SKALD: Against the Black Priory

Here is a new CRPG I've been waiting to get my paws on, for a few years, and now that I've finally played it, I will smother it with the love it deserves! The TLDR is, that here you get a good story, quite interesting characters, in a presentation that is visually extremely appealing and stunningly detailed, when you are playing it from the perspective of a retro gamer, who lusts for what has been, and wants it to be transported into the here and now, but still recognise the family heritage of the graphics. Visually, we get a sort of 16bit look. The colour pallette of a C64, the graphical resolution of a high res Amiga game, and the pixel based special effects of semi modern shaders technology, or a rough approximation thereof, all carefully recreated with hand-crafted pixel art. Yes, it sort of looks like an EGA game, too. That bundled with what resembles the audio of an Adlib soundcard, really brings out the beautiful soundtrack that's also in this! Sure, you cannot pick General Midi or Roland, or Gravis Ultrasound, but you won't even want to, I promise. Beautiful music! CRT effects are optional but well made, even with screen curvature, if you miss the old glassy bulge. Difficulty, character creation and gameplay loop are a blend of really really old, really really easy to understand, and kinda sorta graphically represented in a more modern look, making it easier to put together in your head, than with the actual games of yesteryear. The story is definitely for adults. It's not kid friendly, there is quite a bit of swearing going on, and mature themes. Meaning, this is probably the campaign you and your friends would play, when you're already well into veteran terretory at your pen and paper table! It's less cutesy and on-the-nose than many other crpgs. The developer and all helping hands and artists have created something truly special that deserves to be recognised world-wide, an achievement that, if it were around in the 80s, would rival Ultima.

The attempt with this game is really something i like. A classic, old school, RPG. In that it succeeds. But i am missing a bit of the "polished" or "modernized" parts they promised. It almost feels as clunky as the original games at times with the controls and visual clarity. I like the asthetic, but it is hard to read. Multiple times I accidentally stumbled into enemies, because i just could not recognize them on the map. Second is the controls, especially interacting with items. To interact you often have to repeat the action twice, like walking onto a tile or clicking the item. The first time it would not do anything, and you would not necessarily have a clue how the interaction would play out. Also it was hard to tell if a tile was empty, walkable or even interactable, sometimes looking the same as another tile which was different in that regard. Only when pressing the "Highlight" key was helping a little, though that sometimes revealed more than it should have. As for combat i think it looks fair (on normal difficulty in the first few interactions) and with the available skill-trees could provide interesting possibillities to play with. Sometimes my character received more damages than i thought the enemy could maximaly deal. Knocking out party members i thought were save for at least 3 more rounds. Storrywise i did not get too far to really say something. However at some part there is some inner monolog about the past, which coupled with the non-standard english used and no indication of who was talking. I got confused what was happening and what not. In the end i hope i get over those hurdles at some point, i think i could like the game, but it really has similar flaws like actual old games.

I must recommend this game for it's incredible story and setting, it is one of the best RPG I've played recently and the cosmic horror theme is done incredibly well. I gave 4/5 only because the combat system is frustrating and gets tedious after a while. It is still worth it to complete the game and the few problems in the combat mechanics can we alleviated with a patch.

Not many indie game ideas I'm enjoying - but this one I do. Very classical and nostalgic presentation with modern controlls and improvements brings me to the old times with pleasure. Suprisingly full of text and well written (Planescape: Torment comes to mind). Overall cool Lovecraft with Ultima like atmosphere. Kinda shows us that we don't really need modern day tech to have a great time.

Overall a great experience, nice quests, nice battles and characters. The battles depend too much on backstab and critical damage. If the game was harder and you make single-digit damage too often (like my champion or Driina), you are in trouble. Also, the crafting system is not very good, even in the ending I only had recipes for the minor potions. And I did not like the Cuthullu-inspired theme, especially at the endgame, where I don't know what happend. Difficulty is (very detailled) adjustable, and the default is rather easy. At the ending, I still had tons of food and potions, many arrows and I did not have to spam-use some feats and spells. But that's a good thing, as there are already too many hard CRPG out there. I am no casual or novice CRPG gamer, but I play for fun and relaxation, not to be stressed. And I encountered no bugs (I could not load a savegame while in the final battle, but that might have been deliberate, although before it was possible).