A very solid, satisfying and well written little CRPG. Its length feels very tight to me, wrapping up just when it needed to. Exploring, collecting items, armour and weapons and cooking/achemy all feel satisfying as hell, and the encounters aside from the world map are all static, meaning the game rarely felt tedious.
The presentation is great, utilising a retro aesthetic of these kinds of games past while making everything still feel intuitive and modern feeling. The atmosphere is incredible for its graphical limitations and while the music tracks were a tad overplayed they really did add to said atmosphere.
Combat was defintely interesting. It takes a simpler approach than something like Baldur's Gate 3 (the only other CRPG I've played so far, yes I'm basic), yet I still enjoyed it a lot for what it was. It had some growing pains in the beginning, with few options for party members to utilise and somewhat overly cramped spaces that made me lose a bunch of turns just trying to get around. However, it opens up massively in the back half of the game with party members that have access to fun magic, made me wish I chose a magic class instead of a melee fighter. Once all party members are unlocked it can get slightly repetitive towards the end, but the mostly consistent difficulty was just challenging enough to keep me engaged even on normal, even if towards the very end I kind of crushed everything in my path.
Story was really good, the prose is written nicely and the characters, while not super deep, were fun for what they were. Still, maybe some opportunities for camp conversations wouldn't have gone amiss, as I'd loved to have learned more about the characters. The ending to the game is super cosmic horror and bleak, but I appreciate the confidence in ending how it did. It also gets pretty wild and dark.
Overall, i believe this is a very quality game that's been overlooked in the sea of amazing indies this year. It has its rough edges and won't appeal to everyone in the same way something like BG3 does, but it appealed to my tastes more than enough to call it a great time. I've heard rumblings of the developer wanting to re use and refine this engine, so I eagerly anticipate whatever they cook up next.
The presentation is great, utilising a retro aesthetic of these kinds of games past while making everything still feel intuitive and modern feeling. The atmosphere is incredible for its graphical limitations and while the music tracks were a tad overplayed they really did add to said atmosphere.
Combat was defintely interesting. It takes a simpler approach than something like Baldur's Gate 3 (the only other CRPG I've played so far, yes I'm basic), yet I still enjoyed it a lot for what it was. It had some growing pains in the beginning, with few options for party members to utilise and somewhat overly cramped spaces that made me lose a bunch of turns just trying to get around. However, it opens up massively in the back half of the game with party members that have access to fun magic, made me wish I chose a magic class instead of a melee fighter. Once all party members are unlocked it can get slightly repetitive towards the end, but the mostly consistent difficulty was just challenging enough to keep me engaged even on normal, even if towards the very end I kind of crushed everything in my path.
Story was really good, the prose is written nicely and the characters, while not super deep, were fun for what they were. Still, maybe some opportunities for camp conversations wouldn't have gone amiss, as I'd loved to have learned more about the characters. The ending to the game is super cosmic horror and bleak, but I appreciate the confidence in ending how it did. It also gets pretty wild and dark.
Overall, i believe this is a very quality game that's been overlooked in the sea of amazing indies this year. It has its rough edges and won't appeal to everyone in the same way something like BG3 does, but it appealed to my tastes more than enough to call it a great time. I've heard rumblings of the developer wanting to re use and refine this engine, so I eagerly anticipate whatever they cook up next.
I don't want to be too down on Skald, since it was a clear labor of love. The art is passionate, the writing has charm, and the atmosphere is great. But.... it just doesn't have enough to chew on in any area.
The opening character creation and overworld promises a scale and wonder to it, and then it all gets swept away into a much more linear, dungeon crawling experience. Combat becomes basic and boring fast, with character progression feeling flaccid, options being mostly passive enhancements and enhancements that don't change gameplay much. Same with gear.
Food seems like it SHOULD be a good way to add tension, but you're flooded with it instantly, as though the games afraid for players to worry about it too hard, and it fades off into the background. All the systems have promise, but just don't have enough to them to really want to engage with.
Last part is the writing, which IS charming and engrossing, thanks to the great art going with it, but it never climaxes into something satisfying. It's hard to describe, but it feels like the game is all build up, all build up, and... never giving you much to get excited about besides the promise that SOMETHING is coming, eventually, if you keep going. It doesn't help that the characters aren't anything to write home about, very archetypical Stuff you'd see anywhere.
So... do I regret Skald? Not really. But it is a game that feels like it had a lot of promise, substance and style, but ends up having only the latter.
The opening character creation and overworld promises a scale and wonder to it, and then it all gets swept away into a much more linear, dungeon crawling experience. Combat becomes basic and boring fast, with character progression feeling flaccid, options being mostly passive enhancements and enhancements that don't change gameplay much. Same with gear.
Food seems like it SHOULD be a good way to add tension, but you're flooded with it instantly, as though the games afraid for players to worry about it too hard, and it fades off into the background. All the systems have promise, but just don't have enough to them to really want to engage with.
Last part is the writing, which IS charming and engrossing, thanks to the great art going with it, but it never climaxes into something satisfying. It's hard to describe, but it feels like the game is all build up, all build up, and... never giving you much to get excited about besides the promise that SOMETHING is coming, eventually, if you keep going. It doesn't help that the characters aren't anything to write home about, very archetypical Stuff you'd see anywhere.
So... do I regret Skald? Not really. But it is a game that feels like it had a lot of promise, substance and style, but ends up having only the latter.
This game does a lot of stuff right which really makes me want to love it. The atmosphere is great, the art is beautiful, and the story is gripping. The problem is, to properly experience these elements, there are some basic elements that aren't present.
There's no map, making it easy to get lost. The combat is slow and clunky; I eventually cranked the difficulty down to its lowest setting because I basically just wanted to skip the combat and it still took forever.
There doesn't seem to be a way to manually move the camera, which is annoying because it naturally lags behind your movement a bit. In any other game this would just be a little irritating, but because enemies can sometimes spot you and initiate combat, you can be thrown into the slow and clunky combat with no warning. Even on normal difficulty this can be a straight up death sentence. That's not too terrible though, because the game lets you quicksave at any time.
Overall this review is quite critical, but my feelings towards the game are actually pretty positive. I think it's great that a game like this can get made and see such success. I just wish it was easier to enjoy the parts of it that are truly excellent
There's no map, making it easy to get lost. The combat is slow and clunky; I eventually cranked the difficulty down to its lowest setting because I basically just wanted to skip the combat and it still took forever.
There doesn't seem to be a way to manually move the camera, which is annoying because it naturally lags behind your movement a bit. In any other game this would just be a little irritating, but because enemies can sometimes spot you and initiate combat, you can be thrown into the slow and clunky combat with no warning. Even on normal difficulty this can be a straight up death sentence. That's not too terrible though, because the game lets you quicksave at any time.
Overall this review is quite critical, but my feelings towards the game are actually pretty positive. I think it's great that a game like this can get made and see such success. I just wish it was easier to enjoy the parts of it that are truly excellent
Overall great game, though I think there's room for expansion in the back half. There's a lot of build up to the liberation of Horryn and nothing else gets that treatment. Firgol is kind of a fumbled bag, but rest of the game from the tower onward has some solid challenge. I think the ending after the final boss utterly whips in concept but I think the gameplay has too much and too little to do at once and it feels out of step with what the story is doing.
hidden gem, very excited to see his future work<3 more companions and potential endings please, helped grow my love for dark fantasy old rpgs:)