Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator

I had never heard about Septerra Core. I randomly found it here, thought it had a cool name, played the demo and then bought it. It turns out that this small game, clearly inspired by JRPGs in its visuals, storytelling and gameplay, actually... kinda rules?... Granted, it is quite “meh” in some regards. 90% of the game is spent inside dungeons, which gets old fast: over and over again, you'll be solving the same switch puzzles and fighting the same monsters. The combat is reminiscent of FFIV or Chrono Trigger: it has some neat ideas and interesting features, like a magic cards system... but overall it tends to feel repetitive and slooow (no option to speed up animations), which would not be as bad is there was not SO MUCH of it! Despite these shortcomings, SC shines where it matters, and manages to be exciting enough for you to keep on playing. The plot, which follows the journey of a band of young adventurers, takes more and more epic proportions as it goes on, and it's good stuff. It is set in a very interesting world too, with a lot of cool, unconventional lore, as well as mythological and technological particularities that are often cleverly inserted into the story; despite their very low res, the visuals are fine and depict the setting with a lot of creativity. The characters are not very complex, but charming and unique enough to be likeable – plus, all are fully and solidly voiced! As for the exploration, you often have to figure out on your own how to progress using mechanics clearly borrowed from point'n'click games, rarely do you simply get directed to your next stop: it is more compelling than most JRPGs I have played, but also makes it easy to get stuck! In short, SC basically has the pros and cons of a JRPG: the gameplay can be unexciting, but there's clearly a huge amount of love and care put into the overall writing. It may not qualify as a hidden gem, but if you're out of classic JRPGs to play, this one is actually pretty solid and endearing!

I first came to play this game about 6 years ago, maybe more. The voice acting is fabulous, and the fight scenes - though a bit repetitive - are quite enjoyable. Stacking abilities and fate cards (spells) together, mixing and matching your team for optimal offense or defense. This is a game to play time and again. Somewhat similar to how Mass Effect works, you cannot customize who your character is, but you can customize the build of your character, through purchased or looted upgrades. It's a game I've enjoyed in the past, and am currently playing through again. Wonderfully enough, with the updated 1.04 executable from Valkyrie Studios, the game even works exceptionally in Windows 7 x64. I already own the game on CD, so not much point in buying it through GoG; but if you haven't played it before, it is definitely worth buying. If I had any gripe, it's the limited viewing range. It's locked to 640 x 480, and you can't zoom out away from your character. In spite of that, the game still doesn't feel too cramped (most of the time), and it does not detract from the enjoyment.

Ok, ok, it's actually American, but given that the whole combat-attribute system is very "Final Fantasy-like", and the atmosphere slightly reminiscent of Final Fantasy 7 and Chrono Trigger, you just can't help but draw a comparison. As pointed out by the majority of critics and reviewers, combat might be tedious, which is not helped by vast, multi-leveled dungeons and frequent "random" encounters. But it deserves mentioning that you can can see most enemies beforehand, just like in CT, and therefore evade much of them. The bottom line is, here's an excellent RPG/Adventure, with an excellent, captivating story, full voice acting for all characters, unique visual style... ...and so on, and so on. Alright, this review might be slightly biased, but it's only 5.99, give it a try!

this game when it came out was just incredible and IF you can get this game to run smoothly its pure gold but sadly time is takeing out its right on this game it no longer works on windows 10 :( such a shame for such a great game.

The title says it all really. Uninspired tracking/fighting AND backtracking/againfighting through huge maps, because you didn't find the required item or have the required party member with you that you need to advance the plot takes what little interest I had in the game away very quickly. If you play this game, use a walkthrough and the CRTL + F3 cheat, or you might stop playing just because you can't take the tedium any more.