What did you feel about the pacing of the game in terms of how adding the dice to the combat actually really slows it down compared to other tactical games? Do you feel that was an issue or just something you might notice from time to time and then just not care about?
Serephinaify I love dice games, and I love tactical games, and I love card games, you do the math. I will be buying this game most likely. Nevermind, judging by the gameplay it looks like Card Hunters did it better for free.
Sometimes I just listen to your reviews while at work and when the game doesn't interest me I kinda zone out and don't listen anymore to what you're saying. But your voice is so soothing so I keep listening anyway. It relaxes me like I'm listening to freaking whale sounds or something. Thank you for that.
Dude , great review. also , some of your lines were pretty damn funny. ("twisting and turning like you're trying to get a picture up a birth canal" , might be the best way to describe an over head camera in a turn based tactics game I've ever heard)
The developers said "inspired by SE tactics games", and all they had to do was a tight job system and interesting maps. And they go and introduce RNG and card systems. "inspired by SE tactics games" my ass.
Cruz Rodriguez since you can modify your dice and even re roll two, the rng is not that big. Most cards are pretty unique in effects and dice interaction so that I actually liked the battle system, if this game had a open scope where you could have chosen classes and have each with unique cards and roles this game could have been pretty fun instead of just ok fun. I hope someone take the system here and expand upon with classes and cars collection concepts
Lol! Well, maybe USA and Europe, but developed Asian cities figured out the homeless problem so I don’t encounter that in Asia as much as while I’m in US/EU.
Got weird at the end. No spoilers, but it was like, "What?" Anyways the art is refreshingly different. The Grid/Card/Dice based combat is also refreshingly different, though the amount of RNG was maddening. In my playthrough height definitely mattered. Not like from box ground but shooting someone atop a 2 story building was difficult if you were on the ground without a long range card. It was almost impossible for melee to hit up or down and oddly enough AOE like Smoke Bomb seemed to ignore height. For Difficulty there are definitely spikes. Levels where you survive waves are the worst. I never had the card I needed to take the fight to them, they just run out to quickly and running out of card to attack with means you have lost your momentum and you aren't guaranteed to get it back by drawing cards. After Survival Zealots were the worst, Glass cannon hordes that could do dmg on their own but debilitated you with status effects. Guard gets tougher later as they get status boosting cards and all around better offense. I never had problems with Thugs I always had an easy time with them. But a real cheat for this game is that on a lot of levels enemy NPCs will not move towards you until you trigger a flag by moving passed an invisible line in the sand. SO by playing cautiously you can lore in their army piece by piece and heal/buff yourself inbetween.
Been waiting for someone to review this and it just so happened to be my favorite reviewer :) Was so excited to roll the dice on this one but I really don't think it will be a good outcome :(
Basically, Children of the Zodiarcs is similar to Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force and Tactics Ogre which is fine with me considering that I'm a huge fan of those games. Unfortunately, this game is nowhere near as good as the aforementioned games. The camera is definitely an issue. The maps are too cramped. The fact that the game artificially increases the difficulty by throwing more enemies at you makes no sense whatsoever. Its a shame because I was looking for a game that can satisfy my Final Fantasy Tactics itch. With that aside, I do like the fact that Karak not only reviews AAA titles as well as smaller games that someone might've never heard of for example, smaller indie games, obscure titles, etc. Thanks Karak for the great review!
Appreciate the info... If I'm being honest, I'll probably disregard your advice and just buy it, but that's based on my knowing from your review what the biggest problems are and being cognizant that they aren't things that bother me much, so this was a great help
i love the art style, but I"m not fan of 3D models of the characters on the maps, and the Dice system not big fan of that as well, I rather just play FF Tactics again or even better the Advance ones
What game genres do you review? i've been subscribed for a while now but i still can't figure out how you select your games. Keep up the good work though!
Like most I don't select by Genre. I select by what I get codes for and can buy and pure luck. Since I buy every game I review regardless if I get a code or not. I try to cover everything. I guess maybe sports if they have a version every year I might not do.
Sounds great, it's just that i miss some larger titles. And as i value your review work more than any other reviewer on youtube, it's kind of a hole in my decision to buy things. :D But as long as your having fun doing what you're doing, i'm all for it.
As a gamer who really likes to sometime play those kind of games I have a few questions. Is there a way to skip through the animations or completely disable them because at the start it might add some immersion but when you really start to intentionally grind this becomes sort of a burden to go each time. Disabling walls or making them transparent would be a great addition as you've mentioned. Maps seem cramped. I have more hours on Disgaea than on any FF tactics and all I can say is that you can go though a jail time without noticing with this game. Most of these games set the bar really high and I dunno if titles gonna really make it.
I've noticed in your most recent reviews you've been letting the game audio play faintly in the background of your commentary, which is as I recall something you didn't do in past reviews.
Nice, it looks like they really added some nice concepts here. This is a game dev team I want to support. I will be looking for this during the Steam Thanksgiving and Xmas sales. Thank you as always ACG for the intelligence and in depth review. I know many people do not understand the 25 to 50 hours (playing upload and editing time) each takes but the quality is very very noticeable. An staying your own man and your own channel is a huge bonus for staying and remaining true and no one's corporate shill. All the best
Aw man, too bad this game doesn't appear to be up to snuff. I really like tactical RPG's (currently 80hrs deep in Disgaea 5) and was hoping this would be slotted in next to sate my thirst for this genre.
Mildly disappointed that this wasn't as tightly executed as I hoped it would be. I backed it on Kickstarter because it looked like a really neat series of ideas to combine. I'm not a huge fan of card battle systems, but the way this was presented alongside a Tactical RPG setting, I was hoping I'd really find myself getting into it. I ended up getting my download keys but haven't actually downloaded the title yet. I'm still going to play it and hopefully enjoy it, but I backed it at a level to get a physical copy of the game and the devs haven't even finished designs for the physical rewards, so it's going to be September to October at the earliest before those get sent out. Kinda disappointing.
This is really disappointing. The lack of really good Final Fantasy Tactics-style RPGs really makes me interested in any title that tries this, but cringey writing and shallow combat turns me off big time, especially when compared to the excellent writing of FFT and Tactics Ogre. Oh well.
It's very, very hard to find a good TRPG outside of FFT, Tactics Ogre, and Disgaea. It's my favorite genre. And my second favorite are TCGs. So this is a perfect game for me... but what I'm hearing doesn't sound too great. I would recommend Duelyst and/or Atlas Reactor to anyone looking for decent/interesting TRPG games. Both are multiplayer-only (which is cool in itself) and both are completely unique.
I'm surprised you never mentioned how utterly limited the party size was. Like really, two or three party members at a time fighting off waves that could go up as high as 20?! It's still fun but the game gave a lot of lofty promises for a rather subpar experience. Story was depressing too.
Hi Karak! great review as always! ... hey do you think you could do a review for FORTNITE? I know its not a full game release but I the problem with games like this and other ones that stay as "early release" for a while is that I think a lot of publishers are starting to take advantage of this, you see since its not a full release publishers know that most serious reviewers such as your self are not gonna review it and so a lot of people like myself end up buying it just hoping that it'll be our money's worth :( and this title is specially difficult for me to make a decision on because I heard that next year it'll be free to play :( !!! so i don't know if its worth paying $40 for it or just wait till next year... if you can a review would be AMAZING!!! for games such as this one and others like ARK SURVIVAL :D thank you Karak! you're the best! seriously you are.
Supported this game on Kickstarter way back when. Devs are some of the nicest people I've met but the key releasing has been odd. The game came out yesterday but I've yet to receive a key for the game. I also paid $25 for it, and it launched on sale at $17. I understand the marketing behind it, try to get as many sales on launch day as possible, but it's kind of a spit in the face to backers. I paid more for something and I'll either get it late or perhaps not at all until I speak with the devs. On a different note, good work ACG. Still my go to reviewer for most games.
L33TBrownGuy Karak has stated in the past that he simply doesn't have the time to devote to covering BotW because there are just too many games to review.
Wasn't expecting FFTactics but still disappointed. I'm about 3 hours in, the combat is serviceable at best but worse than that, I simply don't like the characters or writing. I feel confident even I could write at this level, if not above it.
It's a shallow game missing all the best parts of games like FFT, Tactics Ogre, Disgaea, or even Xcom... aside from a grid turn based system where you move and do stuff (a small amount of stuff, and you can't mix it up, you have to move or use a card, one character at a time, as opposed to being able to move afterwards, etc). I never went back after a couple of hours, because it was obvious what the game was. I probably should've tried to get a refund from steam.
Really looking for a good new turn based strategy game, but I'll probably just hold out for XCOM2 War of the Chosen. I just can't tolerate really lazy AI programming and this games seems to be full of that. Rather than focus on good AI, they just throw more enemies at you and handicap you. This is fake difficulty.
With the masses of games coming out all the time, particularly from indie teams, many are bound not to be that great... Anyway, lets be thankful, we've been inundated with good games too, recently, and finding time to play everything can be pretty difficult... Especially if you're working enough to afford them all... And if you're talking about lack of AAA releases rather than the quality of Indie titles released right now, I think a similar point applies... Although the game still sounds alright, just not great. I dunno, either way I wouldn't worry lol There's way more than enough good stuff available. I've got such a backlog >_
Jim488 Gaming It's alright, we're about to get Sundered (July 28th) and Pyre (July 25th) in the same week Indie gold right there.. Played a Sundered demo at Best Buy and was instantly hooked. Incredible. Don't need to say much at Pyre; Supergiant Games has nailed it so far with Bastion and Transistor
This game reeks of SJW nonsense. Something about the art style seems very "women are awesome and men are either evil, clowns, or evil clowns and nothing more." The stupid way the characters talk is very similar to how Marvel comics writes their beloved "girl power" characters like captain marvel or even fucking squirrel girl.
Summary. 10-15 hours.
But lots of rough.
Thanks to Techtoy for the assistance getting my footage back:(
What did you feel about the pacing of the game in terms of how adding the dice to the combat actually really slows it down compared to other tactical games? Do you feel that was an issue or just something you might notice from time to time and then just not care about?
Serephinaify I love dice games, and I love tactical games, and I love card games, you do the math. I will be buying this game most likely.
Nevermind, judging by the gameplay it looks like Card Hunters did it better for free.
I'm so glad you review small games like this, gives us a chance to discover a new game we wouldn't know about otherwise!
Your reviews are the only ones that I systematically watch anymore. 👍
mfw karak is the only person releasing reviews this month
Eoin OShea Man thats fine with me. He's the only good one doing them.
Sometimes I just listen to your reviews while at work and when the game doesn't interest me I kinda zone out and don't listen anymore to what you're saying.
But your voice is so soothing so I keep listening anyway. It relaxes me like I'm listening to freaking whale sounds or something. Thank you for that.
Dude , great review. also , some of your lines were pretty damn funny.
("twisting and turning like you're trying to get a picture up a birth canal" , might be the best way to describe an over head camera in a turn based tactics game I've ever heard)
appreciate it Doser!
The developers said "inspired by SE tactics games", and all they had to do was a tight job system and interesting maps.
And they go and introduce RNG and card systems.
"inspired by SE tactics games" my ass.
Cruz Rodriguez since you can modify your dice and even re roll two, the rng is not that big. Most cards are pretty unique in effects and dice interaction so that I actually liked the battle system, if this game had a open scope where you could have chosen classes and have each with unique cards and roles this game could have been pretty fun instead of just ok fun. I hope someone take the system here and expand upon with classes and cars collection concepts
What is "SE tactics"? Is "SE" short for Square Enix or something, so you're actually referring to Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre?
that McDonald's reference...so true. In every single city in the world.
Loved it.
Lol! Well, maybe USA and Europe, but developed Asian cities figured out the homeless problem so I don’t encounter that in Asia as much as while I’m in US/EU.
Got weird at the end. No spoilers, but it was like, "What?"
Anyways the art is refreshingly different. The Grid/Card/Dice based combat is also refreshingly different, though the amount of RNG was maddening.
In my playthrough height definitely mattered. Not like from box ground but shooting someone atop a 2 story building was difficult if you were on the ground without a long range card. It was almost impossible for melee to hit up or down and oddly enough AOE like Smoke Bomb seemed to ignore height.
For Difficulty there are definitely spikes. Levels where you survive waves are the worst. I never had the card I needed to take the fight to them, they just run out to quickly and running out of card to attack with means you have lost your momentum and you aren't guaranteed to get it back by drawing cards. After Survival Zealots were the worst, Glass cannon hordes that could do dmg on their own but debilitated you with status effects. Guard gets tougher later as they get status boosting cards and all around better offense. I never had problems with Thugs I always had an easy time with them.
But a real cheat for this game is that on a lot of levels enemy NPCs will not move towards you until you trigger a flag by moving passed an invisible line in the sand. SO by playing cautiously you can lore in their army piece by piece and heal/buff yourself inbetween.
Pumping out the reviews this week aren't you!
Thanks as always.
short as hell games for the most part and had them for a long time
It's actually for sale now at only 16.
Been waiting for someone to review this and it just so happened to be my favorite reviewer :)
Was so excited to roll the dice on this one but I really don't think it will be a good outcome :(
thanks!
It looks off to me.
best informative reviews.
Basically, Children of the Zodiarcs is similar to Final Fantasy Tactics, Shining Force and Tactics Ogre which is fine with me considering that I'm a huge fan of those games. Unfortunately, this game is nowhere near as good as the aforementioned games. The camera is definitely an issue. The maps are too cramped. The fact that the game artificially increases the difficulty by throwing more enemies at you makes no sense whatsoever. Its a shame because I was looking for a game that can satisfy my Final Fantasy Tactics itch. With that aside, I do like the fact that Karak not only reviews AAA titles as well as smaller games
that someone might've never heard of for example, smaller indie games, obscure titles, etc. Thanks Karak for the great review!
You have not slowed down on these reviews man. You must be playing 20 hours a day. Thanks for doing what you do!
well lots of short games to
Keep the reviews comin'!
I love your channel - one of the few sources I trust for game reviews!
Appreciate the info... If I'm being honest, I'll probably disregard your advice and just buy it, but that's based on my knowing from your review what the biggest problems are and being cognizant that they aren't things that bother me much, so this was a great help
Can't wait for the PYRE review
It's gonna be lit (pun intended)
Not a game for me but enjoyed the review none the les 😀
I was really looking forward to this one. FF Tactics is my second favorite game ever. Too bad
same. guess we need to wait for that Arcadian Atlas to come out.... or as im thinking - to go and play some FFT mods
i love the art style, but I"m not fan of 3D models of the characters on the maps, and the Dice system not big fan of that as well, I rather just play FF Tactics again or even better the Advance ones
I kickstarted this :D
...why?
It looked amazing, why else?
me too!
Why are some of the enemies named the Black Fang? Isn't that already a thing in Fire Emblem 7, a different strategy game?
What game genres do you review? i've been subscribed for a while now but i still can't figure out how you select your games.
Keep up the good work though!
Like most I don't select by Genre. I select by what I get codes for and can buy and pure luck.
Since I buy every game I review regardless if I get a code or not. I try to cover everything. I guess maybe sports if they have a version every year I might not do.
Sounds great, it's just that i miss some larger titles. And as i value your review work more than any other reviewer on youtube, it's kind of a hole in my decision to buy things. :D
But as long as your having fun doing what you're doing, i'm all for it.
As a gamer who really likes to sometime play those kind of games I have a few questions. Is there a way to skip through the animations or completely disable them because at the start it might add some immersion but when you really start to intentionally grind this becomes sort of a burden to go each time. Disabling walls or making them transparent would be a great addition as you've mentioned. Maps seem cramped. I have more hours on Disgaea than on any FF tactics and all I can say is that you can go though a jail time without noticing with this game. Most of these games set the bar really high and I dunno if titles gonna really make it.
I don't understand why everyone insists on putting cards into their games now. What's wrong with a standard battle menu? Is it just not cool anymore?
As sharp as ever, Karak. :) Nice wrestling reference. ;)
I've noticed in your most recent reviews you've been letting the game audio play faintly in the background of your commentary, which is as I recall something you didn't do in past reviews.
4:30 "You're presented with some excellent wood"
Thanks! Saved me money
Nice, it looks like they really added some nice concepts here. This is a game dev team I want to support. I will be looking for this during the Steam Thanksgiving and Xmas sales. Thank you as always ACG for the intelligence and in depth review. I know many people do not understand the 25 to 50 hours (playing upload and editing time) each takes but the quality is very very noticeable. An staying your own man and your own channel is a huge bonus for staying and remaining true and no one's corporate shill. All the best
love the metaphors! had me smiling the whole time.
Aw man, too bad this game doesn't appear to be up to snuff. I really like tactical RPG's (currently 80hrs deep in Disgaea 5) and was hoping this would be slotted in next to sate my thirst for this genre.
will this be released with physical copy on console ?
I have run out of unfunny comments
Enjoyable game to fulfill your final fantasy tactics addiction, be sure to get the 1.01 update which makes it much better.
Damn ACG, you pumping out reviews like crazy :p
Have yout aken over AngryJoe's "duties"? ^^
Mildly disappointed that this wasn't as tightly executed as I hoped it would be. I backed it on Kickstarter because it looked like a really neat series of ideas to combine. I'm not a huge fan of card battle systems, but the way this was presented alongside a Tactical RPG setting, I was hoping I'd really find myself getting into it.
I ended up getting my download keys but haven't actually downloaded the title yet. I'm still going to play it and hopefully enjoy it, but I backed it at a level to get a physical copy of the game and the devs haven't even finished designs for the physical rewards, so it's going to be September to October at the earliest before those get sent out. Kinda disappointing.
what up bro and hope you're well
This is really disappointing. The lack of really good Final Fantasy Tactics-style RPGs really makes me interested in any title that tries this, but cringey writing and shallow combat turns me off big time, especially when compared to the excellent writing of FFT and Tactics Ogre. Oh well.
It's very, very hard to find a good TRPG outside of FFT, Tactics Ogre, and Disgaea. It's my favorite genre. And my second favorite are TCGs. So this is a perfect game for me... but what I'm hearing doesn't sound too great. I would recommend Duelyst and/or Atlas Reactor to anyone looking for decent/interesting TRPG games. Both are multiplayer-only (which is cool in itself) and both are completely unique.
I'm surprised you never mentioned how utterly limited the party size was. Like really, two or three party members at a time fighting off waves that could go up as high as 20?! It's still fun but the game gave a lot of lofty promises for a rather subpar experience. Story was depressing too.
Hi Karak! great review as always! ... hey do you think you could do a review for FORTNITE? I know its not a full game release but I the problem with games like this and other ones that stay as "early release" for a while is that I think a lot of publishers are starting to take advantage of this, you see since its not a full release publishers know that most serious reviewers such as your self are not gonna review it and so a lot of people like myself end up buying it just hoping that it'll be our money's worth :( and this title is specially difficult for me to make a decision on because I heard that next year it'll be free to play :( !!! so i don't know if its worth paying $40 for it or just wait till next year... if you can a review would be AMAZING!!! for games such as this one and others like ARK SURVIVAL :D thank you Karak! you're the best! seriously you are.
On sale for 8.99 through ps plus currently
2D art looks great, everything else looks "meh"
Hey ACG, are you going to be reviewing Epics Fortnite? Looks like a cool game!
That Jonestown reference.. lol
Supported this game on Kickstarter way back when. Devs are some of the nicest people I've met but the key releasing has been odd. The game came out yesterday but I've yet to receive a key for the game. I also paid $25 for it, and it launched on sale at $17. I understand the marketing behind it, try to get as many sales on launch day as possible, but it's kind of a spit in the face to backers. I paid more for something and I'll either get it late or perhaps not at all until I speak with the devs.
On a different note, good work ACG. Still my go to reviewer for most games.
There will never be another Final Fantasy Tactics.
Are you gonna do a breath of the wild review? if not I would love a walking the walk on the game
L33TBrownGuy Karak has stated in the past that he simply doesn't have the time to devote to covering BotW because there are just too many games to review.
ShiningT1g3R That really fucking sucks
I so freaking loved Final Fantasy Tactics back in the day. A shame about the quality and length. Id rather just save the money and replay FFT.
Fallen legion or Children of Zodiarcs?
great review! thanks for let us know how this game is! I think I will pass!
PS: quick question? will you review nintendo switch games ?
if I own and beat one for sure ya
I think more can be done with this system, but the game itself is a bit short.
this would be dope on Switch
Gg rvw sir ✌🏻🤘🏻
sigh, now im sad there's no FF Tactics game :( and I meant back when it was more serious with Ramza etc
where is for honor review?
Looks like a ton of them on youtube. Tons to pick from.
Bill Waters On the internet.
Wasn't expecting FFTactics but still disappointed. I'm about 3 hours in, the combat is serviceable at best but worse than that, I simply don't like the characters or writing. I feel confident even I could write at this level, if not above it.
Watched a stream on this game, didn't seem to bad
Please review Fortnight (it comes out the 25th) also, make sure it's not 2 mins long or full of sponsored bullcrap. thx.
It's a shallow game missing all the best parts of games like FFT, Tactics Ogre, Disgaea, or even Xcom... aside from a grid turn based system where you move and do stuff (a small amount of stuff, and you can't mix it up, you have to move or use a card, one character at a time, as opposed to being able to move afterwards, etc). I never went back after a couple of hours, because it was obvious what the game was. I probably should've tried to get a refund from steam.
Damn, I had higher hopes for this one.
Really looking for a good new turn based strategy game, but I'll probably just hold out for XCOM2 War of the Chosen. I just can't tolerate really lazy AI programming and this games seems to be full of that. Rather than focus on good AI, they just throw more enemies at you and handicap you. This is fake difficulty.
seems to be issue for indie games, they don't tweak the game enough before release
If you want to see some difficult AI, try some of the Fire Emblem games on Lunatic difficulty
4th??
This looks like the game I really want to play. I love Ff Tactics but damn, this one looks like a letdown :(
Whether the game is good or not, that title is terrible.
this is a cool game, the story somewhat sucks and leveling is a bit broken. Try changing the dice off to spend less time with that bs.
shows the lackluster releases, lately, with the most obscure string of game reviews by Karak that i ever remember seeing.
i dont know , recently i find myself enjoying these "rough around edges" games much moe than majority of AAAs :-/
With the masses of games coming out all the time, particularly from indie teams, many are bound not to be that great... Anyway, lets be thankful, we've been inundated with good games too, recently, and finding time to play everything can be pretty difficult... Especially if you're working enough to afford them all... And if you're talking about lack of AAA releases rather than the quality of Indie titles released right now, I think a similar point applies... Although the game still sounds alright, just not great.
I dunno, either way I wouldn't worry lol There's way more than enough good stuff available. I've got such a backlog >_
Jim488 Gaming It's alright, we're about to get Sundered (July 28th) and Pyre (July 25th) in the same week
Indie gold right there.. Played a Sundered demo at Best Buy and was instantly hooked. Incredible. Don't need to say much at Pyre; Supergiant Games has nailed it so far with Bastion and Transistor
Who's exited for the evil within 2?
Exited what? Exited.. my office?
Now i don't want it =/
I only trust angry people with my game reviews
wants to be FFT, unfortunately has a pathetic artstyle and out of place cartooon characters
Every rinky dink game gets detailed in review but will never do a Zelda review...of course
well ya not going to lie and pretend I finished Zelda hahahah. That would make no sense
FIRST?
Seems like the K-man is about to meet is end or something, and he is trying to get out as many videos as he can before that happens.
the games are like 2-8 hours long.
And I guess the writing comes effortlessly to you. Still, I appreciate having something new to watch every time I visit TH-cam.
The story has a very cringy sjw vibe to it. Other than that, it's not bad
This game reeks of SJW nonsense. Something about the art style seems very "women are awesome and men are either evil, clowns, or evil clowns and nothing more." The stupid way the characters talk is very similar to how Marvel comics writes their beloved "girl power" characters like captain marvel or even fucking squirrel girl.