3. cRPG's

cRPG's

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    Hello, fellow Narfers!
    After a conversation with LauryKat on discord a couple weeks ago, I realised that some of us share our likings for cRPG games.
    I've played a few of them, and thought I'd make a list with them and give some general information about them (always from my point of view) in case that someone was looking for these type of games or already found them and didn't know if they were worth investing time/money on them. The list doens't have any specific order, just the order they showing up on steam for me atm >_>
    Feel free to post yourselves, too!!

    Name: Pathfinder Kingmaker
    Rating: 8/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short Review: The game is very good. Uses pathfinder ruleset, it has a lot of customization for your main character, and the characters you find along the way have some interesting stories. A game a la Baldur's gate in that aspect. Combat can be hard at some spots, but nothing unmanagable if you pause the game enough and don't mind loading a few times xD
    The game was very buggy at first when it came out, most if not all those bugs were already fixed.
    The only real thing I didn't like about the game was the kingdom management, which was a bit tedious and stressing for me due to very pressing deadlines sometimes. You can set it to automatic mode, however, making your life easier. But you'll miss on some items/flavour/story.

    Name: Divinity: Original Sin 2
    Rating: 9/10
    Multiplaye: Yes, up to 4 people.
    Short Review: A really nice game. A masterpiece. Turn-based combat, interesting story and interesting companion's stories. You can customize your character and choose from a lot of different skills/abilities, etc...
    It doesn't have a 10/10 because it has some abusable skills/abilities that made me feel it was meh... and because it's not D&D and that makes it a bit less intuitive for me to get used to the mechanics.

    Name: Baldur's Gate 3
    Rating 8/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short Review: It's still in Early Acess, so not sure how much worth a review on this has. Story great, character's depth great, all the roleplaying aspects great. But when it comes to the actual turn-based combat, there's some things that just make the game dumb. Like the "jump" skill/ability. The feeling for combat is you're back at playing Original Sin: 2 instead of a D&D game.

    Name: Pillars of Eternity
    Rating 8/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short Review: Quite entertaining, very similar to Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Lot of different things to make for your character, lots of options, The story wasn't all that great, to me, and I felt like some "decission making matters" was missing. (There is some, but it didn't feel full-filling), but it was still enjoyable.

    Name: Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous
    Rating: 9/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short Review: The things that make it better than Kingmaker are:
    a) Turn combat mode that you can turn on and off AT WILL.
    b) The "X" management part that was stressful and cumbersome is no longer so stressful since deadlines are waaaay wider.
    c) It has it's own game within the game, that it's kinda fun too.
    The only couple of things I'm not liking about the game so far (yeah, didn't finish it yet, half-way or less still) is that some encounters are ridiculous for your level, and there's no way to tell until you get crushed. And the fact that most compaions feel a bit dull. There's a couple that are nice enough!

    Name: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
    Rating: 8/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short Review: There's barely any differences with the first one, except here you can have a ship and navigate on the map with it which triggers encounters, etc... So entertaining yes. Masterpiece no.

    Name: Solasta Crown of the Magister
    Rating 8.5/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short Review: It's the perfect mechanic-combat adaptation of the 5e ruleset. Turn based combat. It's very nice too that they decided to add a module maker for people to create their own adventures that other people can play after! I can't give it a better rating because there's not much of RP in it. There's very few variables to RP, very few NPCs to talk to, very few secondary things to do, etc... But they are a small indie company and it's their first game... if they make a second one, you can bet it'll be a good one.

    Name: The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk
    Rating 8/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short Review: The game is a comical imitation of D&D games. Turn based combat, fun dialogs and fun interactions/items/story. I really enjoyed it and I'm sure you will too, as long as you remember it's meant as a parody.
    Combat is enjoyable. However the itemization and customization of the party/group is... not filled with choices.

    Name: Project Zomboid
    Rating 8/10
    Multiplayer: Yes.
    Short Review: It's a mix between survival and crpg. You can fully customize your character's abilities and skills and then you can train the skills by crafting/doing things and level up in them. You can play alone, with friends, or getting into a random server. Graphics are a bit le suck, but it's an old game. You start with nothing, in a post-apocalyptic town/city and you have to go into houses to gather resources (food, a hammer, screwdriver, books, etc) then you have to cook your own food with a lot of different recipes, craft your own barricades, etc...

    Name: Pop Up Dungeon.
    Rating: 6/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short Review: If you find it on sale, feel free to get it. It's worth a few hours of entertainment, but that's it.
    Combat is turn based, unlimited skills and abilities to choose from, since you can even create your own. It's a comical game, though, and with barely no story and no depth.

    Name: For The King:
    Rating 7/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short Review: The game is nice. It has turn based exploration and turn based combat. But... customization is fairly low and I'm not a fan of combat in which there's no real tactical component. (Since combat is not in a map, but a screen of 3 vs X(monsters) so all you do is choose what ability/skill you want to use.
    It has a system of rewards for making certaing things, that give you some special coins that you can use to buy new characters, items that will then randomly be POSSIBLY encountered as loot, and "events" or small dungeons.
    Overall is not a bad game, it was worth the time and money.

    Name: Shadowrun Returns
    Rating 8/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Shortreview: A nice setting, story is quite good and combat is turn-based and nice. Graphics are more on the old-school side, but is nothing upseting. The game is super cheap, is constantly on sale. Very worth its money. Oh, it's like futuristic setting, so not bows and sword and spells everywhere. Quite enjoyable.

    Name: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
    Rating: 6/10
    Multiplayer: No
    Short review: Interesting game. Nothing like something I've played before, however it's very absurd that if you choose to go right in a crossroad's hallway, you can't go backwards. You can -never- go backwards. That made me tilt, I didn't finish the game, looks good , but that kills me. If you don't mind that, then go! It has a curious system for combat and decissions you make while you go are very important for the story's development.

    Name: Wildermyth
    Rating 8/10??
    Multiplayer: No
    Short review: Unfortunately I didn't play much because when I bought it I suddenly got busy with doing something for Narfell.. and then Pathfinder: WotR came out.. but it looked very promising. Turn based combat, positioning and tactical approaches are relevant, then there's some town/village managamente stuff to do too. Looked good. Will update eventually!

    Name: The Hand of Merlin
    Rating 5/10
    Multiplayer: No idea
    Short Review: It's in early access. Combat is turn based, looks like it has an interesting system for it and where tactics matter. However, it's not balanced yet, the encounters. You still can't go back on the map once you've gone one place, and we've said already that tilts me >>. If you die, you die. Start over. But if you reach certain amount of achievements you can start with a different, pressumably better, character. It has RP aspects to it, and you have to make decissions often. But sometimes it's dumb. Like you go into a town and it gives you two options. Ask around for X, go to the armory, go to the inn. You choose one, and can't do the others later... silly. Obviously didn't finish this game either. >>

    Name: Low Magic Age
    Rating 7/10
    Multiplayer: No idea
    Short Review: Turn based combat. D&D rule set....3.5? Graphics are very le suck, but that's not what the game offers anyway. As any D&D game, customization for characters is great. You can explore a big map, go to places, have random encounters, etc... pretty nice. I didn't finish it, don't know if it gets ridiculous in the highest levels, but I know you can hit epics...

    I will add more another time >_>