Divided Reigns - Review

Yep, pleasantly surprised by this.

It literally has an 8 hour demo you can try for free. I think it may surprise some of you.
 
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Yep, pleasantly surprised by this.

It literally has an 8 hour demo you can try for free. I think it may surprise some of you.

What did you find surprising about it? I'm just curious. I played it for an hour or so, and it seemed like standard JRPG fare to me. It wasn't terrible, but nothing really stood out.
 
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What did you find surprising about it? I'm just curious. I played it for an hour or so, and it seemed like standard JRPG fare to me. It wasn't terrible, but nothing really stood out.

I guess production values...combat system grew on me.

It's not a game of the year candidate for sure, but it is enjoyable.

I like the interaction between characters, the race of down trodden less the human is interesting as well. I guess nostalgia plays pretty good here. Lots of little touches....did you see the scene where you hide in some crates and you are carted away?
 
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I like the interaction between characters, the race of down trodden less the human is interesting as well. I guess nostalgia plays pretty good here. Lots of little touches….did you see the scene where you hide in some crates and you are carted away?

I'm not very far into the game. I cleared the salt mine and went to the castle for that predictable scene with the king. I was trying to find the hidden exit from the castle when I left off.

I think it's obvious that the protagonist is going to end up being part elf or whatever they call them in this game. Albayens?
 
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I tried it... it has pretty good production values (esp. for an RPGMaker-like game), but the usual things that put me off many early JRPGs are there. For example, there is no real character development - skill and stats are automatically advanced. Does this change when you get further into it?

Also, the menu system seems to be designed to maximise the number of mouse clicks required.
 
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These games don't mesh well with K+M. I'd advise using a gamepad if you have one.
Also, KB-only seems to work quite well. My bad.
For some reason it always wants to use my second screen. Can't find any config option to stop it from doing so. Oh well.

At least it has a demo. It should be thoroughly commended for that, even if it's not really my thing.
 
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Hey guys! Thank you so much for covering our game here! I have to admit I just kind of stumbled onto it and didn't expect to see it outside of places we have been marketing and asking for reviews.

If yall have ANY questions please let me know. I do see some areas I can already explain. For instance, I think some of you guys are seeing our Demo in all its old version glory lol. Thats our fault! But yes, thats an older model and we will be bringing it to the newest model as soon as we can this week. So issues like the screen opening up on your 2nd monitor are fixed in the retail version, but not demo.

The story obviously has the generic opening. We really LOVE old school style story telling I'M SORRY (lol), we truly just love the hell out of them!, so expect things to remain predictable and even dare say pushed along for the first few hours. We want to re-live those games we loved, but then give it a new meat to the story that now befits an older more mature audience. Divided Reigns is very very very much a story-based DRAMA. It really dives deep into real feelings, emotions and slowly gets very dark and tragic as the story progresses.

Pretty much as soon as the demo ends the game starts slowly unraveling into its own story. You will find a very stark contrast between reviews that played 1-10 hours of the game vs reviews that played 10-20 and then finally 20+. The longer the playtime, the more the review will absolutely begin to really focus on the story way over the gameplay lol.

My co-developer is a fantasy author and honestly I believe his best writing ever is within Divided Reigns. Our first game got solid reviews on the story, but will admit that little to no advertising occurred so it's mostly players who actively found us and played so their reviews will be more positive IMO.

I am not here to try and convince you to buy our game. But I do ask to give it a wishlist and keep an eye on it for maybe something down the road. Allow more reviews to come in and see for yourself. You can also see testimonials of our old game here and clicking SOCIAL: https://nostalgiagames.net/
 
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Instead of watching this, I skipped into the middle of the video:
"...And you really want to find, what that weakness is...."
No, dude! If you didn't even bother to create at least two FCKN frames for the monsters animation, I don't think I
" really want to find, what that weakness is.."
 
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Instead of watching this, I skipped into the middle of the video:

No, dude! If you didn't even bother to create at least two FCKN frames for the monsters animation, I don't think I

And of course literally right after the developer makes a post, Mercy is here.

Obviously not a game for you.
 
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Hey guys! Thank you so much for covering our game here! I have to admit I just kind of stumbled onto it and didn't expect to see it outside of places we have been marketing and asking for reviews.

If yall have ANY questions please let me know. I do see some areas I can already explain. For instance, I think some of you guys are seeing our Demo in all its old version glory lol. Thats our fault! But yes, thats an older model and we will be bringing it to the newest model as soon as we can this week. So issues like the screen opening up on your 2nd monitor are fixed in the retail version, but not demo.

The story obviously has the generic opening. We really LOVE old school style story telling I'M SORRY (lol), we truly just love the hell out of them!, so expect things to remain predictable and even dare say pushed along for the first few hours. We want to re-live those games we loved, but then give it a new meat to the story that now befits an older more mature audience. Divided Reigns is very very very much a story-based DRAMA. It really dives deep into real feelings, emotions and slowly gets very dark and tragic as the story progresses.

Pretty much as soon as the demo ends the game starts slowly unraveling into its own story. You will find a very stark contrast between reviews that played 1-10 hours of the game vs reviews that played 10-20 and then finally 20+. The longer the playtime, the more the review will absolutely begin to really focus on the story way over the gameplay lol.

My co-developer is a fantasy author and honestly I believe his best writing ever is within Divided Reigns. Our first game got solid reviews on the story, but will admit that little to no advertising occurred so it's mostly players who actively found us and played so their reviews will be more positive IMO.

I am not here to try and convince you to buy our game. But I do ask to give it a wishlist and keep an eye on it for maybe something down the road. Allow more reviews to come in and see for yourself. You can also see testimonials of our old game here and clicking SOCIAL: https://nostalgiagames.net/

Thanks for coming by, I was pleasantly surprised by even the old demo and just started to get into stuff past it.

This won't be a game for everyone, I think those that dismiss it as just an rpg maker game are missing out.
 
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I personally appreciate the effort and passion put into it, and certainly hope the game does well.

That said, yeah, everything is too cliche and too dated for it to be a game I'd play. I'm of the thought that people in the 80's played the games of the 80's and people in 2021 want to play games of 2021, both outside of the traditional social concepts that ruled the 80's society, and also the graphical aspect in which it was presented.

Still, this kind of game has its own market, so for those that can enjoy living 30 years ago, even if just through their computer screen, congratulations and have fun.
 
Right after Trails of Cold Steel 4 I will continue to play Divided Reigns. Good story RPGs never get old. Thanks for stopping by @Switz; !
 
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Always pleased to see an actual maker of games drop by to talk about their product. You won't have to convince me to buy this, plenty of friends here and elsewhere have already accomplished that feat! I have two games lined up for when I finish Fell Seal, yet I know I'll be grabbing this one along the way.
 
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So I have played this a bit more.

I thought I would give some ideas of what to expect that I think are interesting beyond a normal jrpg.

1) There are a lot of situations so far that seem to have an effect on how the game plays. It lets you know that as well in game, not getting into much detail one such decision I made resulted in bounty hunters roaming the map to track me down.

2) Neat puzzles in what you would think is an relatively simple quest turns it into a fun experience, think rat killing quest.

3) The weapon system is different then I have seen before...each weapon provides different ways to attack in battle and your character gets experience with them as they use them. This leads to new skills opening up as you go plus encourages use of different weapon sets, which you want to upgrade. I think you could spend quite some time figuring this all out.

Just a couple of one offs by what I have done so far, I haven't had enough time to put a lot into it yet. I think if you are into indie rpg's you will like it especially after you get beyond the demo, it is a lot more polished then what I originally played in the demo. I am only at the first town after the demo.
 
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