Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark

I bought this after looking for a party-led turn-based RPG. The graphics and references to FF tactics caught my eye, I was not disappointed. I have spent the majority of lock-down playing this, hooked by the innovative and cerebral combat. I am a fan of Shining force, Children of Zodiarcs, Divinity:OS, so tactical battles, with party building and loadout strategy is my taste. The mechanics have some new ideas as well as old ones: hitting the enemy in its the back quarter with a large mace is effective, as is manoeuvring them into a corner them and ‘pushing’ them off an edge. The story was interesting, and the characters were refreshing, with the main three having depth and flaws as well heroism and conviction. Kyrie stood out to me as the new face of the reluctant heroin, without being too righteous and 2D. Overall, I was expecting a weekend's worth of play for £8 (on sale) and in the end I played for 80+hours and still wanted more. Rick

One of the best turn-based tactical rpgs I've ever played. Some people complain about the balance, but I had no issues with it whatsoever, in the final battle my Bounty Hunter/Warmage was able to one shot all the monsters except the Maw (on veteran difficulty). If you take your time and plan your team, you shouldn't have problems with difficulty.

While the story leans on familiar tropes and the characters can feel somewhat one-dimensional, Fell Seal manages to stay engaging throughout. Its strong tactical combat and robust class system kept the gameplay fresh, and I never felt it dragged. I wrapped up the campaign in under 60 hours, and the experience remained satisfying from start to finish.

Overall the game is great -- a very fun combination of strategy, tactics, team & roster-building. I'd give it five-stars, hands down, even in terms of story (for what the game is, I think the main characters and bits of story development are quite well done). The one disappointment is that the PC mouse implementation could have been so much better. And yes, the main menu screen warns you, use of a gamepad is recommended. But if like me you prefer Mouse and Keyboard the controls are actually pretty good -- I'd give them five stars too, except that the implementation of mouse clicks is just plain buggy. For lack of a better way to put it, the "hitboxes", the live regions in whch a mouse click is recognized as applying to a particular menu option, character, grid square, etc., feel lazily done. It feels a bit random as to when this issue raises its head -- it feels like sometimes mouse clicks fail to register your actual intenton as much as half the time. While this causes no permanent issues (as long as you're playing carefully and paying attention), it' can be frustrting to have activated the "Move" action, and then have no clicks on the highlighted available grid sqaures actually move the chacter til you cancel back to the main action menu and select "Move" oncd again. This also comes into play elsewhere, for example, when changing a character's primary class, or learning a new spell or skill. Te confirming click will sometimes inexplicably exit the menu instead. (Here is one of the places, if you weren't paying careful attention, you can also get stung later on in combat, if you thought your change was applied when it wasn't.) A minor annoyance at first, these issues are more bothersome as they occur literally hundreds of times over. Yes, it's well worth playing anyway. But with just a little more forethought and attention, the controls could have been flawless, instead of being the annoying hit-or-miss cause of recurring irritation that they are.

There hasn't been a game like this in a really long time. Oh sure I love Disgaea, but it's more of a light hearted parody of this type of game, breaking the fourth wall and using intentional videogame absurdity. This game doesn't, it's a serious tactical RPG that reminds me very much of Final Fantasy Tactics and I love it. I really hope we get more from this franchise, a DLC, a Sequel, a Stand Alone Expansion, I don't care I'll buy it. I've been starved for a game like this for literally decades!