It’s unfortunate that RPGMaker games have such a consistent and distinct aesthetic, it’s really obvious when a game was made with the engine, and a lot of the reviews mention it, too.
That said, this is definitely one of the best RPGMaker games I’ve played. They really stretch what’s possible with it. Can’t get away from that look, though.
The dev is also very responsive! I left a (positive) review with some critical feedback and they commented on it very quickly and had a bit of a dialog with me about the comments I’d made; they ended up revising the Steam page based on review feedback (mine and others), too, which made me want to support them even more!
If you enjoyed it, you might also enjoy Chants of Sennar! It’s also about translating languages; it’s more puzzle-oriented and less story-based; there’s a story to uncover, but it’s not as clear-cut and narrative driven. Still a great game, however!
Didn’t know that! Was going based off of the review score; 1600 reviews in 5 years seemed pretty little-known. All the same, don’t mind the downvotes - that’s the point of the thread after all. :)
Heaven’s Vault is a game about archaeology and translating a dead language. You explore a unique solar system and discover ruins, in which you uncover artifacts, and bits of text. Through context clues, you translate the passages to uncover the storyline. It’s not difficult, so if you’re looking for a puzzle, this won’t really do it for you, but it’s more of a narrative experience. If you aren’t sure about a word or phrase, you can give it a guess (based on assigning words from a collection of possible translations to specific symbols), and the game will remember that choice and let you slowly revise your translations as you find new text that rules out prior incorrect guesses. There’s an interconnected storyline with multiple paths to follow, and a very unique world - haven’t seen anything like it in other games.
The game has a NG+ mode wherein you start with all of your translations from the first playthrough intact, but, most of the bits of text are considerably longer and more involved, letting you use your prior knowledge to uncover more of the story and the lore of the world, which is also neat.
In Grotto, you play the role of a soothsayer living in a cave who is occasionally visited by members of a tribal society living nearby. They come to you with problems, and they want you to present your opinion, but you can’t speak. You have access to constellations of stars, which each hold different meanings, and you must present your answers in the form of a single constellation, which the petitioners are left to interpret.
You’ll feel a bit of frustration as your intended message is missed completely in favor of something that the petitioner wanted to hear, and the same constellation might mean different things to different people, but that’s just part of the game. The story unfolds around you and its progression is communicated to you only through the explanations your petitioners give for their visit. Each is a uniquely unreliable narrator, so what you believe is for you to decide.
Two endings, and an interesting story with some occasionally unexpected consequences that might make you feel bad, so if a game giving you a case of the sads is unappealing, maybe take that into consideration.
Final Profit: A Shop RPG is an RPG about a deposed elf queen who opens a humble shop and slowly advances through the ranks of the Bureau of Business with the eventual goal of defeating Capitalism from within. It’s unique. It has some incremental game like mechanics, and can get a little repetitive in the mid-game, but it has a surprisingly compelling story and a lot of unfolding mechanics that keep it interesting all the way through.
Roughly a 30 hour playthrough with many endings, NG+ and some optional challenge modes that remove or change some of the most obvious strategies for advancement, so if you finish it and still want more, you can play through again with a somewhat different experience.
I want a FO or TES game that’s just a modder playground.
Build the world, don’t populate it with anything.
Divide the world into a grid, let modders submit mods to a central database and register them with the grid squares they alter.
Let the game download an assortment of mods (maybe using user-defined tags to preference certain content) that fills out the world, using their grid square registration system to ensure no overlapping / conflicting content.)
Let players rate content they play.
Reward the modders who made popular content in some way.
Obviously there’s a lot of glaring problems with this, but in my head, it’d be awesome.
Wasn’t the original Perfect Dark hard sci-fi with aliens and spaceships and things? It’s possible I just don’t remember it well. Either way, this doesn’t look like a bad game at all. Just not what I’d have expected.
This is the first I’ve seen of this game, but… this is definitely not what I expected from a game titled ‘Perfect Dark’. Maybe I just don’t remember the N64 game well enough, but this seems pretty far-removed, from a plot perspective.
I have been watching the Prince of Persia game, but I would absolutely have glazed right over its release while entranced by Hades II, so yes, I agree with you, it’s a very smart decision on their part.
(Also, can I just say, holy shit is Hades II some good value. It’s basically two games worth of content in one. More than twice the size of Hades I. Utter insanity.)
You encounter the merchant where you can buy the MTX stuff in the first few hours of the game. You can’t even use the majority of them before reaching that point.
I would honestly bet money that they’d designed the game to not have microtransactions, then some executive at the 11th hour told them to find a way to include them, and they made them inconsequential as a sort of malicious compliance. Not that I think it’s OK to have them in the first place, it really soured me on the game initially. I think it’s considerably worse for including them, but they are completely meaningless.
It’d honestly be hilarious if all the creators just started rebranding their fan projects with Palworld Pals (or any other similar IP). Start shifting the discourse away from Pokemon. I’d love that.