2020 RPG Review

Which Game Should I Review

  • Legends of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

    Votes: 11 28.2%
  • Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones

    Votes: 12 30.8%
  • Operencia: The Stolen Sun

    Votes: 11 28.2%
  • Queen's Wish: The Conquerer

    Votes: 6 15.4%
  • Tower of Time

    Votes: 5 12.8%
  • Vampyr

    Votes: 10 25.6%

  • Total voters
    39
  • Poll closed .

forgottenlor

Font of Useless Knowledge
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I've played or am playing a lot of good (or better) RPGs and simply haven't had time to write reviews for them. I will have time after Christmas and before school starts up again to work on a review and at least get the majority of it written. So I thought I'd ask what game the Watchers here would like reviewed. Here are the choices.

Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel I know this is a jrpg and they aren't popular on this site. But if anyone asked me which jrpg they should play, I'd suggest this one. It is by far the best game on this list.

Stygian:Reign of the Old Ones a very solid, if somewhat short adventure-rpg. Gets points for atmosphere and staying true to the Call of Cthulu tabletop rules.

Operencia: The Stolen Sun A charming retro dungeon crawler, if somewhat rough around the edges and short for the genre.

Queen's Wish- The Conquerer Like all first entries of a series from Spiderweb software, this is a crpg with a very interesting concept, difficult choices and antique graphics.

Tower of Time a solid budget isometric dungeon crawler. It reminds me a little of a modern Icewind Dale, but with pregenerated characters and a much simpler rule set.

Vampyr An excellently told story with action rpg mechanics vaguely similar to Dark Souls. A hodge podge of elements which one would like to work better than they do.
 
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My vote is easy to predict: ANNNNY.

Y - yes
N - no
A - asap!

:D
 
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Where's the button for 'None of Them'? TBH, none of them interest me at all from your descriptions!! Sorry. :)
 
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Well I chose the following.

Legends of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
Queen's Wish: The Conquerer
Vampyr

Don't care about the other games.
 
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I voted for Legends of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, Operencia: The Stolen Sun and Tower of Time.
 
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Some of them ?

Unfortunately (or fortunately for me, so I guess it depends on your view of things) I simply don't have time left over this year, and writing reviews is suffering for it. So unless I have a window of time like I do over the holidays no writing is getting done. The holidays should afford me time for one review.
 
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I think you should pick the game with fewest reviews ;) A game that hasn't been reviewed by many is an unknown dog (or gem); a game that everyone has reviewed (or played) is already a known quantity...

Unfortunately (or fortunately for me, so I guess it depends on your view of things) I simply don't have time left over this year, and writing reviews is suffering for it. So unless I have a window of time like I do over the holidays no writing is getting done. The holidays should afford me time for one review.
 
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Tower of Time a solid budget isometric dungeon crawler. It reminds me a little of a modern Icewind Dale, but with pregenerated characters and a much simpler rule set.

I would just like to nit-pick this briefly because if you take out the two things that primarily make IDW the unique beast that it is, it's going to be very hard to make actual comparisons in any meaningful way. Meaningful being the operative word.

The non-pregenerated characters and the deep(er) rule set combo is 75% of why IWD still stands in apparent isolation as a marketplace gem, the other 25% is the atmosphere/music/sound effects and the fact that it was the top-grade graphics of the day, and beautiful they were to-boot & most of it being hand placed and set-piece gameplay with extra challenges beyond simply running through the game once.

While I get the general comparison people make with IWD and any games that are isometric and involve a party predominantly sacking dungeons, I think in a very real sense this misses the point of IWD and does a disservice to any attempts to encourage a new developer to make a game in the same vein, as they're not being fed the right information as to what people liked about IWD.

Having said that, I haven't played Tower of Time yet, although I did purchase it because, yes, I was attracted by the notion of isometric dungeon sacking. However, I was put off from buying it at full price because of the things you mention, the wave mechanics of combat and the early reports that it is badly optimised and has appalling framerate issues. However, most people who have so far reported on it at the watch have been on the positive side, which is the main thing that tipped me over into a sale purchase.

It's similar to how I read a lot of people compare Dungeon Rats to IWD which helped tip me into a sale purchase of that game. Needless to say, again, that game didn't offer much similarity to IWD beyond isometric dungeon sacking and I still find the comparison jarring and a bit misinformationy every time I read it.

But, yes, the isometric dungeon sacking games are kind of their own thing really, of which IWD is certainly one, but none of the others I'd ever really compare to IWD. Sort of like how a stealth fighter is an aeroplane, but so is an easyjet passenger plane, any comparisons between them are barely relevant once you get past the point of saying that they are both aeroplanes.

Sorry for the mostly irrelevant to most people waffle :D
 
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I would just like to nit-pick this briefly because if you take out the two things that primarily make IDW the unique beast that it is, it's going to be very hard to make actual comparisons in any meaningful way. Meaningful being the operative word.

The non-pregenerated characters and the deep(er) rule set combo is 75% of why IWD still stands in apparent isolation as a marketplace gem, the other 25% is the atmosphere/music/sound effects and the fact that it was the top-grade graphics of the day, and beautiful they were to-boot & most of it being hand placed and set-piece gameplay with extra challenges beyond simply running through the game once.

While I get the general comparison people make with IWD and any games that are isometric and involve a party predominantly sacking dungeons, I think in a very real sense this misses the point of IWD and does a disservice to any attempts to encourage a new developer to make a game in the same vein, as they're not being fed the right information as to what people liked about IWD.

Having said that, I haven't played Tower of Time yet, although I did purchase it because, yes, I was attracted by the notion of isometric dungeon sacking. However, I was put off from buying it at full price because of the things you mention, the wave mechanics of combat and the early reports that it is badly optimised and has appalling framerate issues. However, most people who have so far reported on it at the watch have been on the positive side, which is the main thing that tipped me over into a sale purchase.

It's similar to how I read a lot of people compare Dungeon Rats to IWD which helped tip me into a sale purchase of that game. Needless to say, again, that game didn't offer much similarity to IWD beyond isometric dungeon sacking and I still find the comparison jarring and a bit misinformationy every time I read it.

But, yes, the isometric dungeon sacking games are kind of their own thing really, of which IWD is certainly one, but none of the others I'd ever really compare to IWD. Sort of like how a stealth fighter is an aeroplane, but so is an easyjet passenger plane, any comparisons between them are barely relevant once you get past the point of saying that they are both aeroplanes.

Sorry for the mostly irrelevant to most people waffle :D

I also played Dungeon Rats and wouldn't compare it to Icewind Dale, because atmosphere wise it feels completely different (it is low fantasy, sort of Roman, even more combat heavy, has smaller, narrower and less variable levels, has sort of survival mechanics (for example limited healing) and is turn based). But you're right of course, Tower of Time is in many ways different that IWD, and IWD is a classic because of all the reasons you mentioned. TOT does has that sort of high fantasy atmosphere, and even though its a dungeon crawler there is a story and you spend a lot more time doing things other than fighting than you do in Dungeon Rats. Still it gave me some IWD vibes, but that is a subjective feeling, and I did try to point out where it is fundamentally different. The combat I didn't mention, but that reminds me in some way of wave based RTWP King's Bounty, since you can see most potential battles on the map and can choose to only fight when you want (though opponents often stand in the way of areas you'd like to access), and because each battle has its own combat map, and does not take place on the main dungeon map.
 
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I think you should pick the game with fewest reviews ;) A game that hasn't been reviewed by many is an unknown dog (or gem); a game that everyone has reviewed (or played) is already a known quantity…

That would require research on my part:-/ But if you want to do it, it might be interesting to know;)
 
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@forgottenlor;

Queen's Wish: The Conqueror would be be perfect for your Indie Showcase articles.
 
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Voted for Operenica, as it's the game I look most forward to and additional takes might be interesting. Steam release should be around beginning of next year afaik.

Second vote would go to Queens Wish as it's the only game which interests me from that list. I already finished the game, but any additional spotlight on Spiderwebs games is welcomed :D
 
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Trails of steel and vampyr.

The latter one has generally mediocre (for me that's a negative) reviews so another point of view is welcome.

Edit: wait, is this a proper poll? Can't see the buttons in Tapatalk. Shouldn't forget to vote tomorrow
 
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Can't find the option "Who are you and why does anyone have to care about what you play or review", but I'll say, this is a free world, so review whatever makes you happiest.
 
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