Recent reviews by Beegs

By chance, I saw a good review for this game online and picked it up - I wouldn't have known about it otherwise. But I'm particularly keen on good narrative experiences in games at the moment, so I decided to take the plunge and buy it just after release rather than waiting for a sale. I'm so glad I did - I've had an excellent time so far; the mixture of predetermined and procedurally generated stories manages to be both light-hearted and touching at the same time. The use of a comic style to get these stories across is very effective; I've had several stories repeat over different playthroughs but they're still enjoyable, and 21 hours in I'm still discovering plenty of new ones.

Meanwhile, combat feels very intuitive and satisfying; the turn-based combat has shades of the Banner Saga, but is much kinder than those games (similarly in its approach to meaningful choices). The approach to character death in particular (allowing you to retreat once or go out in a final blaze of glory) feels meaningful and kind without blunting its impact. In a nice example of how story and combat ties together, one of my wizards fell in the final fight of a campaign but gave his friends a few points of bonus health as he died that helped them survive and win, as he had befriended and been chosen by a giant spirit tortoise several stories earlier.

Two minor grievances: on higher difficulty levels, if you take too long, you can soon find yourself in an unwinnable situation where you're not quite dead but any new heroes you recruit are almost instantly vanquished by ridiculously powerful monsters. This could be fun from a narrative perspective, but there's a fine line between an enjoyable and heroic (if ultimately futile) battle against the odds and unenjoyable hopelessness. Secondly, pay attention to the monster cards at the start of each fight and throughout - there are monsters which spawn other smaller monsters and it can be infuriating to find you missed one quietly spawning a small army in the corner of the map.

But ultimately, I have no hesitation recommending this game. Buy it full price and support this studio so they can continue to do awesome things.