UnEpic - Review @ TPG
 

You may recall the platformer/action-RPG-/Castlevania styled game UnEpic was mentioned on our forums some time back. I had a bit of fun with it and True PC Gaming has posted a review:
More information.

Am I alone in finding "comedy" games generally uninteresting? As much as I'm a fan of humour, most comedy games seem anything but funny (*note: most. not all). Dredmor, Grotesque Tactics, this. The worst part is when reviews like this say that these games "aren't afraid to make fun of the genre" and all that. Who's afraid to make RPG jokes? Even super-grimdark RPG's usually feature meta-jokes about RPG's.

Unepic is a very good game for its mechanics, it really doesn't matter how much funny you are going to find its writing.

Dredmor is also a mechanically-fun casual roguelike, with unfunny humour shoehorned in. That changes nothing about what I said. :P

Love this game. Perfect mesh between a RPG and a sidescroller. It's funny because I was never really a fan of sidescrollers. I had thought that had died with the arcades, but with games like Terraria, Unepic, Trine and even Aztaka, my view of this type of game has changed drastically.

@Darkling You're alone as far as I'm concerned. If it's done well then comedy adds a lot to the game. I get sick and tired of serious RPGs all the dang time. Bring on more Quest for Glory and less dark and grittyness. I've saved the world enough times that the drama of it all has lost it's appeal.

With that said, the humor in this game is secondary. The gameplay alone is enough to interest me in this game. Tons of weapons, traps, spells, stats, pets and interesting maps/monsters would keep me interested in it even if it didn't have you humping the daylights out of a few orc females :P Yes, that is really a quest in the game.

That's an extreme example of the humor. There are your usual find the "items" quests as well. Actually most of the quests are like that.

The game has some unique concepts. Just when you think you've figured out the game it throws something new into the mix. For example, I went trudging around in some water. The sign said, "No Swimming. There are leeches in the water." I saw some tentacles popping out of the water so I had assumed that those were giant leeches, but soon after I popped back out of the water I noticed that I kept taking damage. I went and saved the game, quit and reloaded, but I was still taking damage. So it must be a bug, right? Wrong…..I'm not saying what it was, but it was something I didn't expect which to this jaded RPGer who has seen it all and can figure out any game within seconds, it was a nice change of pace. It's little touches like that in Terraria and Unepic that makes for a great game.

No, you're not alone. I too find them pretty uninteresting, except some cases like Ego Draconis. Anyway, I simply can't stand Monkey Island, and I have Dredmor just because it's a roguelike, not because it's *fun*…

I certainly don't want all or a majority of my CRPGs to be funny or satiric, but if it's well done, as in Frayed Knights, its a welcome change of tone, every now and then.

I intend to DL the demo today if I can remember after work. I love Castlevania (#4 on SNES was the best) and I'm sad any new incarnations of it are all stupid 3D-ized.

Hope it doesn't suck because I need a change of pace.

Oh, what are the system specs? I didn't see them on the page and is it game-controller enabled?

I find most humor in games sadly lacking, but I bought Dredmor and Frayed Knights anyway. I didn't play either for very long, but wanted to support the indies. It's my way of making sure that Skaven keeps getting new games to beta :)

I really like the emphasis of the game on the RPG aspect more than anything. Also some of the humor and references in the game are very well done and they will probably bring a smile on your face. ( Like the one at the start of the game, you kill your first enemy, a snake, and the ghost that possessed you shouts SNAKE, SNAKE, SNAAAAAKE! a reference to MGS series. )

You just need a PC that can run at minimum resolution of 1024x768 pixels. That's all. Also there is no mention of game controllers in the options menu, but it's not really necessary.

Or this one:


@crpgnut You're supporting some damn fine games there :)…..plus they're a bit if fun if you ever do try them out. Above all I do love me some betas and bug hunting. Something about playing a game as soon as I hear about it just appeals to me even with all the bugs that will be in it.

Now would be a good time to try out Dredmor again. It's had a huge revamp. I'm not exactly sure what's included in just the patch since I got the DLC (I think it was a dollar or something like that), but they added a bunch of new skills and redid just about everything in the game for the original game as well as the DLC.

They added more levels to it too. Now after you kill Dredmor you keep going…..haven't made it that far though since I insist on playing on permadeath. Make one stupid mistake and you're toast.

The humour in Frayed Knights worked for me a little. I mean I wasn't rolling about LOLing, but after the demo I liked it so I bought the game. It was unique. Certainly better than stuff like this and Dredmor and Grotesque Tactics (the game that made me loathe "humourous" games). The humour in Unepic doesn't work for me because I haven't played MGS, for example. I don't play console games, I don't watch anime, I don't read manga….also I'm not a 12 year old boy who laughs at poo jokes. Sure, it's fun to have a PC metroidvania. But not that fun.

Have fun with being a mature adult who plays computer games. :P

Me, I know I'm a kid at heart. I don't watch anime or read magna mostly because I don't get it, but I do watch cartoons, play games and paint little miniatures. I enjoy just about everything I enjoyed when I was 12. I'm a kid at heart and plan to stay that way till the day I die. Thank god I found someone who actually likes that and is a kid at heart as well.

Ehhh, whatever floats your boat. Me I like the humor and wit. I don't like just poo jokes as well, but witty or perverse takes on this genre are always welcome. That and pop culture references. I love those.

You're not alone. Same here. The problem for me is that these "comedy" games are usually trying too hard (like "I'm a funny game making fun of other games and here's how and why").
I prefer more subtle elements of comedy or some humorous dialogue (like in the Drakensang games for example with Master Rakorium) or a fun sidekick (like Mud in Gothic 1). Stuff like that.
But most "funneh gamez" end up like Laurel & Hardy throwing cakes at each other which is funny the first time when you see it at age four but then gets old and too predictable really fast. I've played enough RPGs to know about the typical weaknesses and clichés. I have no need for any game to rub it in.

I like Parody games sometimes, and I thought Frayed knights did a good job at that. I don't always like games which try to just be random and silly though. Dreadmore was like that, where it was just a bunch of random silly things thrown together rather then having a humorous or clever plotline or anything like that.

Anyway this game was not on my radar at all and I may have to give it a look now.

You all can test your sense of humor playing Portal 2 or Psychonauts.

If you don't find these games hilarious, then it's your fucking problem and there's something terribly wrong with you.

So I played the demo last night for a bit. It has nice music, I liked the simple sound effects & graphics. I found the humor to be good for the most part (liked the WoW reference early on).

What I didn't like: having to press enter to advance the dialogue got old, especially when many of the sequences consisted of short sentences; no game controller support. But what the deal breaker probably will be: no support for widescreen resolution. If you play it centered in the screen the graphics are sharper, but so reduced in size things are difficult to see. If you play the default resolution the graphics are washed out and dull. This was disappointing because I could see spending ~ $10 US for it.

This game struck me as a cross between Castlevania & Rogue, which is a novel approach. If they add widescreen support I would probably buy it.

Wow, I'm glad you posted that. I was just getting ready to buy it too. No controller support and no widescreen resolutions means no purchase from me. Too bad, it looks really cool.

I agree to some extend.

Most writers seemingly aren't trained in writing good humour.

I guess they are better in writing more drama and tragedy and stuf like that.

Me, I prefer dry humor - because that's the way I am.

( A thing I wrote down two weeks ago : "Pedestrians !" - The taxi driver cried out, "Pedestrians ! They all take away good business !" )