Regalia - Review @ WCCFtech

WCCFtech has reviewed the crowdfunded J-RPG Regalia: Of Men And Monarchs:

Regalia: Of Men And Monarchs Review – Reclaiming What Was Lost

Following the days of Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, tactical role-playing games have been out of the spotlight, with only a few games, like the latest Fire Emblem games and The Banner Saga, managing to get some well-deserved recognition. Traditional Japanese role-playing games haven’t had it easy as well, with only big games like Final Fantasy XV and the recently released Persona 5 getting recognition. With the genre as a whole struggling a bit, at least compared to 15/20 years ago, would the situation change if one was to take the best features of both tactical and traditional JRPG and mix them together while adding elements of other types of strategy games? We cannot know for sure know, but we did get a game like Regalia: Of Men And Monarchs, a fun role playing game that manages to properly tribute JRPGs despite being derivative.

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Regalia: Of Men And Monarchs does quite well what it sets out to do, tributing classic JRPGs by mixing a variety of features and mechanics. While not overly original, the game developed by Pixelated Milk manages to be quite entertaining thanks to the charming characters, lighthearted tone, and challenging battles. If you loved JRPGs back in the 90s, early 2000s, you will find plenty to like in Regalia: Of Men And Monarchs.

Score: 8/10

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More information.

Still liking the sound of this, but I'll wait for Joxers and Carnifex verdicts before buying it.

I gave it a shot for a few hours yesterday.

There are still some quirks inside, for example leap over obstacles and do AoE skill from "the beast" sidekick places her at the wrong spot on the map in some cases afterwards, so waiting for one more patch wouldn't be unwise (they're fixing stuff fast so it won't be several months of wait).

The game is full of humor of all varieties, for example of course your first battle is against - rats. Additionally, rats caught cold and now sneeze.
Ingame currency was already mentioned, it's called DLC, no wonder why. The inn is named Placeholder Inn, fishing is deliberately made as clunky as possible, etc, maybe to some these things will feel cringeworthy, I find 'em funny and laughed a lot.

The main "story" is simple, you're a heir, got yourself a ruin and need to pay debts apparently made by your ancestors. To make $ flowing you'll have to do different stuff: improving relationships with friends and neighboring kingdoms, building, mentioned fishing, crafting stuff and of course - adventuring.
Each of those actions takes time, and you need to strategize what to do as every two months the debt collector will come to check out if you're progressing good enough to be able to pay. Yes, it means the game uses similar "countdown grinding protection" Expeditions2 has, means no maxing friendship with everyone so you pwn fights early and stuff. Don't worry, earlygame at least you're not under impossible pressure - get a few relationships to "buddy" (which unlocks sidekicks' special bonuses), clear a dungeon or two, build a pier to fish, blacksmith to craft etc… And you're good to go, there will be some leftover time to do more things as a preparation for the next two months.

Combat is turnbased and you'll understand everything soon enough. Every battle has two additional challenges (for example, clear all trashmobs in 5 rounds and make sure noone in the party is KOed), succeeding them nets you bonus XP and bigger chance to loot some additional treasure. There are only two game difficulties, easy and normal. I'm playing on normal and trust me it's superhard to do both these challenges so my advice is to concentrate on doing just one of them two and if the second kicks in too, great.

You can't save anywhere. Only at certain places. This is not a biggie - in the town you can save anywhere and you can save on camping spots in dungeons.
Trashmobs don't respawn. Once you clear something, it's cleared for good - at least it seems so, however I don't know if the game will repopulate something when two months pass and this is just an early impression.

The game, it's early part, is IMO supercharming. Can't say if the fun factor will remain on it's high later, but if it will, seems we got ourselves another mustplay indie in this year.

Additional important note about my taste just so you know. I had more fun in a few hours while playing this indie game then during whole AAA title Prey. Technically, Prey eats this game for breakfast, but Regalia has the soul and is an obvious product of love. Then again, I adored Frozen River and hated Transformers movie.

EDIT:
Arrrrrrrrgh:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/464150/discussions/0/135512625256018766/#c135512931348007728

The boss scales to your level

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Horrible design.

joxer said:

I gave it a shot for a few hours yesterday.

There are still some quirks inside, for example leap over obstacles and do AoE skill from "the beast" sidekick places her at the wrong spot on the map in some cases afterwards, so waiting for one more patch wouldn't be unwise (they're fixing stuff fast so it won't be several months of wait).

The game is full of humor of all varieties, for example of course your first battle is against - rats. Additionally, rats caught cold and now sneeze.
Ingame currency was already mentioned, it's called DLC, no wonder why. The inn is named Placeholder Inn, fishing is deliberately made as clunky as possible, etc, maybe to some these things will feel cringeworthy, I find 'em funny and laughed a lot.

The main "story" is simple, you're a heir, got yourself a ruin and need to pay debts apparently made by your ancestors. To make $ flowing you'll have to do different stuff: improving relationships with friends and neighboring kingdoms, building, mentioned fishing, crafting stuff and of course - adventuring.
Each of those actions takes time, and you need to strategize what to do as every two months the debt collector will come to check out if you're progressing good enough to be able to pay. Yes, it means the game uses similar "countdown grinding protection" Expeditions2 has, means no maxing friendship with everyone so you pwn fights early and stuff. Don't worry, earlygame at least you're not under impossible pressure - get a few relationships to "buddy" (which unlocks sidekicks' special bonuses), clear a dungeon or two, build a pier to fish, blacksmith to craft etc… And you're good to go, there will be some leftover time to do more things as a preparation for the next two months.

Combat is turnbased and you'll understand everything soon enough. Every battle has two additional challenges (for example, clear all trashmobs in 5 rounds and make sure noone in the party is KOed), succeeding them nets you bonus XP and bigger chance to loot some additional treasure. There are only two game difficulties, easy and normal. I'm playing on normal and trust me it's superhard to do both these challenges so my advice is to concentrate on doing just one of them two and if the second kicks in too, great.

You can't save anywhere. Only at certain places. This is not a biggie - in the town you can save anywhere and you can save on camping spots in dungeons.
Trashmobs don't respawn. Once you clear something, it's cleared for good - at least it seems so, however I don't know if the game will repopulate something when two months pass and this is just an early impression.

The game, it's early part, is IMO supercharming. Can't say if the fun factor will remain on it's high later, but if it will, seems we got ourselves another mustplay indie in this year.

Additional important note about my taste just so you know. I had more fun in a few hours while playing this indie game then during whole AAA title Prey. Technically, Prey eats this game for breakfast, but Regalia has the soul and is an obvious product of love. Then again, I adored Frozen River and hated Transformers movie.

EDIT:
Arrrrrrrrgh:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/464150/discussions/0/135512625256018766/#c135512931348007728


Horrible design.

Click to expand...

I mostly agree with your points.
Boss and enemy scaling is atrocious, but the game itself is solid, and is gamey enough that I did not really care.

The boss scales to your level but he doesn't scale to your items

Click to expand...

So it means you should max blacksmith and merchant/trinket + the loremaster or whatever she is called ASAP to kite your party as best as you can, as maxing character level would be counter productive.

Having enemy scale on game time instead of party level would have made much more sense.


The challenges are sometimes really hard indeed, and you need to assess pretty early whether you want to do both, one or none at all.

The varied battle objectives add a lot to the game IMO.

I am not too fond of the character friendship system which usually comes down to guessing what the designer/writer had in mind, but it is bearable, and you can savescum.

I like being allowed to reallocate perk slots on the fly. It is gamey, but I hate having to reroll mid game because I did not read the relevant guide or did not spent hours watching vides of the game.

I did not find the time pressure too hard indeed, as I usually had the objectives for a month completed early on, and many are quite easy to achieve if you are in a hurry (craft X items of type Z and of quality Y, catch Y fishes).

Overall, I think the game is really fun and refreshing.

Smithy maxed ASAP seems a must. I can't possibly think of passing certain dungeons without top crafted weapons.
On normal difficulty ofc.

Prospector maxed (trinkets) is not necessary in first 6 chapters though, I'm currently on the last chapter and didn't upgrade it nor crafted trinkets at all:


However that was a mistake, I've upgraded and maxed shop instead and it doesn't provide items better than crafted ones, so if someone is just starting, don't upgrade the shop but smithy and prospector instead! It'll make your life easier.
I'm gonna do that now as I'll probably need best trinkets for the last quest which is most probably more difficult fights.

I bet Dark Souls and it's clones fans would never be able to finish this game on normal difficulty. It's not "hard", it's actually hard.
While Regalia is far from masterpiece, it's a top notch challenging RPG and beside Expeditions2, it'll probably be among my top3 RPGs in this year. Regalia is yet another proof design decisions should be made by developers and not bigname publishers who are ruining gaming industry with their forgettable lemonades.

The year is still young though, some titles are not out yet like Elex and Deliverance, here's hope I'll have to sweat over the best choice at the end of the year. As it'd only mean we got so many great games in 2017.

Thanks for your mini reviews Joxer

Hey, the first post was early impression, this second post a few words near finale, I'll try to be more detailed in "finished" thread in a few days

The game doesn't stop when you do the last quest though, there is so called "postgame" where you can go clear dungeons you didn't, solve puzzles you didn't, befriend people you didn't etc.
I really have to check that stuff too.

One thing I can already promise: if Regalia's devs kickstart it's sequel, I'm backing it immediately.

I wasn't bashing you I was sincere.

Maxed trinket maker might not be necessary, but some of its items can be quite potent:
+35% resist ongoing negative effects is worth a lot of perk slots
as is +1 move.
The +15% specific resists are not as good (same for the +6% all resist), and it lacks offensive items that would add damage or penetration, though.

Yup you're right, I just maxed it and choices are… Sorta underwhelming.
Not useless, just not stuff I'd call musthaves on everyone. Ah well…

Apart from the scaling part which I loathe this sounds great. Thanks Joxer and Galdred.

I have found Diego and Signy pretty useful at killing stuff, and I am pretty happy with either Levant or Griff to take hits forever (Griff was specced to max dodge, and Levant to get very high resist and shield regen).
I have been disappointed with the damage output of the dwarf samurai. Being able to save actions from one turn is awesome, but I had trouble raising his damage output (is there a perk to increase thunder penetration? I didn't find any, but I didn't take the mage allies in the diplomacy screen).
The ultimate power of Henrietta sounds awesome when friendship is maxed, but I didn't level her friendship to that point, so I don't know whether she is worth taking along.
How did the other fare for you?
I didn't use Theo and Grenn at all, so I wonder whether I have been missing on something. Theo seems pretty potent at least.
What team did you use most of the time?

Okay, I just finished it. The game.
What helped me alot in the last battle so it wasn't nearly as hard as previous fights - summons you get from diplomacy missions. I didn't use those consumables in any previous fight so I had no problem now.

Diego is crazy good character. Always try to gain him 9-10 stacks before his ult. Means if you need to use taunting doll, try not to use it after you already have a few stacks.
Signy kicks arse earlygame but later… I just stopped using her in general setup. But she's still superb choice in missions where you need to kill a distant boss! She'll reach them fast and can do some devastating damage.

I don't have samurai nor Henrietta. If you replay, go for Esther, that girl's shot has no range limit (still can't shoot through obstacles) does 1200+ damage. I'm level 15 so I'm pretty sure she can pull out even more than that. The skill has one turn cooldown though, but her other skills are fantastic too - she can spawn a turret whoich can stun or annoy trashmobs plus with her ult she can walk across the map without anyone stopping her (note, when you reach the destination with her, you can spawn the turret before exiting the ult!).
Elven pirate (Valen) I didn't use anywhere so I don't know, I'll try him now in postgame dungeons clearing just to see what's he capable of.

Theo is fantastic support. After you got yourself a nice pile of fish with negative effects just unleash Theo on hostiles and they're history. If you don't have negative effects fish, he won't shine in a party that doesn't do a lot of debuffs but is nevertheless useful. And no hostile can catch him.
I stopped using him completely when I maxed Esther as her damage output is unbeatable.

Grenn is situational. Superb for missions "survive x number of turns". For example you need to survive 8 turns? Just use his ult on 6th round (makes all party members invisible for 2 turns). If there is no additional "kill something" task, you may line him alone and just spam his invisibility skill.
In other missions, I wouldn't use him.

Anyway, my initial party were Kay, Griffith, Signy and Aliss.
After I got Theo I used him in dungeons where couldn't win with the above setup because I still had to max him. Oh, yeah, you know the fight against him? How to get both bonus easily?

Later I got Diego, maxed him who replaced either Signy or Kay, depending on mission objectives. Maxing Esther was the last thing I did and the last party setup became: Griffith, Aliss, Diego, Esther. I'm still taking Signy in dungeons as reserve with them for cases I need a lot of movement with damage burst.

One crewmember we didn't mention is the armor, who is tank. I did try him in a few fights and lost them all miserably.
Maybe lategame he's good, but early… Horrible. Didn't want to use him again.

-

Steam says I needed exactly 30 hours to finish the game. Of course, plenty of dungeons are left uncleared so there is still stuff to have fun with.
I will not spoil the ending. But upon finishing the game, you'll finally reach the family vault in order to get the treasure inside. As usual, in this game nothing is like it seems and when you open the vault…
I dropped from my chair. Not only I laughed for good 5 minutes, it made me feel happy.

Guys, no this game is not a masterpiece. But in case I didn't say before - this game is a musthave.

Do I really have to post anything in "finished" thread? I'm kinda lazy and it's not that I'm actually finished with it, I still have 10 damned dungeons to clear and a few NPCs to befriend just to see their crazy story epilogues!

I have just finished the game. It took me 41h, but I only have 6 dungeons left. I have found the living armor quite useful actually, as he can survive against a lot of enemies on his own, especially if they deal physical damage (I could get him to 94% physical resistance and 44% each other (or 50% each and 80% physical), and buy some time with his maxed silence skill (silence everyone every 8 turns) and AoE stun.
Basically, I sent him to tank half of the map while I cleared the other half with the other 3, or even more with support from the main character while the remaining two guys killed one enemy at a time.

Sometimes, it is better to settle for quick damage indeed, and don't bring him along.

@joxer; Thanks for the tips Joxer. I just got around to playing this Tuesday ... exactly 2 years after you.

Dang this thread is old. I played this game a while ago and for a budget title thought it was rather quite well done. One thing I liked was that each new companion had a unique idea added (though I did not always find that unique talent useful).... was fun but was glad to finish it when i did finish it.

This game started out rather easy for me, then progressed into a truly epically difficult project. I'm not sure I'll ever replay this, but I did quite enjoy the first run through.