Celestian Tales: Old North

Unique/Good: This has a pleasant look and feel, and I appreciated the world-building. I appreciated some writing/situations/choices that were more sophisticated than typical RPG fare. I had some interest in how the characters might develop in future installments. Boring/Bad: My decisions never had any apparent impact on the plot or world. The stock JRPG elements dragged it down: combat is pretty tedious, and there's a lot of wandering around mostly empty locations in a very linear way. The main story is largely all you'll attend to. Replayability: There is theoretically promise for repeat play-throughs, as you take the lead with each of the characters and they face different decisions. But the tediousness of the basic game loops will probably stop me from doing that (whereas I was happy to play through PIllars of Eternity a couple of times, despite it being much longer). Most of the combat, etc. is not going to change. Assessment: If you like JRPGs and indie titles, it might be worth a look on sale -- as long as you don't mind some tedium. I'm at a point in my life where my patience for grinding up XP is very thin though, and it suffers for that.

I don't often get into story driven games with long dialogue cut scenes like this. Usually, i get bored very quickly, but I enjoyed this one! The graphics were beautiful and I liked the way the game introduced itself, the way the story started to flow... before it turned out into one of the biggest letdowns I've ever had playing a game. It lays out 6 characters to choose from, all actually interesting - but it doesn't matter which you play at all. It's pretty much just cosmetic. It lays out loads of noble houses and lore... and none of it actually matters, the game ends very suddenly and without telling a story (which would be fine, I guess, if it didn't spend the first 80% of the game laying out the beginning of an interesting story!) You can't make any meaningful choices in the game, you are just along for the ride. And I can't believe I'm saying that because I am that girl that always sets game difficulties to easy because why bother... but the difficulty is so weird. All through the game it's incredibly easy, maybe there are one or 2 boss fights but they are no harder than the other ones. Until at the very end, you have one very hard boss fight you are in no way prepared for. Suddenly you have to use your abilities strategically which you never had to learn before. And you're like, oh, cool, so now the real game starts... but no. That was the last fight. I guess I can't complain for the price, but honestly, it feels like a game written by an AI - all the right starting ideas that just don't come together in a way a human being finds entertaining or satisfying or making sense.

It will be up to you to decide. The campaign is short and sweet. I like the fact they did not go overboard with the length. The characters were awesome, one of them is one of the best put and written characters I have played in an RPG - Cammile. The storyline and world are very grounded compared to your usual fantasy and the representation of later medieval/renaissance life are pretty good compared to most of the other games. The magic in this world has it place and the world feels fully realized which I always treasure. Dungeons are short and this is good because they do not offer anything groundbreaking in terms of puzzles and battles. The lack of a hook in dungeon design does not really feel all that bad in the end. They work, just are not something you will remember after a while. That being said and fully realizing that this is a small studio doing a medium scale project, I would have liked more variety in different people's campaigns even for the sake of single playthrough time. I feel there was a lot of potential for the game to make people to want and replay it six times just to know the characters and context better and just to see more and different interactions with them. I feel it has what it needs in terms of quality of writting to provoke that. However, (and I have not played it multiple times myself) I heard that the only difference between campaigns are a few cutscenes. This is really not enough. Overall Pros: - good overall plot - awesome characters and dialogues - balanced level progression, no need for any grind Overall Cons: - super long intro - not enough variety between campaigns - some mechanics are telegraphed poorly (what you should sell, when you would need to upgrade, not a great log)

It's a decent JRPG, and coming from me who usually can't stand the genre, is a good thing. Story is good enough but before judging i want to see the following installments. Combat is disappointingly easy through the whole game, even the final fight is easily manageable with a basic combination of attack and defence. In 10+ hours i had two carachters falling in battle but no game over nor any setback. A map would be nice especially in the cities which are beautifully designed but still, white over white, besides being redundant and stressing for the eyes, can confuse the player and make it harder to find his way. The logbook is nice and explains everything that is going on but it's kind of pointless seeing how much exposition is in the game. A little bit of showing and not telling would benefit the experience quite a lot. Also, there's some lack of depth to the main carachters which makes me wonder why did they split the party member's personal stories through the main carachter selection. A few dialogue changes and a different prologue is just not enough to justify another playtrough. Now, it might look like i'm bashing the game, and i am, but in the end is a good title, nothing exceptional but a good premise for the trilogy.

Full review at: http://www.ludonarrativeassonance.com/review-celestian-tales-old-north/ But to sum up? The story that Ekuator Games would like to tell with Celestian Tales: Old North is one of revolution and innovation in gameplay and storytelling but there just isn’t anything here that would indicate any more than a competent freshman effort by a team that is in way over its head. But who knows? Maybe they’ll hire on a few extra designers and coders and a talented writer or two and make their next game something truly special. But based on this entry alone I would have to say these young squires have a rough journey ahead of them.