It’s been a long time since I last had time to do proper game reviews, and my backlog hasn’t grown any shorter during the interim. So I’m doing a double-header: Styrateg and Age of Fear: The Undead King. This isn’t just to save time; these two games have a lot of similar qualities, and I [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Title: Planet Stronghold Developer: Winter Wolves (Celso Riva) Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux Price: $24.99 Guest Review by Tof Eklund Winter Wolves’ Planet Stronghold is a hybrid dating sim and RPG, combining elements of two distinctively Japanese genres (visual novel and old-school jRPG) with high-res graphics and an art style that is more influenced by western comics [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Title: Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon Developer: Rampant Games (Jay Barnson) Platforms: Windows (a Mac port is promised in the future) Price: $22.95 Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon is a first-person dungeon delver by Rampant Games with an unusual focus on comedy and characterization. It lacks polish in a few areas, but FK:TSoSD [...]
Read the rest of this entry »File this one under “New to Me”: last year, Aldorlea Games released an RPG Maker jRPG by the name of Dreamscape. Today, you can read a new, short review of the the game up on DarkStarMatryx, in which the reviewer describes Dreamscape as reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. (Insofar as the game’s premise involves delving [...]
Read the rest of this entry »John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun has written a review of indie dev Zeboyd‘s new jRPG Cthulu Saves the World. He takes issue with the random battles and magic point balancing, but otherwise seems to enjoy the game. This comes in the form of a top-down, old-school RPG, reminiscent of Nintendo classics, as you wander [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Title: Monster’s Den: Book of Dread Developer: Monstrum Games (Daniel Stradwick) Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux Price: Free Guest Review by Tof Eklund Monster’s Den and its sequel Monster’s Den: Book of Dread are pure hack-and-slash. As Book of Dread is half-sequel, half updated version (it includes the original dungeon in Monster’s Den in it), this [...]
Read the rest of this entry »I’ve received an email from a Dr. Tof Eklund pointing me to a review he wrote of the indie RPG Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle. He describes it as sort of a strange cross between RPG and interactive fiction, with an overweening focus on building romantic relationships substituting for combat as the meat of the gameplay. [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Title: Arvale: Treasure of Memories Episode 1 Developer: Jaybot7 Platforms: Windows Price: $5.00 Arvale: Treasure of Memories, Episode 1 is a jRPG by Jaybot7 (Jason Surguine) originally released back in 2009. Created in RPG Maker and using mostly default RPG Maker assets, Arvale is a short game with a silly atmosphere and some amusing dialog. [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Title: Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale Developer: EasyGameStation (localized by Carpe Fulgur) Platforms: Windows Price: $19.95 Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale is a Japanese indie RPG originally developed and released by EasyGameStation in 2007, now localized and re-released in English by Carpe Fulgur. The gist is that you play a young girl forced to pay [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Title: Eschalon Book II Developer: Basilisk Games Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux Price: $24.95 Eschalon Book II is the second game in the Eschalon series by Basilisk Games. Eschalon is an isometric, nonlinear wRPG reminiscent of Fallout and Baldur’s Gate. It does almost everything well, but there are a few areas where the game fails to [...]
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