ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ส.ค. 2024
- So we've all been waiting for Dark Deity, and I've seen a lot of initial reviews and responses to it that I both agree and disagree with and I figured I'd give a more complete take on the game now that I've finished it completely.
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
- The Instructions are very simple, the easiest way for me to distribute the copies is through twitter DMs.
- Go to this tweet and comment a reason why you're interested in trying out Dark Deity: / 1406333506502991875
- Make sure you're following me and have your DMs open so that I can send you a steam key if you win.
- Optional: if you wanna like the video and maybe subscribe to help me out that would be cool too but totally unnecessary 😜.
- Winners will be picked on Sunday the 20th of June at 3pm EST (approximately 24 hours from time of upload). GIVEAWAY IS OVER!
- That's it, best of luck!
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction/Giveaway
2:08 Gameplay
13:19 Art, Voice Acting, Sound Design
18:07 Story and Characters
24:28 Game Development and Fair Criticism
28:21 Game Rating and Final Thoughts
Music Used:
Mega Man Battle Network 5 - Powerful Enemy (Boss Theme Remix): • Mega Man Battle Networ...
イースVIII Lacrimosa of DANA ～ SUNSHINE COASTLINE -Long ver-: • イースVIII -Lacrimosa of ...
Ys VIII : Lacrimosa of Dana OST Hope Alive (Extended Ver.): • Ys VIII : Lacrimosa of...
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox OST | Cloaca Maxima [Extended]: • Ys IX: Monstrum Nox OS...
Ys VIII: A-TO-Z Extended: • Ys VIII: A-TO-Z Extended
Persona 3 Portable OST - Mass Destruction [Extended]: • Video
#DarkDeity #SRPG #Game - เกม
Had this been early access, I'd not have a single complaint. I think this will be a great game... _eventually_
Given some time, I feel like they'll be able to deliver, as they have been with current patches. I'd love to revisit in a week and see where it goes from there!
1 year later and it still sucks.
@@brotbrotsen1100 LMAO
My favorite moment of this game so far is when I saw the javelin weapon and it said "no you cant throw it"
LOL, I also had a similar reaction!
Top 10 Videogame Betrayals
Good thing they mentioned! Getting "short spear" in Thracia always got me confused as someone who started with fe7.
And honestly: They know what fanbase is going to try their game so embracing it in a fun way is a good choice imo.
hahaha
isn't that the whole point of javelins??
14:19 The full line is "I'm a healer...BUUUT!" Though I get that it's not easy to understand what that character says sometime especially with that crit quote.
I think that was a meme before dark diety
@@megarotom1590 this is true, along with many of the other stuff that Faust says, like when he talks about microtransactions
@@megarotom1590 it's from that Dr with the Gun meme!
Telepath Tactics developer here: I thought this was a very fair and even-handed review. It is *amazingly* difficult to fully develop and integrate a cast of dozens of characters into an RPG story. I think you were right-on about the NPC backer characters, too. Making a game like this when you're a tiny, underfunded team is just damned difficult. I'm just glad that Dark Deity managed to get the attention and support of the Fire Emblem community where so many other indie SRPGs have failed.
For what it is, this game is a huge accomplishment. It could definitely be better, but this team can and will do great things in the future I'm sure, and I'm looking forward to their forthcoming projects
I think what you said about indie game development, and particularly the Dark Deity team's situation, is very on-point. The promise that this game shows as a first project and the interesting design decisions it makes to distinguish itself from other games in the genre far outweighs any roughness at release, especially considering the game's gotten three patches in as many days. It might not be a perfect game in every single department, but it will still be cool to see what Sword & Axe does with Dark Deity in the future.
As of tonight, make that four!
The team programmer is taking tomorrow off for Father's day, after that he's gonna tackle the surprisingly difficult task of mid-battle saves.
I think the potential and groundwork are there, we just need to let it have a bit more time. Unfortunate that it had to release this way specifically, but given the commitment they've shown and responsiveness, I have faith in this team.
I'll be excited to revisit it in a week and see how far it's come from when we started.
I think it was too ambitious for their first game. I would have made a smaller game with the same engine. Just like the first 5-6 characters in a military campaign (or something) of 10 chapters or less.
Ah. Very cultured using Ys music. ☺ Great video. I've been hearing alot about this game so it's nice to get the lowdown on it. Definitely gonna pick it up one day.
This is possibly the most purest review i ever seen on a game honestly this world needs someone like this
Fun fact i never play a game something like this yet
If its there first game then definitely gonna try it first despite not having experience on this genre not to mention it has replayability which i never heard of this genre having one which is revolutionary
Free on Epic Games right now (if you are not already here because of this)
very fair review, thumbs up. I completely agree on the gameplay segment which is awesome especially given the team size, but I think I would have been a bit harsher on the art and story segments. I do forgive bugs and balance issues, but I think I would have preferred if they had concentrated on a smaller cast that is more elaborated. We meet so many characters already in the first few chapters that it's hard to care for everyone. 3Houses had a similar problem for me when I was suddenly overloaded with support convos and just started to skip the characters I wasn't that interested in in order to get faster to the next map. And while it wasn't a big issue for the main characters, I was often missing changes in the facial expression of some characters to tell if the things they said were ironic, serious or maybe even sad, making it sometimes very hard to follow the story at all. Therefore I would have preferred a much smaller cast with a much bigger impact both in the art and story section
I'm always constantly learning about art, so to me it's difficult to be more harsh on it than "it looks good!" since it's not my area of expertise so it's always interesting to hear your take on it!
I agree with how there are a lot of characters thrown at you. I didn't want to get into exactly why mechanically because that feels like it borders on spoiler territory, but the way they condense all of them in such a short period of time was definitely overwhelming. A smaller cast would've definitely been of more benefit, and allowed for more quality for the ones that we DID have, and maybe could've dedicated more time towards fleshing out enemy characters as well.
It's interesting watching this in 2023, especially seeing the chapter with the teleport tiles, as that looks quite different in the game now, so it's clear that changes have been made since this was filmed. On the other hand, the game still has a long way to go. I quit the game about halfway through because of recurring bugs where I could sometimes not select certain units. They fix themselves if I reload the game, but often at the cost of having to redo a turn, which was becoming more frustrating as the game became more difficult. I may check the game out again in another year because for a while I really had a blast with it. The class and skill synergies are so fun to work with. However, at the current rate of updates, and the fact that such vital bugs as I experienced still have yet to be addressed in 2023, I am not sure how much hope to hold on to. And at what point does it become more worth the devs' time to focus on future projects than to fix their old one?
tl;dr: If you're watching this in 2023, my advice is to wait a little longer and see if the game gets further fixes.
I have absolutely loved my time with this game. I’m not burning through it. I’m slow rolling through the game on the side and it’s absolutely great. 100% worth the purchase.
Great review. I'm usually sceptical about small original projects, but there is a certain feeling of refinement in this one. I wish all the best to the developers. Maybe I will buy the game later
I feel Dark Deity is fine for their first stuff, I'm extremely excited to see where they go from here. Maybe it's sequel will be so much more with a bigger budget and team? They have my attention at the very least.
Dark Deity doesn't feel rushed or lazy. It feels like a game where someone played a pre-Awakening/post-Kaga Fire Emblem game on Easy or Normal difficulty, enjoyed the experience, but was annoyed with a lot of the gameplay choices the series made and decided to make their own Fire Emblem, with Blackjack and Hookers. When I found out that midgame stats can easily get into the 50s while discovering that the game was much more generous with experience while discovering that the game didn't do anything about 1-2 range or high-movement units -- it hit me. While I'm not against going against Fire Emblem's basic design decisions, I don't think the game designers had enough experience or metagame theory to understand why Fire Emblem kept in decisions like breakable weapons and aggressive enemy AI and permadeath and low-growth prepromotes across several decades.
I also don't think that Dark Deity had enough experience with storytelling, or rather, the integration of storytelling with gameplay. I understand the frustration of playing games like, say, Radiant Dawn and having no one in the plot (and to a large extent the gameplay) matter other than the nobility and Ike after a certain point. I also understand not wanting to make everyone some kind of Chosen One or noble or whatever who can match the plot upgrade from 'ragtag bunch of misfits' to 'take on ancient evils'. But the way the game went about it was... while it was better handled than Fire Emblem games with similar problems like FE7 and FE9, I can understand peoples' frustrations with the game continuing to insist that characters like Lincoln and Garrick were still relevant to the plot long after their expiration date.
Tbh, Garrick is Irving's (the MC of this game) best friend, so I can see why he would remain somewhat relevant throughout the whole story. But this, to a degree, happens with most characters. Everyone has something to say, even if it adds nothing to the story itself.
@@FabschOblivion669 Reminds me of the Naruto anime chuunin examinations. The whole peanut gallery has to give their take on the action.
Don't even start with "Why they kept breakable weapons." you never interact with the system more than once mid game. Watch an LP from Mangs, Mekkkah, Aether, Pandan or anyone else. You simply don't interact with it more than once. It's a system that actual devs with talent would call *bloat*. There is a reason even Kaga did away with it eventually.
@@dragoneye6229 Breakable weapons aren't a sacred cow or anything. I understand why they're there and I understand why someone wouldn't include them. However, Dark Deity's system (and to a lesser extent FE14's) was NOT an improvement over Kaga's model. It's just extra complexity for no payoff, not even loss aversion or analysis paralysis. Just take that shit out of the game entirely if you're going to make the proper choice that obvious and non-interactive.
it feels more like they started with awakening then tried out sacred stones probably because its easy and probably never touched kaga games
Hey man, this is a very thoughtful and fair review. Super into your content now.
Hey Link! Great video, and definitely a fair review. I'm nearly done with the game and I can agree with most everything you said. Gameplay, A+. Loads of fun, making busted units and overall a decent challenege on the middle difficulty. The character design is incredible, and I can't wait to start some fanart. The light amount of voice acting brought a lot of the characters to life, which is amazing for such a small game. The music and SFX definitely need some polishing. The negatives do weigh it down a lot. Its definitely the characters and story don't always mesh. If you like sitting through supports/bonds like me you'll get to know a lot of the story and the world, but if you don't there is a lot of character development that is lost because the main story won't show the development nor will it show characters really dealing with the events that happened. A lot of the characters just accept what is happening. If you go through the bonds you'll see them process things, but it takes about half an hour to sit through the supports you earned after every map, and I don't think that is for everyone. There are way too many characters that show up and just join. It's a bit infuriating for a few of them. The stowaway and the dwarf that show up didn't need to be there. Sure they're fun, but they don't really serve a purpose. Also, with the amount of characters that show up suddenly with higher levels than most of your units can make it easier for your early units to fall off since the level at which people join is usually higher. This game definitely could have used a smaller cast, since we only get 14ish units to deploy. Perhaps having some character be guest units on a map would have been a better idea. You are definitely right about map design being very good at the start, with lots of different dynamics. As big as the maps are, they are fun. But there are some that just play out poorly. I do give them credit for their different objevtives rather than just route the enemy. Also the trade-off between speed clearing for gold or routing for exp was something I appreciated. Also the grave wounds instead of permadeath is one of the best ways to make this an approachable game for everyone. I think thats all of my 2 cents. Definitely going to keep supporting and recommend to others despite its quirks.
Brooke's voice actor is my favorite in the whole game. When I landed my first crit with her, I knew she was the one.
Good work on giving us the rundown, I appreciate it!
Of course, happy to have been of service!
Good to see a fair and balanced review. Enjoying the game so far
i realise when i saw this video , and after playing this game for more than 30 hours than fire emblem is not only mainly core to the gameplay but also relies on their characters and story a lot (at least a lot more for my taste than i expected ).
i hope the team will learn from these mistake , that their next game will be better and also that people will think about what they are buying instead of going on and complain .
i don't want to excuse them for some thing i don't like , some are mistake , some are choice , but the game is what it is . It's not fair to blame the dev because you just buy the game and it's not like you wanted , because this sort of information is easy to find .
Thanks for your opinion in this video about this game , it was pleasant .
Thanks for the video! I’m planning on playing this game in a week or two so hopefully the more major bugs will be fixed by then.
Sounds like a plan! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Its currently free on Epic games! I picked it up and i like it so far!
Great video, very useful
Never understood how that works. How does the dev profit from a game that's free? Epic pays them in full for each download?
I am absolutely keeping my eye on this game, if some of the more glaring UI and map issues get fixed I'll definitely buy it.
Your critique is fair. It would have been nice to have some kind of intermission system where you play as Irving and go around camp talking to the other characters. This would be a perfect opportunity to talk about important parts of the lore.
I'm really glad you clarified just how different the teams are between this game and standard AAA titles. Comparing a $20 indie game with a smaller team mostly relying on kickstarter funds (which I'm assuming is what partially went to the VAs), while deserving of honest criticism, deserves a ton more leeway in regards to the game's quality v its pricing. I think the level of quality of this game says a lot about the work the dev team put behind it despite their inexperience. Idk much about the team, but I'm hoping they get a few more members for efficiency. Thank you for releasing this video since a lot of this needed to be said, especially how fun the game is to play. I'm excited to see how they'll improve if they choose to make more games like this.
Edit: Good choice in background music btw, loved Ys VIII a ton and Falcom always delivers some of the best OSTs I've heard.
I agree, I'm excited to revisit the game in a week's time myself to see how far it's come, as well as where they go from here. I'm sure they've learned a lot from this experience and will take a lot of these lessons forward with them.
And yes! I love Falcom's music despite never having played any of the Ys games myself. I do own a few of them on Steam though, so it may be time to crack them open at some point soon!
loving this game and the team really cares and the creator is open with the community on discord and on twitch.
Thanks for the review 👍👍
As long as they support it, I think the $20 i spent was well worth it. There is fun to be had, and you can definitely see the passion the developers put in. I'm looking forward to seeing what they can do.
honestly, if you changed the name of this game to Fire Emblem : Dark Diety , it wouldn't even be the worst fire emblem game. it would be mid tier. I hope they make another and improve on what they've done. It was definitely a fun experience.
It looks kinda like fe sacred stones. Think I’m gonna get it
Ohhh that music. Megaman Battle Network games were lit af.
Nice, I'll check this one out
i just bought the game thx to u man, thx.
I don't dislike Dark Deity, and I certainly don't want to, but I am ashamed to say that every review has an overwhelmingly positive score to the point of absurdity. I think your review is very good in the way that you speak highly of the game for most of it, but you still give it an appropriate score at the end
Great review. I finished this game and loved it. Honestly the bad map design didn’t bother me that much, especially after finishing a playthrough of Radiant Dawn.
True Radiant Dawn has both some of the best as well as some of the worst maps. The last dessert map still haunts me sometimes.
@@alexiosblake9804 agreed
Benji and his BFF Faust destroying the maps with %100 Crits and flexing four Mayhems in a row on the final boss. Dodge tank crit Cia and her self healing tank BFF Eilas sweeping whole maps.
$20 with inflation that reminds me of a game that was $40 back in 2003...honestly i think its better than the GBA fire emblem and thats what i was looking for...i'm really enjoying it personally.
This gives me some Vandal Hearts vibes. You could choose different classes within jobs in that game too. It's one of my favorite srpg.
It's....decently ok I would say. Really happy that you released this review, LinkKing.
Dark Deity could have had more polish to go with and I hope that the Devs will continue to release updates and improvements for it.
I decided to keep it and not refund it both because I support what DD is but most importantly to support what it can become.
Looks like we've got yet another patch on day 4 and the work is continuing to go well, so I'm happy that they're really working on ironing out the kinks and making sure it works well!
The YS VIII music 😍😍.
Excellent review, I was so happy to hear your thoughts- was really looking forward to it. It seems like most of the complaints are things that can be easily patched in terms of QOL changes and that makes me most excited. Good gameplay will keep this game strong for a long while and I’m so happy to hear that the team is constantly updating it. So excited for the “final” version of the game
We're on day 4 and already got a 4th patch since this vid has been out so they're definitely hard at work on updating it and making sure that what can be fixed gets done. A few of the things mentioned in this video have already been addressed so it's looking good!
Now see I picked up the game purely because some youtube ads showed off the animations and I was like WOW its like GBA fire emblem, I love it, and I do like the game...but there's one issue with the spriting thats absolutely ruining it for me, and that's how they literally just paste the female characters heads on male sprites and add a censor shirt, it just looks...soooo frickin' bad...I made Cia a stalker and looking at her, tiny, feminine head, on this massive man body...it just hurts my aesthetic senses greatly. It doesn't help also that the game tosses...a LOT of women at you from the get-go, like, most your army in the first half are women. so it's impossible not to notice it unless you only play specific classes like duelist and strider that are thin men.
yes my thoughts exactly. I wanted to play this game when i first saw/heard about it but then i saw the terrible sprites for the females and that just killed any enthusiasm i had for the game. hopefully later down the line they will update it but if that's intentional censoring then that's some BS.
yeah that's largely been my problem with it. I made a a female character a... barbarian? It's literally a think muscular character in a brown tubetop.
No wonder the sprite work looks off to me.
I just wish the maps and objectives were more diverse. Like you know that map where you have to rout 30 enemy soldiers to protect the non existent civilians? I was kind of hoping we would be forced to actually protect civilians, thus forcing me out of my turtle strategy which had served me so well. Alas no luck.
Cia is pretty cool tho.
Yeah I think I touched slightly on how some bonus objectives could be more well utilized, and I think it's not too late for them to code something in for those to be honest. Just a matter if they want to do that or not, but I agree, there should definitely be more of those!
My Cia us pretty cracked lol
This game is very fun, I look foward to the updates they do and everything, decided to buy the artbook so I can support then even more because I really do wish for this game to grow and become very good to play
Would overall agree with the rating since I think there's definitely something there but there's quite a few problems here and there that add up. I imagine that many of the bugs will be ironed out and that we may see some more QoL stuff added. I'll leave my thoughts on story and characters for the spoiler vid though. Overall, I had a lot of fun despite the flaws. Definitely think it's worth a pick up.
I got about 22hrs in the game, all I gotta say is, it's an indie game and expect as such. set your bar as low as possible and you won't have much complaints. My biggest complaint is that the combat sprites, both male and female share the same bodies with swapped out heads. There'd be a tiny cute girl like Sothia, who becomes a massive muscular man in combat for example. Oh and the "bond" conversations are a bit dull, I got bored of them and just sorta stopped reading them.
I didn't really think of the combat sprites that way, but I guess you're right when we look at Battle Mage Sloane 😂.
Bonds, as with most supports, can be pretty hit or miss, but the ones that are tied with story and lore to me were quite interesting, since I wanted to know that information, but I can see where you're coming from!
Totally agree about the combat sprites for me. Loving the game but it completely ruins some of the characters depending on what class you use. Unlocked Iris and had to bench her immediately because she just looks nothing like her sprite, you wouldn't even know its her if she didn't wear a mask, really disappointing since I quite like her voice acting.
Why would you ever set your expectations low as a consumer buying a product? There is zero logic in that. Youre no longer a consumer at that point but a charity. The game is mediocre but lacks almost any polish. Thats just what it is, pretending its better than that by giving this game a special lower standard to compare against is illogical as anything can be.
I mean Awakening had the same issue with body swapping...
@@thomasmitchell7815 It's still a really fun game. Polish isn't going to make it more fun it will just make it slightly less frustrating and they've already patched out the worst things anyway. People are just unfairly sharing a screenshot of one map that is pretty empty and totally ignoring the fact that almost every fire emblem game also has a big empty map at some point. This is an indie game, sure you should have standards but you shouldn't expect a AAA experience from a tiny indie team's first game. Everyone has to start somewhere. There's really not that many issues with this game, I'd say it suffers more from a story standpoint than gameplay.
I like Dark Deity, well as far as ive played it by now, its nothing amazing realy, but for a first game from a fresh team, its worthy of all the praise it gets.
Now whenever Dark Deity 3 or 5 comes out, i will be hype, hopefully.
For me once the bugs are patched I actually think this is my favorite S/T RPG. I absolutely love the character customization and how they handled the weapons and stat boosters. It’s a 9/10 for me once the bugs are fixed. I agree with you that the story wasn’t the greatest but it wasn’t completely awful either
Thank you for listing the music you used, so many TH-camrs just don't do that.
Yeah I always try to list the music I use because otherwise I'd have to respond to a bunch of questions in the comments about it so it's easier to just provide that info up front!
@@LinkKing7 And this way, you have to respond to a comment thanking you for providing it.
I'm not making this easier on you, am I?
@@hansgretl1787 The more comments, the better the algorithm. Wait... maybe I SHOULDN'T put my music in the description...
@@LinkKing7 Gotta get that sweet, sweet ad revenue...
I got halfway through on normal, but ended up restarting the game and finishing it on the Deity difficulty instead. It was an interesting experience, and the Chapter 10 defense mission was a pretty tough cookie. It was ultimately enjoyable, but the scaling up for the difficulty level did feel a bit uneven. And it may have just been me, but I also found that things compounded with having to take things a little more slowly and the reduced gold from the slower completions.
I ended up with a Trickster Cia that was pretty broken. In a difficulty where plenty of the enemies will one-hit you pretty often, she could dodge over a half dozen enemies in a turn and kill them all with her counterattacks. I get the feeling that dodge tanks and rogues in particular have the potential to be a bit overtuned.
I noticed a lot of great quotes from Monroe too - "Impressive, is it not?" And in the credits I was surprised to see that it was Yongyea who did the voice. Huh.
Fire emblem path of radiance is on my top 5 of all time list. And I’m having a lot of fun with dark deity. Gives me hope to know it’s such a small dev team. But yeah. So fun to play. I love leveling up and promoting. Nothing beats path of radiance rank up though. Lol.
I was just playing Three Houses today and you posted another Video😁.
Dimitri got his Santiy back well to us besides Dedue he's back to normal😅.
This kinda looks interesting😁.
A good review, thanks. Made the game's ups and downs pretty clear.
Only questions i have now are technical details, like if enemies are usually that challangeing on normal mode, that you need 2-3 characters to defeat them and not just controll them, does that mean the game avoided the one-hit-kill stuff FE usually has throughout its gameplay if you picked the wrong combination of units to fight another unit? Or are synergies like that support aspect missing completely? And if every elite enemy becomes a boss unit, as in you need 3 different characters, with different classes, to defeat them - doesn't that narrow down your strategical options to just team positioning instead of for example having one unit spearhead an attack and one unit fall back or even flank?
The game has actually been rebalanced and changed drastically in terms of gameplay since this review. They have gone back and revisited broken unit combinations and skills while readjusting certain enemy difficulty so I'm not entirely sure how valid this still is from a gameplay perspective any more specifically. They're also going back and fixing the map art as well so I'd say that it's an improved experience now most likely!
Thumbs up for the Megaman BN5 background music
to be honest my biggest complaint is I would prefer if they had more unique sprites for the cast rather then taking their heads and throwing them on bodies. It's really jarring to see them like that and hope they do update them.
Ys music, awesome! Have you also played the Trails series?
I haven’t, but it’s on my list!
Weapon nut that I am, I really wish that the melee/non-magical ranged classes would get updated sprites when they changed weapon names. Alternately, it would have been less jarring if they were called something like "Styles" or "Wards". Bit weird for the "Schiavona" and "Katana" to look and be used exactly the same. Now that Sword and Axe have their base assets, I hope they expand their sprite work to make these upgrades feel like more than just numbers, either by changing the attack animations, or changing the weapon sections of the sprites.
Agree that it would be cool, but definitely a tall order. Not even the GBA fire emblem games had custom weapon sprites. Pretty unreasonable to expect that of a small team of newb game devs.
@@TeeIeh Agreed, and I think renaming the weapons to Styles is much more reasonable.
I’m looking forward to when indie games like this have hd sprites and graphics better than a GBA. They are all starting to look the same to me.
I do feel it is good to provide feedback as it will help make better games in the future. There is a difference between critical feedback (the music is too repetitive and generic that it takes me out of the world) and just venting frustrations (the music sucks).
Hearing the bad map rap in this video brought me back to how the "peak Kaga" meme scared folks off from Vestaria saga, myself included for a while. Every game has it's infamous maps and you tend to rob yourself of a overall positive experience when you hyperfocus on stuff like that.
I agree, it's why I tend to just play the games and not focus on "assessing" them until after I've finished. Obviously I can keep notes or tabs on things along the way, but everyone's inner desire to be a game critic seems to just ruin gaming experiences for them.
Yo is that Ys VIII music?
Killer.
I too use the "1 dollar per hour of entertainment" rule for games. Which to be fair, I think is actually a pretty high bar. I think I will check out this game when I have more free time then I do right now. I appreciate the review!
I wasn't sure of this game until BENJI. There's literally a line where you just click on him and he just straight up *yells* and it had me in tears.
Edit with some SPOILERS:
The one criticism I really felt at the end was the lack of an ending. I liked bonds, but, for the first half of the game I was waiting for supports to show up. I figured bonds were the preliminary growing... well, bonds of this makeshift group that would then evolve. A lot of the game had this theme - weapons evolved, classes evolved...the main bad guy wants to... do I need to say it? lol. So when about chapter 17/18 came around I finally gave in and realized that bonds were just it - and then while I was sad, I was eager to see what endings characters had detailing where they went and what they did etc. I realize it's left open for a sequel maybe but honestly having anything would have been better than just the one liners given as to what they plan on doing (some didn't even have that) and then nothing.
i mean it's benji!
"I'm a healer but..." is a reference to After War Gundam X.
Considering this was their first game and the size of the crew? I think it turned out pretty well.
Apparently from what the dev said in Luckycrits interview, the grave wounds are 10% of a stat tied to the weapon defeating you
In the tutorial section they added in one of the patches you can find that information in game now.
I see, thanks for letting me, know, I guess it does make sense now that I think about it in retrospect!
@@LinkKing7 you can include that in the full review if you haven’t recorded it yet
Not even close to started on the recording, haven’t even written up most of the script yet and I plan to actually replay some of the game between now and then hopefully
I played it. I would say it's mostly on par with the GBA era fire emblems. I didn't like the weapon system. But everything else was at least decent.
If you played the GBA fire emblems and want more, go play this. If you didn't play the GBA fire emblems... go play them.
Preach
"... to give it a little flair, a fanfare, something like -"
**TH-cam plays ad featuring two cows grazing for the entire duration**
Goddammit, non-Premium TH-cam...
Later maps had a bunch of gimmicks, some of which were pretty cool and others of which were duds, while the earlier maps were just solid but not all that interesting. I liked the gimmicks on my first run, but we'll see how replayable they turn out
Excellent review, the game looks like a lot of fun, and the systems you mentioned really peaked my interest. They may have some kinks to work out, but it all looks very promising. I don't actually have the time to get into the game for a while now, I have a little FE-related project I need to FINALLY get around to finishing first... but on the positive side, I know that most of the issues will probably have been hammered out by the time I get to it. Just buying it now to support the development, this is the kind of content I want to see, we need more indie SRPGs
Probably a good thing you can't get to it quite yet, I imagine your experience will be far more smooth when you do! Excited to see you do a "Retrospective" on it if you decide to do so!
After playing this game I think 6.5/10 was really fair. The game is a mixed bag. The art, both the character art and the sprites, is gorgeous. The game is pretty fun to play. But there are also areas lacking polish, and some things that just made me scratch my head. I stopped reading the story and character conversations after like Chapter 2, it didn't engage me at all. The UI was not that great. I thought the voice acting was fine, granted its not fully voice acted but what they had in was good enough. I think those aspects are forgivable in a low budget indie though. What I really didn't like was how the game scales in the later chapters with armor types as well as the Weapon upgrade and weight system. I think it was a good idea to try to find a replacement to the Fire Emblem triangle system, but in practice in the game I don't think it really worked too well. The way that weapon weight worked in this game also annoyed me to like no end. Also there are a lot of sub-classes in this game but, honestly, only like half of them are actually usable. I felt like I had so many more healers in my army than a standard Fire Emblem game because for some reason they made the healer class some of the tankiest units in this game so they were incredibly useful.
The thing i really miss in this game is a suspens option, i have q full time joh, a family and i'm renovating a house so i don't always have the time to finish a chapter in one go, so i really wanted the option to save in the middle of a chapter.
Sorry for the grammar, fat fingers on a phone :)
They're working on the suspend option for the next patch in a couple days I believe!
@@LinkKing7 awesome, i really like the game so far, but i gotta start the same chapter for the third time today, just because the other two times i misjudged how much time i had and had to leave in the middle of the chapter.
I can't wait to see what these guys do next. This game was baller. I haven't had fun with FE since 4 or 5. Can't remember which one I played last honestly. I do know the GBA titles were a miss for me, they felt more like a chore than a game. Not to mention how they all gave way to become waifu simulators filled with plot holes and one dimensional characters. I also don't like how so many FE fans haven't even given the game a fair shake at all. I can tell from the reviews which are demonstrably false. For example I just watched several other reviews that tried to say X character is basically X from FE but with less character development. Which is false. Just 5 chapters in and I can tell you that I've seen more character growth from the MC and Cia than I have for the entire case of Three Houses.
All I can do is let my characters move and wait. Can't attack. When I click attack, the character is reset to its original position.
How do you attack an opponent now?
I agree that it was a lot of fun to play, especially since we haven't had a FE release since 3H and I was desperate for a new tactical RPG to play. But I will say that more care was needed in the class design. First, there are technical issues with class skills not working, working in weird/disappointing ways, or not factoring into match-up previews during maps. Second, many of the class stat growth mods seem pretty arbitrary and incohesive, not supporting the intended particular role or playstyle. There are exceptions to this, but things like giving the tank class a massive HP penalty are pretty frustrating. Third, some of the classes just seem poorly thought through. E.g. there are only 2 archer archetypes (rangers also have 2 melee archetypes). One of these (Witch Hunter/ Green Knight) is presented as a mage-killer and gets a small bonus vs. mages. But archers actually receive a comparable damage penalty against plate and rune cloak armor..... the only armor that any mage class wears; completely negating their class skills. So actually Witch Hunters are not any good at killing mages and their low offensive stats make them not good at killing anything else either. One of the melee ranger archetypes focuses on bonus damage when doubling... but only has slightly good speed growths so if your character falls even slightly behind (or worse, dies and loses speed) they will stop doubling then fall even further behind never to recover.
Great video and review. I'm only at chapter 8, but can already tell the supports/story is going to be a miss for me. I wish there was a fire emblem type game that didn't include young kids/cutesy girls. Looking at you, Alden and Cia, among others.
Anyways, i agree the gameplay/class system are great, so I'm still having fun there. Who were the two characters you mentioned were "cracked" for you and couldnt be killed?
One of them was Brooke, but I'll let you find the second one yourself, because where's the fun in ruining the discovery for you 😜
i'm currently playing with my Switch Pro controller connected to Steam and it's almost EXACTLY like Three Houses input-wise. It's scary how accurate it is.
EDIT: Also I appreciate the Ys 8 and 9 music!
Glad you enjoyed it! I never tried the controller play, so I might have to give it a shot with my own Pro controller and test it!
Have you replayed through Dark Deity recently? I'm interested in knowing what all has changed or been improved especially since they released it on switch now.
I have not, I've been totally pulled into other games at the moment, but I may revisit it again eventually considering how vastly different the game has become since it launched! There are a LOT of improvements and changes that the dev team has implemented
For someone who's played this who do people recommend as healers I am on chapter 20 or so and most characters are on mid 20s to early 30s but I've struggled to keep the healers leveled up.
This was by far the best review, I really do enjoy the gameplay (playing on hard first playthrough).
You made a lot of very accurate and fair points\criticisms about the game.
You use the same 1$ per hour comparison I do for every game so it's nice to see other people with the same standards.
I have also been running into bugs left and right but seeing patches every day is giving me lots of hope.
One thing I had me wondering though, after you've finished the story (and your close relationship with the Devs) would you ever consider offering to work with them on the game. Mainly to help iron out the story? (Unsure if that's even an option of course since it's their game) I just thought since you of all people who hold story in the highest regard may be qualified to help piece it together?
Either way it was just food for thought, keep up the great content!
I'd be more than happy to contribute if they'd like me to do so. I'm not part of their creative process, nor do I have the same vision as them so I don't know how much I could bring to the table, but they know where to find me if they want my opinions and I'm totally open to it!
I think they jumped way ahead of schedule when releasing the game at E3. It was definitely a last-minute decision. But this game has potential. But in a post-Cyberpunk/Fallout 76 world, they should've sold this game as Early Access.
Love this game Definitely needed another month in the oven tho
Cap on no fire emblem at E3
Are there any components to this game besides the battles?
I find myself enjoying the game until the last part where some of my units just become braindead OP, and i play on hard. Mainly the evasion class where she just evade everything and beats everyone 1v5. It feels good at first but it gets boring when i can just plow through the whole game with her.
is the game better now?
I played till the end and still wondering who the heck is Faust actually is
I think grave wounds is a good system but sounds a little weak currently. I’d at least have various options including full on permadeath. I’d personally do stuff like -1 to every stat or unable to be deployed for 3 chapters etc
Or even maybe -1 movement if you want to be real harsh
I'm giving this game the benefit of the doubt, but my first experience does not bode well:
Graphic bug where the boxes around stats didn't show up and the game crashing after I beat the FIRST MISSION before I can save.
I'm hoping this is just that my laptop is having issues running the game and that my actual PC at home won't have these issues, but if it's not, I'm refunding and waiting for them to smooth things out a little more.
I think the game is fine I'm not super far into the game like character 9 or 10 on hard mode. The biggest problem i had was when I went into the game I expected fire emblem, however, I think if you judge it like a fire emblem game it will fall short. That is what it has for me, but when I think of it as a stand alone game it is fine. There are a few bugs and I don't agree with every decision that the game makes, but fun can be had. Also if you play this game at least from personal experience wait until you beat it on normal first as hard mode does seem to have balancing issues.
Yeah I never tried the hard mode yet, so I can't speak on that one, but the normal mode did feel fine for the most part. There were a few notable difficulty spikes, but outside of that I didn't have too many problems.
I only saw a little bit of dark deity playthrough and my impression for the battlefield music is not great. It is catchy but it feels off at the same time, I don't know why. But the game looks fun though. Hopefully they can improve this game. One day when I pick up this game I will try to treat this game not as FE-like game but a srpg game, so my experience and opinion will be more fair.
Definitely fun and worth a look, especially with the rate they're pumping patches out to fix all the little things!
I don't know if they'll change any of the music, but it's certainly something that COULD be fixed I think.
20 dollars I will buy thus game
A common sentiment is that this game is unfinished and I don't agree. I think it's finished, just unpolished.
I'll never downgrade a development team's first game for bugs as the amount of time it would take to discover all of the bugs would take so long for a small team and the fact that they are fixing them as quickly as they can is a good sign. Musical composition and sound effect design sounds like a learning experience issue as I am sure they couldn't hire someone with more experience. Overall, they should all be very proud of this game, especially the marketing as it is really really hard to get people to see your game. Obviously, the more hype a game gets, the more likely it will lead to vocal disappointment. If the game does well, that money will go into fixing this game and to possible future projects having more of what people want.
A little bit too soft for my taste with the spoken critic, but I would agree to the overall score...
The core problems for me are nothing that can be defended by the indie card. Conceptwise the dodgesystem isn't only broken as hell but sometimes required which is kind of bad in games you might want to iron man (sure, there is no death but certain stats are way more important than others which can lead to maimed characters). The story is all over the place, same as the characters. While the sprite art is beautiful, the map art on the other hand sometimes looks like something you mash together in 15 minutes with an old rpg maker and the default tileset. The difference between those two hurts the overall experience in a way thats hard to describe but itches all the wrong places.
The game gave me the best first impression but the more I played the less fun I had since the concept problems will get very obvious in later stages of the game on higher difficulties.
Sitll a worthy buy and I had a generally nice time with my first play on normal. I wish the developer only the best and hope they will continue creating these sort of games. There is a real niche for that on the PC.
how long before you beat this game?
Yes a lot of things could use work, yes it's an indie game. Excusing it for releasing like this because of those reasons is just being blind. Games don't need to be perfect to be good, but when there are glaring and literal cut corners as early as the first map, I can't help but be turned off. I got through 6 chapters and while I enjoy the technical aspect of how characters work and the gameplay itself, there's too many other little things that made me feel like I'm not playing a finished game.
It looks nice, I want it to succeed. However, it's not done and it needs more time in the oven. That's a fact.
mmbn5 theme is nice
Haven't play the game, but for what I have heard in this video and other places, this game is fine for its price. If it was a $ 60-70, it will deserve a harsher treatment.
god this game makes me REALLY and i mean REALLY hate being broke
i want to buy it so bad 😢
Better break out the good old piggy bank!
@@LinkKing7 this is the consequence of whaling in genshin ig
And the game was confirmed a Sequel, how do you feel?
Did you ever do the spoiler talk you mentioned? I don’t see it (might be blind?)
Nah, I ended up just not uploading anything for like 6 months instead haha