Welcome

Welcome

Welcome! Read rules.

wlcm!! read rules HERE!!

Hello, welcome!

Throughout my years as a fan of JRPGs and strategy games, I have seen countless attempts to capture the essence of old-school titles and bring them into a new era. Most modern interpretations make admirable attempts, but end up failing to include what made the original titles so beloved in the first place. Likewise, I have witnessed newer homages being too close to the source material, to the point where nothing original of note ends up being added. If this sounds like an impossibly thin line to walk, that’s because it often is. Gamers can be a fickle bunch, myself included, when it comes to our expectations, especially on a project that is trying to emulate Final Fantasy: Tactics. There’s just no way you’re going to please everyone when you try to pull off a herculean task like that. That way lies madness, and failed Kickstarters. Yet, somehow despite all of these caveats and prior failures, Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark has managed to do just that. Honestly, I was baffled. How on earth had an indie developer I had never heard of prior, 6 Eyes Studio, accomplished what seemingly no one else on the planet has managed to do since 1997? Fell Seal manages to hit all of the right beats. It perfectly encapsulates the core battle and job system from Final Fantasy: Tactics. As a player, you’ve got to be concerned about differences in terrain and height, various enemy resistances and weaknesses, area of effect abilities and potential friendly-fire, turn order, buffs and debuffs, positioning of units, and yet none of that feels like a chore at all. Battles, for the most part, keep a steady flow of progression to where they never quite feel like a slog, but they aren’t a straight breeze either. Playing on Veteran difficulty I have certainly encountered a few fights that put me in a tight spot, but I never felt like the game was being unfair. More often than not, I would only lose units due to my own mistakes, rather than some rubbish arbitrary difficulty spike or a clear onset disadvantage. Speaking of losing units, this game has modernized the idea of character perma-death in a way I’m quite a fan of: temporary statistic loss. Characters that die in combat are considered “wounded”, and as such will have a lower overall stat distribution until they have a chance to rest. In order to rest, you must choose to not deploy them during an encounter. As someone who dreads the idea of losing units forever due to a mistake here or there, this implementation manages the best of both worlds. On one hand, there’s still gravity towards losing a unit, as no matter what if I want to fully heal them up, I will have to give up using them on a mission. On the other hand, this “loss” is only temporary, and furthermore it encourages me to have an alternative bench of units on standby to fill those primary roles. As such, I inevitably experimented with different class combinations and overall unit strategies. To that end, the class system contains all of the perks and customization options of old, with some new ideas added in. As you battle, units will gain ability points that can be spent on new active and passive abilities for their class. As you level up and unlock abilities in the initial classes, you will eventually unlock more advanced options. Units have a main class, which also contains two unlockable passive abilities, and then a sub-class. In addition to that however, you can also choose two additional passive abilities and a counter-ability from any other class that character has unlocked, not just your primary or secondary class. This allows for a very wide array of options, as honestly more often than not you will experience multiple intriguing combinations of abilities to choose from. It makes experimentation fun, and given the non-perma death battle system, if a fight doesn’t go well while you’re trying new things out, it’s not the end of the world. Notably, there is also a fairly robust character creator for your non-story units, containing everything from standard fantasy faire to absolutely ridiculous attire. Now, all of that said, there are a few minor nitpicks. Notably, you cannot rotate the camera, and some maps will unfortunately end up with awkward situations where you can’t see a unit because they are hidden from your camera angle. While this was rare overall, it didn’t help that this happened to me on the very first mission of the game. The trade-off to this is that optional treasure chests are also sometimes hidden in interesting places, so that’s a silver-lining at least. Past that, unsurprisingly, more advanced classes tended to completely outmatch initial options, so there will be some grinding involved if you want your A and B teams to be up to snuff. This is a JRPG after all! With that said, there are enough unique positive design decisions in this game that I quickly got over any initial transgressions. Item management is no longer a major hassle, as any items used during battle are refunded at the end. The restriction being the number of each item you can use per battle, like three potions or one phoenix ashes. This too however, had been given a modern spin via a simple crafting system based on items you can gather during combat from designated nodes, or loot from enemies. Unlike most crafting systems, this one is rather straight-forward, and doesn’t impede progress of the main story. Items can be buffed up, or expanded upon to allow more uses in combat. Likewise, you can craft gear that gives better movement or jumping capabilities for example. The system really felt like more of an extra tool in my pocket for building advantages in combat, and not something I had to constantly check in on if I wanted to succeed. For me, that’s the perfect alignment of what a crafting system should be: utility, not annoyance. Outside of the combat and class systems, Fell Seal actually holds up surprisingly well. The story didn’t necessarily have me on the edge of my seat by any means, but I did enjoy the small moments of character interaction and growth throughout the game. There’s some fun dialogue and banter, and cheeky moments of levity between otherwise serious civilization-upending mystery plot. It has a fair bit of obvious foreshadowing, but nothing that seriously detracts from an otherwise fine narrative with a few twists. For those who enjoy secrets and optional side missions, Fell Seal actually has quite a bit going for it. There are hidden classes, which are very strong with unique mechanics, and some secret b-plot narratives. Unlocking these optional additional bits of gameplay felt rewarding, especially given most are based off of context-clues from character dialogue and hints. Something as simple as killing an enemy with a particular ability, based on a passing remark from a unit before combat, lead me down a rabbit-hole of hidden cut-scenes and battles to a genuinely satisfying bonus class. It involves cheeky teleport abilities and makes one particular character a lot more interesting to play with. I’d go into more detail, but I don’t want to spoil your potential secret adventure. Needless to say, I am extremely impressed with this little indie gem, and wholeheartedly recommend it to fans of strategy JRPGs. Especially, dare I say, to those of you who are looking for a true successor to Final Fantasy: Tactics. I am well aware of how ostentatious that may sound, but the praise is well earned here. Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark has earned my respect and admiration, and it deserves your time and attention. Go purchase this game, and support an indie developer who has seemingly done the impossible.

Welcome

V1 blur & text

It's hard not to have your interest piqued by Rust. Few other games strive to make you feel as helpless, vulnerable, and lost as its startling opening and outwardly confusing mechanics do. Rust wants you to think it's about survival, but it never uses the tools at its disposal to realize that. Instead it becomes a playground limited not by your understanding of its inner workings, but instead by how much time you want to spend slogging away at its tedium. Starting stark naked on a beach with nothing more than a rock and torch on your person, Rust doesn't waste time letting you know that you're in danger. Health, hydration, and hunger bars make it immediately clear that your time on its massive island is borrowed. Without food and water (and later shelter, light, and warmth), you can slowly watch your life seep away with every passing minute. Rust attempts to guide new players with an often less-than-helpful tutorial to keep you alive longer than a handful of minutes, but it does nothing to prepare you for the real dangers its world holds. Rust's facade is its survival mechanics, and its menagerie of crafting options and resources for you to gather up keep the illusion alive at first. You can use your otherwise useless rock to chop down trees or hammer away at different types of ore, and eventually you might gather enough to make a hatchet or pickaxe to increase your bountiful gains and speed up the process. This process quickly ramps up into more meaningful items, with the allure of modern weapons and robust armor only at the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It's a nightmare of menus and item wheels that really slow things down to a halt. Rust might be out of Early Access, but it has so many elements that indicate otherwise. You can easily search for a building foundation in one menu, watch its building timer somewhere else on the screen, and then have it pop into your inventory, which is an entirely different menu at this point. Equip it and you have a relatively flat surface in front of you (Rust absolutely doesn't like any gradient variations and refuses to allow you to place items on them), and you're good to go. But what about moving it? You'll need an entirely separate tool for that, as well as another trip into a separate equipment wheel with options to rotate, move or otherwise dismantle one of your creations. The cycle of gathering, crafting, and building up something to be proud of never feels rewarding. Rust doesn't have the tools you need to be creative, nor does it care about practicality when it comes to redesigning a small dwelling you might have crafted for that first chilly night out in the wilderness. Teases meant to entice you to brave Rust's other dangers fall flat fast, giving you few reasons to stick around for the tedious slog of dismantling greater weapons and gear to hopefully have the means to build them down the line. You don't know these items exist because you see them on a list, but rather because they're probably what's being used to endlessly kill you. The island in Rust is inhabited by many other players, capping out at 250 per server. And despite only being alive for a few minutes and having nothing really of worth on your person, they will (often) waste no time in showing you how far down the food chain you really are. In this way, Rust's true enemy shows its face: its other players. That's somewhat fascinating to ponder on for a moment. Rust has been the subject of many a think piece during its long time in Early Access, often centering around discussions of human nature and the tendencies towards violence when other options clearly present themselves. But while that makes for a neat article to read or interesting mechanic to discuss, it detracts from another vital part of the game: what it feels like to play. Playing Rust is a frustrating experience even with a friend or two in tow and feels downright impossible to go at alone. Wandering players will attack you at a moment's notice, with their time spent in the server used to build up an arsenal that no amount of skilled play can overcome. Rust's ceiling has nothing to do with how well you understand its survival mechanics or get to grips with its clunky movement and cumbersome first-person action. It's a game that rewards those who put the most time into it first: giving them the boots to step on the ants that are any other players that might dare join after a server wipe. Design is partly to blame for this, with Rust's server wipes a clear indicator of how little depth its survival elements hold. Some servers might routinely reset after a week of play, while all are forced to this measure within a month. The idea is to re-level the playing field--just a day or two into a fresh server is enough for towering fortresses and high-level weaponry to be crafted by those incredibly dedicated few--so that the process can start again. This wouldn't need to be a feature if Rust had any semblance of balance to it. But because time is the only commodity it rewards, it pushes itself into a corner where this is the only viable solution. Without a skill ceiling of any kind, Rust demands that you dedicate every waking moment you have to it if you're planning to have any sort of fun. Logging off leaves you vulnerable to attack from other players, while your shelters slowly decay should you not top them up with the right resources. And a momentary slip up means certain doom. Death means your corpse and anything you've gathered to that point is ripe for pillaging, leaving you to respawn on that same beach with just a rock, a torch, and questions about what you've actually achieved. Rust's community might sometimes offer glimmers of hope, but it's fleeting. Every so often you can witness players making amicable agreements to trade or stumble upon a shop that needs to be both stocked and protected by players. I once ran into another survivor that handed me a hatchet and bandages to make my early game easier; a simple, memorable moment to dull the pain of the frequent deaths in the hours preceding it. Rust's mixture of trigger-happy players and often toxic in-game chats make the entire experience profusely unwelcoming and unpleasant. Technical issues only add to the unpleasantries. Rust routinely runs into periods of incredible slowdown, tearing the game from an unlocked framerate (its options menus riddled with spelling mistakes couldn't lead me to a lock of any sort) to single digits at the most inopportune times. Animations look stiff and unnatural. Character models look ugly and dull. And both stand in stark contrast to an often-gorgeous backdrop. Rust's island is serene and pleasant to look at, with its saturated blue skies and purple haze sunsets inviting you to take pause. There's beauty to mask the repetitive models used for resources and the inconsistent textures, but not enough to make them truly go unnoticed. Rust is also disappointing because of just how long it took to realize its own inescapable faults. Its lack of survival depth and inclination to only reward time served instead of clever play saps whatever life it might have had to give. Its survival systems show their age, while its community does its best to chase off those who might dare try surviving a new night on the island. Rust might make for an interesting discussion on what it brings out of its players, but it's not one you need to experience firsthand.

Welcome!

Hi I am interested in buying!!

WLC