complaint I actually agree with is this game can be grindy to unlock everything.

Now I should start by saying this has two modes of play, the story mode which I will go into detail of and that is closer to a rogue-LITE gamestyle, and the rogue-LIKE mode, which leaves a lot to be desired. The reason you will want to keep playing is the story mode and the unlockables that come with it.

Rogue-LIKE mode is more akin to what you would expect from a game like slay the spire where you lose your levels and unlockables (minus cards) at the end of each run.

What this game is:
-- A sandbox for character customization and synergistic team building.
-- Grindy (in terms of unlocking all of those customization options
-- A Rogue-LITE

What this game is not:
-- An amazing story
-- A game that you can expect to just steamroll through without any thought to how you approach teambuilding
-- A Rogue-LIKE -- the mode exists but it leaves a lot to be desired.

Now onto more details:
At the time of writing this review, this game has 3 acts and roughly 60 characters + the main character (which can be customized). Each character has a unique playstyle, gimmick, or specialty. It is very clear that the developers have put a LOT of thought into every character archetype they make.

This is a theory crafters dream sandbox, once you unlock everything (something like 30-40 hours of gameplay -- hence grindy). However it feeds you enough customization early on that the grind doesn't really feel that bad.

Each character has roughly 8 different skills, each skill can be leveled up twice and each level up adds new effects rather than simply increasing stats of the move. As an example, Chuckles the clown has a passive ability that heals 3 random allies for 5% of max hp after every skill he uses. At level two, that same skill now regenerates MP as well as HP. At level three, it now automatically triggers every time Clown "interrupts" an enemy and the rest of his kit offers different ways to interrupt enemies.

So in addition to each characters unique playstyle, they also have two unique relics that you have to complete mini-quests to unlock said relic for every other character to be able to be used. The clown for instance has a relic that heals him for 10% of his max hp every time he deals "stun damage" and his entire kit is based around dealing stun damage while healing his team. His other relic is the red balloon which entirely blocks the first damage he would take every single turn.
Once you complete his mini-quests, you can now attach those relics to OTHER characters in the game. This is where the grindy part comes into play, because you need to complete at minimum 2/3 of each characters unique quest to unlock their unique relic for others.

So you have 120 unique relics at the time of writing this review plus an additional 50+ relics that you can acquire through story mode. Plus each character needs to be maxed to achieve their full playstyle. This is where the grindy aspect comes into play.

The devs have clearly put a ton of effort and time into designing each character and their relics so they feel unique and not just like a repeat of another character. To be honest, I am surprised they were able to make all 60 characters feel as unique as they do as that takes a lot of work and planning.

TLDR:
You will enjoy this game if you like theorycrafting, grinding, and synergistic team building.

You will HATE this game if you are playing it for the storyline, simply want to rush through the entire game as fast as possible, or are looking for a PURE rogue-like experience.

* This is an excellent fun little game that I recommend.
* $10.00 will get you about 25 hours of content (100% completion).
I could probably cut that time in half if I played it again (now that I know what to do for everything) but still decent length.

Makes fun of JRPG tropes very "aware" of itself. Story is fun, doesn't suck.

Fun game, worth the $10.00.

One of the BEST JRPGS on steam...

This is as good as the classics (Final Fantasy 1-6, chrono trigger, etc..)
There is SO much to do in this game and secrets hidden all over.

The platforming is a pain in the ass and super grating, if you don't like platforming you might hate this game, otherwise, you definitely need to play it.

It took me roughly 80 hours to 100% this game.
However I did not collect 4 of each item available in the game, that would take an additional 20 hours...

There is not one single person that has steam that should not have this game.
$3.00 for hours of entertainment and the game seems to constantly be updating as well...

This game is less than a damn burger from Mcdonalds and hours a unique gameplay style that is very addicting...