SKALD: Against the Black Priory

The story, the dialogues, and the choices all carry this little gem of a game. There is also plenty of character customization, crafting and what not. If you play your CRPGs for the story and the choices, then this game is for you. If you are in it for high definition cinematics and childish party members, then go play BG3.

Skald is one of the few CRPGs that tries and succeeds in maintaining essential elements of table-top RPGs. It's all here: 1. Quick turn-based combat where you can only do one thing a turn (besides moving). 2. Many stat-altering conditions that occur often. 3. Constant (2d6!) skill checks. 4. Encumbrance-based inventory and excellent resource management. 5. Solid character customization. 6. Time-keeping (EVERYTHING is turn-based). 7. A functional stealth system in an isometric RPG. Skald manages to maintain all of the essentials of tabletop RPGs while modernizing and improving many traditional and modern CRPG issues. For instance, you can move around with WASD, and since everyting is turn-based, this becomes a blessing when stealthing. What's more, every part of the diffiuclty is completely adjustable, so you can turn off the things you don't like. I REALLY hope we get more games like this. Strong recommend.

It's an entertaining game that purposely thumbs its nose at good graphics. It has a good story line and balance. You feel challenged and can die, but it isn't overwhelming. Overall, a good game.

Reminenscent of a tactical game from the NES era, SKALD lures you in with DnD like classes and attributes, tempts you with loot and exploration, and soothes you with a decent story all tying it together. It may be hard to put your finger on where, exactly, you've played this game before, but you never quite shake that feeling throughout the campaign. SKALD evokes the feeling of seeing an old friend who's gone through a transformation into something new and better.

This game has a steep learning curve, not due to the difficulty or mechanics, but strictly because of the control scheme. I'm 20+ hours in and it still trips me up sometimes. As an example, let's say you start a new game, you choose your difficulty, class, background, and upon reaching the third screen with your stats, you change your mind and want to switch backgrounds. There is no intuitive way to simply go back one screen, instead your option is to restart the process all over again. In your inventory, click once and you select the item, click again and you use it. But the game will keep an item selected, so you click twice to equip an armor, then click on it in your equipped slot to double check its stat, you unequip it. Because even though the game isn't showing the item's stats anymore, it is still "selected" in your equipped slot. Plenty of things like that. Once you're used to that, there are still a couple issues with the systems here and there. The feature to click on green text for an explanation usually works great, with a couple exceptions. For example, using the "defend" action adds your "defending bonus" to your dodge. What's your defending bonus? The bonus added to your dodge when you defend. That's all the explanation you get. Likewise, the magical aptitude stat is hidden away in the spells tab, unlike all your other stats, as the "spells" tab is really a "everything magical tab". But otherwise, for most systems if you played older versions of D&D, your intuition will probably be correct. I don't think the game ever mentions that moving cancels all but one of your attacks, but that's how older D&D editions did it, and that's how Skald works. And the systems are very intuitive. The ambience is top notch, with only a few minor gripes here and there, and all in all the game is extremely enjoyable once you stop fighting the controls. Even with its kinks the game is very much worth it. Sure the story is good, but the gameplay also stands on its own.