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chuckroSo, let’s see…I bought this bundle in 2019 and tried three of the games. And wasn’t terribly overwhelmed:
The Hex – A collection of “memories” of washed-up retro game characters (with their serial numbers filed off) that amounts of a dark and dismal minigame collection. It wasn’t fun enough or quite poignant enough to justify itself.
Equilinox - A world creation simulation, where you introduce various plants and animals, then nudge their growth or interactions with other organisms so you can evolve them into other forms. The thing is, for something loaded with tutorials, it’s not great about explaining how you do various important tasks or the nature of various systems. There’s also a lot of waiting involved, but that’s coupled with the fact that individual organisms can die while you’re trying to evolve them, so you end up with a “hurry up and wait” system. Basically, it’s a cool concept but the execution is mediocre.
Super Inefficient Golf - This is a hilarious concept, but I’m whatever on the actual gameplay. The idea is that, rather than hitting the ball with a club, you attach mines to it and then detonate them as the ball bounces around a mini-golf course. Functionally, then, it’s a 3D puzzle/timing game. But I’m not great at visualizing 3D physics, so this turns into a ridiculous trial-and-error game for me, of trying to guess whether I should have attached more mines to begin with or if I’m just not setting them off at the correct second. I suspect someone who’s better at this style of game has made a series of hilarious YouTube videos of it.
I also made up my mind then and just skipped Shadwen, as it’s a 3D stealth action game and it’s safe to assume I’m not going to like it.
I looked at the other three games and said, “These are obviously are big rpgs,” so it took me quite a while to get around to them. I finally tried them all in 2023.
Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation is actually the video game version of the D&D board games, which is an interesting idea—they take that system of movement, exploration and monsters (a heavily-simplified version of 4E) and build it into a single-player game where you eventually control a full party of heroes. I’m not particularly interested in grinding out materials and XP by playing the board game over and over—I own two of the box sets and only play them once in a blue moon—but I give them credit for the concept.
Eador. Imperium is a strategy/development boardgame-style game that my gaming laptop wouldn’t run properly.
LEGRAND LEGACY: Tale of the Fatebounds – This, on the other hand, is a proper rpg, clearly heavily inspired by the PS1/PS2 era of jrpgs. The battles are turn-based but rely on a variant of the Judgement Ring from Shadow Hearts, with the added quirk that which button you have to press changes every time. Magic is unlimited but can be interrupted by attacks; you need to arrange mages in the back row so enemies can’t easily reach them (similar to Suikoden). Defending is actually useful, because it reflects damage and melee fighters can also get interrupted when there are multiple enemies. And you’ve got an AP bar to fill for super-attacks. Oh, and enemies all have resistances and weaknesses (to elements and to weapons), so you need to pay attention to what you’re fighting and hit it accordingly. (At least the Info command is free so you can always check!)
The story takes place in a dying world, clearly ruined by man’s actions (a la Wild ARMS). The main character is a whiny, amnesiac white boy with a sword who gets knocked out a lot but has some sort of mysterious superpower (…like in practically everything). The first scene has Finn fight in an arena, get rescued by a mysterious old man, and then have the old man die after dropping just enough exposition to be useless. The art style is VERY PS1, with 3D pixel characters moving on 2D rendered backgrounds and little markers at the edges of screens because you’d never figure out what’s an exit otherwise (the Final Fantasy influence is strongest here). And apparently later in the game you can recruit townspeople to work at your castle (back to Suikoden).
So then the question became, is this worth 40 hours of playtime? And honestly, when I have so many of the original games that I could replay instead…not really, no. This is like you fed all of those into ChatGPT and told it to make a new game for you.
Overall: There was a bunch of potential in this bundle but it didn’t really pay off. I’m glad I finally tried out the remainder of it so I could get it off the backlog.
The Hex – A collection of “memories” of washed-up retro game characters (with their serial numbers filed off) that amounts of a dark and dismal minigame collection. It wasn’t fun enough or quite poignant enough to justify itself.
Equilinox - A world creation simulation, where you introduce various plants and animals, then nudge their growth or interactions with other organisms so you can evolve them into other forms. The thing is, for something loaded with tutorials, it’s not great about explaining how you do various important tasks or the nature of various systems. There’s also a lot of waiting involved, but that’s coupled with the fact that individual organisms can die while you’re trying to evolve them, so you end up with a “hurry up and wait” system. Basically, it’s a cool concept but the execution is mediocre.
Super Inefficient Golf - This is a hilarious concept, but I’m whatever on the actual gameplay. The idea is that, rather than hitting the ball with a club, you attach mines to it and then detonate them as the ball bounces around a mini-golf course. Functionally, then, it’s a 3D puzzle/timing game. But I’m not great at visualizing 3D physics, so this turns into a ridiculous trial-and-error game for me, of trying to guess whether I should have attached more mines to begin with or if I’m just not setting them off at the correct second. I suspect someone who’s better at this style of game has made a series of hilarious YouTube videos of it.
I also made up my mind then and just skipped Shadwen, as it’s a 3D stealth action game and it’s safe to assume I’m not going to like it.
I looked at the other three games and said, “These are obviously are big rpgs,” so it took me quite a while to get around to them. I finally tried them all in 2023.
Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation is actually the video game version of the D&D board games, which is an interesting idea—they take that system of movement, exploration and monsters (a heavily-simplified version of 4E) and build it into a single-player game where you eventually control a full party of heroes. I’m not particularly interested in grinding out materials and XP by playing the board game over and over—I own two of the box sets and only play them once in a blue moon—but I give them credit for the concept.
Eador. Imperium is a strategy/development boardgame-style game that my gaming laptop wouldn’t run properly.
LEGRAND LEGACY: Tale of the Fatebounds – This, on the other hand, is a proper rpg, clearly heavily inspired by the PS1/PS2 era of jrpgs. The battles are turn-based but rely on a variant of the Judgement Ring from Shadow Hearts, with the added quirk that which button you have to press changes every time. Magic is unlimited but can be interrupted by attacks; you need to arrange mages in the back row so enemies can’t easily reach them (similar to Suikoden). Defending is actually useful, because it reflects damage and melee fighters can also get interrupted when there are multiple enemies. And you’ve got an AP bar to fill for super-attacks. Oh, and enemies all have resistances and weaknesses (to elements and to weapons), so you need to pay attention to what you’re fighting and hit it accordingly. (At least the Info command is free so you can always check!)
The story takes place in a dying world, clearly ruined by man’s actions (a la Wild ARMS). The main character is a whiny, amnesiac white boy with a sword who gets knocked out a lot but has some sort of mysterious superpower (…like in practically everything). The first scene has Finn fight in an arena, get rescued by a mysterious old man, and then have the old man die after dropping just enough exposition to be useless. The art style is VERY PS1, with 3D pixel characters moving on 2D rendered backgrounds and little markers at the edges of screens because you’d never figure out what’s an exit otherwise (the Final Fantasy influence is strongest here). And apparently later in the game you can recruit townspeople to work at your castle (back to Suikoden).
So then the question became, is this worth 40 hours of playtime? And honestly, when I have so many of the original games that I could replay instead…not really, no. This is like you fed all of those into ChatGPT and told it to make a new game for you.
Overall: There was a bunch of potential in this bundle but it didn’t really pay off. I’m glad I finally tried out the remainder of it so I could get it off the backlog.
