Nox Archaist

I was initially interested in this game because of the visual style. Nox Archaist is a faithful homage/tribute to the Ultima series, especially the first game; so much so, that this might as well be a ROM hack of it - it's like this game gutted the first Ultima's carcass, and then decided to wear it like a festive hat, from the graphics, down to the UI (User Interface). You have to remember the command for whatever action you want to execute ("A" for Attack, "O" for Open, "T" for Talk, etc.), then type in the direction of the subject you want to use it on, and then Enter; it's a game you might even just want a PRINTOUT OF THE BASIC CONTROLS right next to you, as you play it. The game is slow to recognize you've typed in a command, and it's slow to actually execute the command after you hit Enter. This makes gameplay EXCRUCIATINGLY SLOW. Certainly a faithful recreation of the whole gaming-on-an-Apple IIe schtick, I'll give them that. Game controllers have long since made typing in commands and having to play using a keyboard obsolete. The game's not even compatible with a game controller, either, so you're FORCED to play this using your keyboard; even if you wanted to use something like Joy2Key or XPadder, because again, you have to TYPE in all commands to execute them. The least they could've done is offered the OPTION to play using a Gamepad, while those who INSIST on playing using their keyboard can still do so. If I could've played this with a Gamepad, like a console title, and if the game played faster, I'd probably be totally into this, but I only have a finite amount of time to spend gaming, and I'm not going to waste it STRUGGLING just to execute a game's most basic controls.

The game is awful. They are trying to emulate a late 80's/early 90's gaming experience, and that's fine, but they do it in a way that doesn't even pay homage to those games. It's technically worse and that seems to be a misguided design decision. This game represents pure and peak nostalgia goggles and it's a complete failure for doing so. There is simply nothing good to say about this game. It looks rubbish, it plays rubbish, it's sad attempts to make money on tire spinners nostalgia fails, and the story has nothing to keep any attempt at momentum going. This is the worst game I've played in possibly three decades and I've been playing games since the Atari 2600 was hot new tech. Just an awful experience from start to a few hours finish because I couldn't take any more jank.