Ember - Release Day

I picked it up considering it was the cost of a latte and sandwich. It looks decent, I'll report back my initial feelings. Somehow, I missed the entire "Drakensang" game series when it came out so I just finished River of Time and am playing the first one now, on chapter 9 or thereabouts.

What a lovely game that I missed due to not knowing it existed!

As for Ember, the initial buzz on Steam seems to be that it's a fine little game.

(Edit: It reminds me a bit of a Soldak game, like Din's Curse or somesuch… a bit.)

I played about 30 minutes so far. I'm mucking around in the intro dungeon. Commands are simple but well designed. Movement is a bit clumsy since you have to use mouse and have to click (or drag) on each move. You can't simply move the mouse and have the character follow the mouse. Kind of wish you could move with keyboard as well as mouse. So far the game is not very deep. You can't for example bash doors (maybe there are skills later on?) but have to find the appropriate keys. You cannot leave comments (notes) on the map - stuff like that. I'll update when I gain a couple of levels tomorrow - to see what the skills are like. Graphics are very good and sound is decent. Lots of stuff to find if you look for it (not secrets but corpses and stuff).
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Note that I'm still in the start area so I haven't gone very far and my opinion might change drastically as i get further. Btw you can change your name but all other customization only occurs as you level and spend stats/skill points. You cannot adjust gender or looks (I personally find this minor to a non-issue but I know some folks make a huge deal about such details).

I've played through the first dungeon and part of the exterior nearby. It seems to be a simple RTwP game with very basic movements and combat. Your equipment can have spells and such and you use these by clicking on icons in the top middle of the screen. Hot keys are for potions and such. This is a simple game that is good for a break from meatier titles; or at least that's the impression I'm getting from it.

Originally Posted by BrianOConnell
Very quick review from ACG - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1Ezuj0OBoI

Not bad. In this case the Torchlight-like stylized graphics work well, and I give it a +1 for weather and day/night cycle. It would be improved with turn-based combat and a rotatable camera. But definitely worth a try, I'd say.

Okay, this is starting to shape up nicely. There are quite a few abilities to learn and choosing which equipment to wear brings a little strategy. Also, combat gets much tougher outside of the crypts and it is quite easy to get in over your head. A bear is bad news early on, for instance.

I've got just over 1.5 hours in and I'm Luke warm on it. It feels very much like torchlight but with rtwp combat. Granted I also played very little of torchlight so I could be wrong but I immediately thought of that game when I started playing.

So far combat boils down to managing energy which powers your abilities. Have plenty of energy then just spam your abilities and most battles are trivial. ( well actually all battles that I've run into on normal difficulty are)Run out of energy and it could be tough, if it wasn't for the fact that you can easily run away since monsters seem to stop chasing you after a few feet. Then your able to throw down a bedroll get full energy and steamroll your enemies.

Leveling up seems pretty shallow although I've only gotten 1 level so who knows. For that level though just two points to add to attributes, no skills or abilities those are handed out through loot.

Haven't really done any quests other than leave the starting dungeon so I can't really comment on the quality of that. Exploration isn't great thus far either haven't found anything interesting. Mostly more monsters and a few people with little to say.

I'm going to give it a few more hours but if it doesn't pick up I'll probably shelve it. This game would probably shine as a mobile game where I didn't have access to my steam library but with games like DX:MD, D:OS, POE, Witcher 3 and So on sitting there I can't justify playing this instead. Having said that though if you've got nothing to play you could do a lot worse for $8.50.

I'm actually enjoying this game quite a bit. I've played it for a few hours, the story actually interested me when I got to the "Radiance" town; the writing isn't going to win awards but it's concise, fun, and interesting enough.

Things kind of seem to "start" around level 5 when you can equip more powerful weapons and you have three abilities per person. The game is deceptively simple; the combat system is easy and there aren't a lot of traits to manage but the world is huge - you can wander anywhere, it's not a "railroad" at all - though you *will* easily get killed if you wander into a gang of mobs 3-4 levels higher than you, as I learned.

All in all I feel as if I've already gotten an evening's worth of entertainment out of it, which would be worth the price - but I have a feeling I'm going to lose many more hours to the game.

Congrats to the devs on this one, it's just different enough to be interesting but it's easy enough to play in the evening as a "winding down" game.

From all I'm reading I really wonder why they're charging only 10 € for this. A price of 15-20 € was justified as well and could have better helped them to fund a successor.

I've played a couple of hours so far and I'm at level 3 on hard. Game is fun and I like the exploration you can do. Wolves and Bears are pretty dangerous for low level characters so be prepared before you engage them. I tend to play for as long as I can without resting because I want to avoid travelling at night. I like that thieves can surprise my party along the various roads (consider yourselves warned). I'm not sure how many characters can be in the party but at the moment its a party of two. The combat can be challenging if you are low on energy for your abilities like I constantly am. Hard difficulty is the way to go if you've played more than a few rpgs.

This is closer to dungeon siege than torchlight but even that comparison is unfair. It isn't bg or icendale but it isn't really an arpg. Some where in between. The class and skill system so far is weak but passable.

This game is tempting. It scratches the right itch and at that price you can't get too upset if it isn't everything you wanted it to be.

Quick review of Embers. Picked it up and played all day.
In no particular order.

Pros
- Story decent
- Sound, Music (both are surprisingly well done, didn't' expect it)
- Combat simple but effectively tactical
- Exploration and varied environments
- Seamless world load
- Crafting system useful but not complex.
- Price is ridiculously cheap.
- No microtransactions, ingame store, pre-order BS, RMT etc!

Cons
- Lack of subtitles (I love subtitles)
- No natural regeneration (Consume item or sleep), can feel odd sleeping 10 feet from the enemy.
- Lack of passive style skill tree
- Sometimes the drag-skill-to-enemy/partymember can feel clunky.
- Occasionally something won't stick to hotbar.
- Light on some RPG elements
- Enemies disengage if you run away.

Neutral
- Voice over can be quirky and spotty.
- UI can take a bit to get used to.
- RTWP works for the style and nature of the game.

Overall definitely worth it. Mixture of Torchlight, IWD, BG, Diablo. I enjoyed it more than the abomination that is Deus Ex Mankind for 4x the price….. (yes yes, I know they are completely different genres). The 'carry bedroll' reminds me of Divinity and Ultima.

Originally Posted by Wisdom
Cons
- Lack of subtitles (I love subtitles)

So hearing impaired people can skip this one?

Originally Posted by joxer
So hearing impaired people can skip this one?

You can read most of the text, I just like subtitles everwhere. My hearing is fine, I just read faster than I listen.

You might hear perfectly, but that's not the question.
There was already a report about the superexpensive game you mentioned from a hearing impaired fan - ending choices "results" told by Eliza Cassan are without subtitles and the player was heavily disappointed. I wasn't as I could hear everything she says, but I can understand people engaged in the game who can't know how their gamerun affected the world in the end.

Not having subtitles in games everywhere is IMO a horrible thing. The game price cannot excuse this.

I've played maybe 7-8 hours so far. I'm enjoying this game. The best way to describe it is it's like a strange combination of Diablo and Baldur's Gate (but in full 3d). There's a party, and party-banter, and you can choose different responses to (sometimes) get different outcomes. It's heavy on story, but shown mostly through dialog and action. But The loot/weapon system is where it is similar to the Diablo games - there's a ton of it, and they appear randomly generated, going up in power as your characters do.

Combat is usually pretty easy. However, you have to pay attention, as the occasional toughie gets in there, so you just can power-through everything.

You start the game with just you and a sort-of wimpish warrior (Coren). I'm just at the first hub, and just picked up my second party member -- Corra, Coren's sister (who doesn't get along too will with him), and also picked up Flia, an ember (who joins in conversations, but otherwise isn't a typical party member).

So far, the game is a lot of fun.

I've played about 4 hours; I started on hard but shifted to normal when i passed through the underground passage. I'm not that impressed with the game; the story is ok but I would probably rate it a 6 because the game mechanics are (so far) very poor (lack of strategy). This might change later on as I find more items with different skills but I'm not that hopeful at this point in time.

I'm still playing it. I keep playing it, it continues to entertain and charm me. I'm not a humongous fan of the "point and drag effect" interface that you use where you grab a skill from your skill bar and… drag it to the target. It's a little strange but that's a minor complaint, really.

The game is, I would say, one that unfolds more and more over the first 5-10 hours of play. You don't even really get full access to the crafting system until you reach level 6 or so and the "Farmlands" area.

The story seems "just right" - not too long and clunky but there's enough interesting text to keep me reading it. The graphics remind me a bit of a Soldak game like "Zombasite" as I mentioned earlier in the thread.

The companions have been pretty easy for me to control so far, I picked up a "warrior" and a "mage" that I've leveled up appropriately, the main differences being that the warrior has more hit points, heavier armor; mage has less hit points and shoots from a distance. Pretty standard stuff.

It's slower-paced than your traditional ARPG like, say, Grim Dawn - the RTWP aspect keeps it relaxing in a way that I don't find games in the ARPG genre to usually be.

I honestly think it's a pretty damn good game, I probably would have purchased it at $20 and not really complained. The developers say it gives around 30 hours of gameplay which seems about right.

(Edit: Though if you're looking for incredible complexity, this game isn't incredibly complex. It's simple, and fun.)

I'm about 20 hours in and have reached level 10 and the City of Light. The game probably has a total of around 5-7 skills/item and the most each character can use is 3, so you'll max having 9 skills in your 3 person group. You can mix and match skills as you play along. Weapon, Helmet, and Armor control your active skills, while rings and amulets will come a little later and have passive skills.

You spend most of the game trying to recover from your death and resurrection. Along the way you will complete several side quests to keep you in gold for your health and magic potions. These keep you going during battle. You can always heal outside of combat, but resting is the only easy way to keep using your magic. The game rewards you for not resting too often by giving a bonus to experience. If you rest all the time, the bonus might be 1-5%. If you try to string a bunch of fights together, that bonus may get up to 25%.

Finally, loot is level restricted, so you can't use the weapon of awesomeness unless you meet both a stat requirement and high enough level. Melee/Strength Magic/Intelligence and Ranged/Dexterity. Daggers are strength based in this game. Mages can wear armor, but they'll have to take strength to do so, and they'll be weaker than the mage wearing a paper bag.

All right, you've all persuaded me into buying it. Besides this -15% discount is nice.
Not sure when I'll start it though.