Startrail HD - Released

Realms of Arkania: Star Trail HD has been released today:

Version 1.0 - and we are out of Early Access

Hail to the twelve,

after almost exactly nine months in Early Access, we are leaving EA and go into Release as of today. As a little thank you for all of our wonderful Early Access Supporters, the Digital Deluxe DLC is automatically included for all Buyers so far. It includes additional recipes, an alternate starting party with Aventurian Legends, beautiful city maps of Lowangen and Tiefhusen as well as the remastered Soundtrack in MP3 and FLAC formats.

Thank you all for supporting us, it was a wonderful journey so far, and we are looking forward to all the goodness to come!

Your
Crafty and Alpha Development Team

More information.

Intrigued. Anyone know anything about this remake?

Damn. I played the first one after some patches and enjoyed it, but it was undoubtedly a rough experience. I knew they were working on this but for it to just drop out of nowhere is a surprise. I'm intrigued.

If they improved the first game and have a better, functional release here, it should be good. Rough experience and all, the first one was a true hardcore RPG. Not too punishing, though, just a very unique experience that isn't offered much in modern RPG gaming.

Steam reviews are much more positive on this one - if that matters.

Originally Posted by you
Steam reviews are much more positive on this one - if that matters.

Yes, all 15 of them.

I guess that Early Access helped them release a polished product. I use to frown on the idea of Early Access but if it will help cut down on the number of shit games that were launched too soon and full of bugs, it's a good thing after all… or can be a good thing providing it's not abused.

Yeah, but it is abused and massively. There are games that stay in Early Access for years and years. Many of these never reach full release. I know, I'm playing one of them. 7 Days to Die went to EA in April 2013, iirc. It's STILL in Alpha. Understand this is a game that has sold more copies than some retail games, so it's made the developers tons of money.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Yeah, but it is abused and massively. There are games that stay in Early Access for years and years. Many of these never reach full release. I know, I'm playing one of them. 7 Days to Die went to EA in April 2013, iirc. It's STILL in Alpha. Understand this is a game that has sold more copies than some retail games, so it's made the developers tons of money.

7 Days to Die = possibly the single most unoptimized game on an engine that looks like it's from 2001 I have ever played. Can be fun though.

hmm, it looks pretty decent on my 1080 GTX. They did a graphics patch for 15 or 16, iirc. They finally added a distance renderer.

I loved Star Trail from the original trilogy but I think they've tried to change the game from an RPG to a survival game. At least, that's the impression I got from the first remake. It was all about surviving the wilderness, not conquering the evils of the world.

Take one step, you get tetanus, next step hypothermia, etc.

I'm taking a peek at it now. Probably not going to do a full review, but we'll see. I reviewed the first one with a 3/5 and that was after several patches. But I still feel it's worth playing, and if this one has fixed some things and released in a better state, I'll be really happy with that.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
hmm, it looks pretty decent on my 1080 GTX. They did a graphics patch for 15 or 16, iirc. They finally added a distance renderer.

What Geforce driver are you using for 7 Days To Die on your 1080 GTX? I'm on 382.53 for my 1070 GTX. Thought about trying an earlier driver but I start to feel like I'm chasing my tail when I get wacky like that, testing drivers just to get one game running decently. Also, what build are you using for 7DTD? I'm using the latest 16.2 alpha.

I thought the original Realms of Arkania series was like that too, and could seem like Robinson's Requiem at times with illness and death at every step if you didn't get out of your wet long johns quick enough.

I played the original Star Trail after its original release. From a story standpoint it was probably the strangest game I have ever played (that's neither a good nor a bad thing). It threw me for more of a loop than I was ready for at the time (I am avoiding spoilers here).

One aspect of the game I did not like was the frequency of diseases. I remember it being very much a survival game from that standpoint. Most of my issue with that was probably due to not paying enough attention to mitigating the issue through gameplay, but I'm not certain about that. Another difficult aspect of these games is inventory in which a low strength characteristic greatly limits carrying capacity.

Hmm looks pretty interesting but I'm going to watch a few play-through videos on this, get to understand it better. It's like an RPG come bang out of nowhere - that's been happening a lot lately.. so much content these days. These games are all getting stored on an ever-increasing to play list.

Originally Posted by Fluent
I'm taking a peek at it now. Probably not going to do a full review, but we'll see. I reviewed the first one with a 3/5 and that was after several patches. But I still feel it's worth playing, and if this one has fixed some things and released in a better state, I'll be really happy with that.

You honestly gave the first one 3/5? I couldn't even play it more then a few minutes before getting frustrated.

Originally Posted by rune_74
You honestly gave the first one 3/5? I couldn't even play it more then a few minutes before getting frustrated.

It was/is very rough, even after patches. Objectively it's probably closer to a 2/5. But it did provide some fun for me. Mainly because it's a type of RPG that isn't really done much nowadays, and it had some unique elements I liked.

It's still a really rough experience. I played Star Trail for a few minutes and it's also rough. But eh. For fans of The Dark Eye system or the original games it might be worth a peek. It seems to have a ton of the ruleset there. Very complex pen and paper stuff. And some things are improved, even if the game still is poor on the overall presentation level.

Niche within a niche, really. If you can put up with a game that is pretty rough around the edges, there is actually some interesting, hardcore RPG fun to be had there.

All I've done so far is create a party of characters and do some shopping and carousing around town. Those two things together took up a few hours (as it always does for me in Dark Eye games). I like the music, the graphics are rough but serviceable. So long as the combat still holds up and the overland travel is the same, I'll get some enjoyment out of it. The original Star Trail is one of my favorite games of all time, so lots of nostalgia at play.

I felt so ripped off by the other remake they did that they're not going to see any of my money.

Originally Posted by Shagnak
I felt so ripped off by the other remake they did that they're not going to see any of my money.

Ditto.