Vambrace: Cold Soul

The game is pretty and atmospheric on the first look but it's too lean and repetitive then: click, click, click... One auto-save slot in a game with a) bugs; b) where you may fail a quest selecting in dialog "do not mention now" is a bad design also.

The game starts off well enough, but then they hit you with a level where you can't drop off loot, can't get replacement units without fighting and can't make new supplies. Remember, this is a game where you only get one save and as such you can get softlocked. If you have to quit the game for whatever reason you have to fight through all of those battles again and use even more supplies and health. Absolute terrible design.

gameplay's kind of similar to Home Behind 2; march thru areas from left to right, fight, collect resources, ocassional encounters. you need to do a bunch of incomplete runs into the city to gather enough parts to craft better armor. your vigor is constantly being drianed by the cold & so you need to pick the shortest route thru each map & craft enough vigor potions to stay alive. after an hour, you reach the boss & she kills everybody. rinse/repeat. apparently the game gets better after you beat her... but after 6 hrs of the same grind I don't care. it looks nice & the lore's kind of cool, but that's about it. the gameplay's mid & overly difficult. it's just not fun enough to recommend.

A much worse version of Darkest Dungeon and I say that as someone who doesn't even really like Darkest Dungeon. Though my reasons for not liking Darkest Dungeon have more to do with it's grindiness, my issues with this game are all almost completely different. First and foremost, I have to take off a point because the game advises you of the 'weight' of some items you carry, but not 'all' of them. Usable items, for example, do not have a weight listed, but clearly have weight. Second I take off a point for the confusing map layouts. If you play enough, you'll find the pattern. But Darkest Dungeon just makes it completely clear by letting you just choose. This game is a shot in the dark until you 'learn' how it works. Bad design. Third, I take off a point because the game wants a story, but it's just bog standard crap. I don't like the main character and want to disband her. I don't like most of the characters. It's all standard trope crap. It annoys me that I have to have this character in my party at all times. I'd rather disband her and just have randoms. Speaking of, there doesn't seem to be any loyalty toward your randoms. It's a very 'if they die they die' attitude and you feel like you can just toss them out at any time. What's the point of telling me their name and giving me flavor if I'm just gonna toss them whenever I want someone else? Fourth, I take off another point due to sound design. Well no, I take off a point due to 'lack of' sound design. The music is good and fitting, but the sound real estate is EXTREMELY LACKING. I swear they use some really generic door opening sounds and it just irks me so hard. As someone who is a game dev and works very hard to get sound design right, I REALLY notice when it's off or bad. It's bad here. I would tack back on a point for the atmosphere which is pretty good, but because of all the bad forced story I'm not going to. Great premise that pulled me in, awful, terrible execution. The elves couldn't save it.

Super repetitive. Has an interesting concept, but not well executed. Became board with the game before the main character could achieve any of the points needed to level up the characters traits. Played the game for around 3 hours and don't think I'll go back to it.