Vambrace: Cold Soul

A fun, turn-based mix of dark high fantasy, apocalypse fiction, and Korean folklore and horror.

I honestly don't remember why this was in my library but, after finally completing a 600+ hour epic RPG, I needed a bit of a palate-cleanser and decided to give it a try. I must have read a positive review somewhere that promised "Darkest Dungeon but with more story", yet this largely falls short on both counts. The combat and customization are shallow, the story and dialogue are just kind of "there", and the lore is all explained in a very "tell, don't show" method via notebook pages that are scattered throughout the game like so many breadcrumbs. The UI is clunky and has zero tooltips, requiring that you jump back and forth through menus to remind yourself what your special abilities do, what your current conditions mean, and even what your precise hit point are. There's a nod to "replayability" given that there are good/neutral/evil endings, but the paths to them are completely obscured and determined by arbitrary dialogue choices made during the game. The art is probably the one positive and--given all the feminine "assets" on display--was obviously what the devs cared most about (to be fair, there's a tiny bit of masculine cheesecake as well). Along those lines, there is an entire wardrobe of collectible outfits for the main character which, again, attempt to artificially pad the game's replayability by making it impossible to collect them all in one run. I almost quit after the first couple of chapters, which is saying a lot given that I'm kind of an OCD completionist. Thanks to my commitment to the Sunk Cost Fallacy, I soldiered on for the full 20 hours but was uncharacteristically blase about the plot-point choices. In the end, I kind of wish I had followed my original instincts and put it down early. If the game were a little more difficult and/or a little bit longer, I might be seriously angry at myself for wasting my time. As it is I'm just annoyed and disappointed enough to have opinions I need to inflict on other people.

Darkest dungeon on the cheap. Gave it a fair try. It did not catch.

I got this game in promotion, and by it's "darkest dungeon" appearance it gave me proper expectations... Which quickly turned sour. First of, the good parts : the art direction is pretty nice, managing to blend both dark and colourful aspects in one. The game has RPG elements, which while being pretty basic in scenario give the game a bit of a soul and discussing with the different characters is pleasant. Unfortunately, while the art design is good the GAMEPLAY part is severely lacking : In short : it's not "inspired" by Darkest Dungeon, it's an inferior rip-off with no real qualities. No choice in character abilities, no overlay to tell you what said abilities do, forcing you to pause and open the character details to be able to see what it's abilities do... And even then it kinda don't : no indication of how much damage is dealt, no accuracy indicator, no telling what each status effect does until you see it in action for the first time. Special abilities are tied to a "special action" gauge, which means you're stuck using only 1 ability for the whole battle until you finally get to use the others (each character having 4 in total). Abilities providing "protection" against damage are utterly useless since the mobs completely bypass them and there are no healing abilities usable in combat. On top of this, you have to manage the weight of the equipement and loot you carry, which wouldn't be a problem... If half of the items didn't show their weight stat. Consumables and key items (that you HAVE to keep in your bag) all have their own encumberance stat, but the game doesn't tell you. There are also areas to explore that don't allow use of the map, making it very easy to get soft-locked in an area simply because map layouts are very labyrinthic. If the game had been released before Darkest Dungeon, I would've given it a 3rd point, unfortunately it doesn't have that excuse. Very disappointing >

+catgirls +an interesting world and story beyond "cosmic horror aaaaaaa" +hard but not as miserably unfair +you party isn't traumatized to uselessness after 1 battle +no tired religious caricatures that have to whip themselves in a church before they'll fight again +less agonizing micromanagement in general +your party randomly dying isn't as harsh as it is in DD because they don't level it's just completely better lmao