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You Know What Else is Dangerous? BundleStars – Part One: RPG Champions 2 Bundle
I’ll admit, I feel okay about spending $2 on a bundle of Steam codes and only playing two or three of the games—a couple of hours of enjoyment is still a nice value for my two bucks. I’m much more inclined to say, “This doesn’t grab me. Whatever, I have lots of other things to play.” In this case, I got 15+ hours of play for my $2, so I think it was a really good bargain.
Before the Echo - Apparently also known as “Sequence” (and it appears the title changed very late in development), this is a rhythm game disguised as an rpg. In the grand tradition of puzzle quest, the rpg elements (equipment, random drops, crafting systems, etc.) are an excuse to play a zillion games of Dance Dance Revolution. The major gimmick is that you have three frames of dropping arrows that you can freely switch between: One is defense, where missing a hit means you take damage. One is your spells, which you activate and does nothing when you aren’t casting. And one is the mana recharge, which is always going like crazy but there’s no penalty for missing; you just recharge your MP by getting hits. The thing is, for an excuse plot, the voice acting and witty banter are shockingly good. I’d love to watch a sitcom written by this game’s designer. The item descriptions are also fantastic. This amounted for half of my total time on games in the bundle, and if you like rhythm games, I’d give it a look.
Lethal RPG: War - This clearly was designed to be a mobile/touchpad game, as everything involves tapping and there’s basically no keyboard support. Go on quests and fight standard turn-based battles in a kingdom being overrun by armies of the undead. You can choose to initiate most encounters, your characters fully heal after each battle (which means you get to go all-out with your skills in every battle), and equipment is upgraded via a crafting system out of vendor trash. There are a lot of status effects and your party can inflict most of them, which means there’s some real strategy to the battles. (It’s called “Lethal RPG” because the Cloud-lookalike main character is named “Lethal”.) I enjoyed it for a while, but the difficulty spike when everything-resistant spirits start showing up was too much for me.
Deep Dungeons of Doom - This is…a Puzzle RPG Roguelike? It's a bit like a roguelike and a bit like a casual game, in that the battles are each their own floor in a procedurally-generated dungeon, but you need to time strikes and defense to win them. Gathering gold lets you unlock powers; beating dungeons unlocks more dungeons and alternate classes for you to play as. But dying means you lose everything you gained in that dungeon. Given that this only relies on a couple of buttons and the entire setup is pretty fast-paced, it probably would have worked better as a phone/tablet game. It gets repetitive and the advancement isn't as fast as it really should be, given that death loses your progress.
Hoven the Sages Spinel - RPGMaker game. In the world of Hoven that's overseen by godlike elemental Sages, Bradley's father vanished while looking for a Spinel gemstone. Default RPGMaker graphics. Typos/misspellings in the text. Factory-default standard rpg plot and characters. I'd rather be playing the KEMCO rpgs; at least they're on a portable device and understand things like “playability” and “game balance”.
Deity Quest - I’ll admit to not being sure how I feel about this: The concept of being a deity who needs to acquire followers and battle the other local deities is great, but the execution is lacking—it’s all procedurally-generated repetitive maps and what seems to be extensive grinding. Lousy graphics and play control, lots of autobattle grinding and very little feeling of progress.
The Forest of Doom - It's a Fighting Fantasy Gamebook, pretty much unchanged from the original publication. It tracks your inventory and rolls dice on your behalf, which is lovely. There are three difficulty modes, which I think accurately reflect how someone might play the original book: Standard to the book (where you play by the rules but you can still "bookmark" previous passages), Hardcore (which reduces your attack power and makes the ending more complex), and Easy (which allows you to back up, bookmark passages, and heal yourself for free). It also keeps a map for you, which is the best advantage over the original book that I can think of. Oh, and the achievements are all relevant to actually accomplishing things in the book and finding certain foes or passages, which is clever. It's still a game book, with the limitations that implies regarding choices and actions (and the combats get really tedious), but it's a really good electronic format for one.
(This bundle also included Ittle Dew and Heroes of Loot, but I had acquired them elsewhere and already played them. They’re both really good, if you like 2D Zelda games and Gauntlet clones, respectively.)
Before the Echo - Apparently also known as “Sequence” (and it appears the title changed very late in development), this is a rhythm game disguised as an rpg. In the grand tradition of puzzle quest, the rpg elements (equipment, random drops, crafting systems, etc.) are an excuse to play a zillion games of Dance Dance Revolution. The major gimmick is that you have three frames of dropping arrows that you can freely switch between: One is defense, where missing a hit means you take damage. One is your spells, which you activate and does nothing when you aren’t casting. And one is the mana recharge, which is always going like crazy but there’s no penalty for missing; you just recharge your MP by getting hits. The thing is, for an excuse plot, the voice acting and witty banter are shockingly good. I’d love to watch a sitcom written by this game’s designer. The item descriptions are also fantastic. This amounted for half of my total time on games in the bundle, and if you like rhythm games, I’d give it a look.
Lethal RPG: War - This clearly was designed to be a mobile/touchpad game, as everything involves tapping and there’s basically no keyboard support. Go on quests and fight standard turn-based battles in a kingdom being overrun by armies of the undead. You can choose to initiate most encounters, your characters fully heal after each battle (which means you get to go all-out with your skills in every battle), and equipment is upgraded via a crafting system out of vendor trash. There are a lot of status effects and your party can inflict most of them, which means there’s some real strategy to the battles. (It’s called “Lethal RPG” because the Cloud-lookalike main character is named “Lethal”.) I enjoyed it for a while, but the difficulty spike when everything-resistant spirits start showing up was too much for me.
Deep Dungeons of Doom - This is…a Puzzle RPG Roguelike? It's a bit like a roguelike and a bit like a casual game, in that the battles are each their own floor in a procedurally-generated dungeon, but you need to time strikes and defense to win them. Gathering gold lets you unlock powers; beating dungeons unlocks more dungeons and alternate classes for you to play as. But dying means you lose everything you gained in that dungeon. Given that this only relies on a couple of buttons and the entire setup is pretty fast-paced, it probably would have worked better as a phone/tablet game. It gets repetitive and the advancement isn't as fast as it really should be, given that death loses your progress.
Hoven the Sages Spinel - RPGMaker game. In the world of Hoven that's overseen by godlike elemental Sages, Bradley's father vanished while looking for a Spinel gemstone. Default RPGMaker graphics. Typos/misspellings in the text. Factory-default standard rpg plot and characters. I'd rather be playing the KEMCO rpgs; at least they're on a portable device and understand things like “playability” and “game balance”.
Deity Quest - I’ll admit to not being sure how I feel about this: The concept of being a deity who needs to acquire followers and battle the other local deities is great, but the execution is lacking—it’s all procedurally-generated repetitive maps and what seems to be extensive grinding. Lousy graphics and play control, lots of autobattle grinding and very little feeling of progress.
The Forest of Doom - It's a Fighting Fantasy Gamebook, pretty much unchanged from the original publication. It tracks your inventory and rolls dice on your behalf, which is lovely. There are three difficulty modes, which I think accurately reflect how someone might play the original book: Standard to the book (where you play by the rules but you can still "bookmark" previous passages), Hardcore (which reduces your attack power and makes the ending more complex), and Easy (which allows you to back up, bookmark passages, and heal yourself for free). It also keeps a map for you, which is the best advantage over the original book that I can think of. Oh, and the achievements are all relevant to actually accomplishing things in the book and finding certain foes or passages, which is clever. It's still a game book, with the limitations that implies regarding choices and actions (and the combats get really tedious), but it's a really good electronic format for one.
(This bundle also included Ittle Dew and Heroes of Loot, but I had acquired them elsewhere and already played them. They’re both really good, if you like 2D Zelda games and Gauntlet clones, respectively.)