Operencia: The Stolen Sun - Review @ XBLAFans

HiddenX

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XBLAFans has reviewed the dungeon crawler Operencia: The Stolen Sun:

Operencia: The Stolen Sun Review: Clouded by Imbalance

Dungeon crawling, turn-based, RPG with a grid system for movement and severely difficult puzzles. That's Operencia: The Stolen Sun. This may sound great to some and a pain to others. You're tasked with finding the Stolen Sun (kind of randomly) and get to create your own character to do so. Along the way you'll find more friends and create a powerful team. There are several levels with a limited amount of enemies.
You'll be wandering around quite a bit, so it's probably best you don't have random encounters all the time. There are many secrets to find and you could drop hours looking for them. If you've ever played games like Myst, you'll know how long you can spend trying to figure out a puzzle. Will you be sucked into a magical world of charm and find the Stolen Sun, or give up frustrated because you can't figure out how to progress the story?
[...]

Wrap-up
A beautiful package of a game, Operencia is enchanting but clumsy. It misses as much as it hits the target of being a great role-playing adventure. There was one glitch that was alarming to me. On Atilla's Tomb, there are sections that overheat my Xbox One X. It shut my Xbox off at least six times. Suddenly my fans would go crazy and it would power itself off. Turning it back on, I would get a message about overheating. It was only on that level but it scared me from playing on. I did battle through it hoping I wouldn't ruin my console. I do not think there is this same issue for PC players. If you're in love with the trailers and concept, you probably won't be disappointed with playing it. If you don't have the patience for puzzles that require hours of wandering around then avoid this at all costs because without a guide you'll likely be stuck in many areas. I'm torn, I really am. While I am love stricken with Operencia, I also am tormented by its flaws.
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The only "flaw" is this reviewer has low IQ. Puzzles were nothing compared to Myst/Riven.
 
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I've now completed the game twice, back to back (to get the final difficulty-level achievement), which I don't think I've ever done for any other game. Not even my beloved M&Ms. I've seen both warrior and mage character builds.

Whilst it isn't perfect (most notably, it could do with a proper manual) it is probably one of the best "old school game in a modern look" RPGs I've ever played.
 
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Glad to see other members enjoying this but I was never interested.^^
 
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It is a good game, one that I need to get back to playing again:p
 
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I decided to finally give it a shot.
 
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This is the game Bard's Tale IV should have been. Maybe not exactly, but if the goal is to take the "old school dungeon crawler" and give it modern sensitivities, these guys nailed it WAAAAY better than that weird card-game puzzle-game mishmash that Brian Fargo's millennial design team came up with.

They've done a really good job of recreating the tension and resource management of a dungeon crawler, without it being excessively harsh. In the original Bard's Tales, one of the fundamental game mechanics was figuring out how far you could push your luck and keep pressing on into a dungeon before you needed to come back to rest up and recharge your magic points, etc. Well, in this game, there are campsites all around, but you can only rest at them if you have firewood. And those come in a limited supply, which you need to find in the game (or buy up to 3 from the merchant). The supply is not excessively sparse (I have 10 pieces on my party now), but it does provide enough impetus to keep you from needlessly resting, and pushing on even if your party is down to only half their energy points (and energy points are used by just about every character almost every combat turn). I made the mistake of pressing on too aggressively towards the end of a tomb level, and fought 4 elite skeleton warriors with most of my party on their last energy points. I hadn't saved in a while, so I had to attempt the fight, and in the end I won with only my tank left standing, and every single potion and special party ability consumed. It was great fun.

The difficulty is perfect. There are no trash mobs; every combat is meaningful and takes thought and planning (and there is no respawning). The boss battles are hard, but not unfair. The last boss I fought, I was facing a magic user with 300+ health, all with weapons and spells that do 10-20 points of damage. First thing she does is summon a tank up front who immediately activates taunt, which prevents me from targeting the spellcaster with single-target abilities for 3 turns. You immediately think, "oh shit", but you start plugging away, using AoE and DoT abilities whenever possible, carefully watching your health and energy points and eagerly awaiting the cooldown of your abilities that restore each of them, and you slowly but surely bring both enemies down. The way I'm describing it probably sounds tedious, but I've gotten a real sense of accomplishment from most of the fights I've engaged in.

It's just a fun game. Highly recommended.
 
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It's starts off fun but I found the puzzles grew more and more tedious (and ambiguous) with each subsequent area. So, in a way, it did capture the "old school" feeling, but preferences will vary.

The only time I found the combat challenging was an optional 10,000 hp mob at the end of the game; the main challenge is definitely trying to figure out the puzzles (and pixel-hunting repeatedly to figure out if you missed something).
 
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I'm glad some people enjoyed it, but I didn't find it to be very good. I tried getting into it twice but gave up after the second time.

I have to disagree that there are no trash mobs. To me, nearly every encounter felt like a trash mob. Granted, I quit in the third area, but there should be some challenge by that point in the game. I never had a single party member die or even come close.

I also didn't care for the linear design of the game where it takes you from one area to the next. For me, LoG 2 is vastly superior when it comes to exploration. M&M X as well.
 
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It really sounds like a game that would appeal to me, I'll likely be picking this one up when it appears on either great old games or steam, I have such a back log right now that waiting isn't exactly painful.
 
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