This is a one-of-a-kind game. It's a hero's journey storyline with combat and choice and consequence, but all the magic is in the framing. The game heavily relies on your character's psychological traits, relationships, and feelings to impact both how you interact with the world and how people react to you. And given the seriousness of the events and the fear, adventure, nobility, and danger you experience, this adds a lot of immersion as well as providing a very innovative game experience. My only critique is that some of the characters feel a little ham-fisted. You can predict who is evil, cowardly, noble and who is not by appearance alone a good portion of the time and that felt like a big letdown. A game which shows the flexibility and variety of the human internal character should not rely on visual stereotypes. Overall, I love the game, can't wait for the final version, and I hope the developers have lots of success and make more games like this one.
Pros: Tight story, satisfyingly told - no time wasting or filler High stakes - only autosaves, no redo's unless you start a new save Most of the mysteries require some real thought I've only played one run so far, but it appears that the choices made are seriously impactful on the ending and some of the events throughout the game Cons: Quite short UI is a bit clunky. Most of the really important information is in the sections for logs and emails rather than the clues section. I wish there was a way to rearrange and pin things I wanted to remember. There's a Chehkov's gun which makes the 2nd most important mystery pretty obvious from the jump, which was deflating when I knew the answer but my character probably shouldn't have NOTE: I gave the game 5 stars because the dope below me gave it 1 star because he's annoyed that a detective game has too much writing and uses pixel art... If I wasn't trying to balance out such a nonsensical review, I would have given it a 4/5.
The game is fantastic. The art is great, and the capabilities for different builds and strategies are myriad. The combination of deckbuilding, RPG mechanics, and team-based, positioned-based gameplay is unlike anything I've ever played before. The devs have caught lightning in a bottle with this superb feat of game design. The only downside is the story, which is lacklustre so far. The characters are entirely forgettable and after 2 acts of the game and dozens of hours played I am not invested in the story whatsoever. It's simply too sparse. That being said, I recommend treating it as if it was a fun action movie. The story is nearly worthless, but it's doesn't matter because it moves forward enough to continue with the gameplay. 9/10. Please buy it and support these extremely creative game devs
Gameplay systems are very slight. I had no problem buying every upgrade and saving nearly every villager by investing in people's happiness, the economy, and working with lords who gave me supplies. Story is not terrible but dragged on me by the end. The king is a total pushover who can't control his own family at all, which is strange for an absolute monarch who is facing a total war. It seems like he's a henpecked 1990's sitcom husband, not a king. Got tired of playing as him by the end. Buy it on a steep sale and that only if you love visual novel games.
Pros: Beautiful art Decent music Combat is tactical and kept me engaged enough to finish the game Cons: Story is not garbage by any respects, but it thinks it's a lot smarter than it truly is. It also frustrated me by giving you info drip by drip and then leading to an unsatisfying conclusion. Following a mystery is only fun if the payoff is good. And it's not at least in my opinion. If you've read other AI sci-fi you can guess what's coming Combat is very repetitive. Squadrons are the only thing that matter and as long as you micro them correctly you'll have an easy time, at least on normal difficulty Not nearly enough content. I played all the way through and only lost twice (so 8 runs total). In those 8 runs, I saw most of the little story events in the game at least 3x over. That's unacceptable in a game that's supposed to be replayable. Conclusion: If you haven't played FTL, get that instead. Or Into the Breach. If you've finished both of those and have an itch for tactical combat, try the demo and maybe pick this up during a sale.
I agree with all of the other 5 star reviews. This is the best card game I've ever played. The game is generous. The matches are tactical and fun. The art is gorgeous. The devs have been largely responsive to feedback, and they have steadily improved the game over time, though there have been some steps back at times as to be expected. Overall, well worth your time if you like card games, and even if you don't I would recommend giving it a few hours of your time to see if this one peaks your fancy.
Pros: Fun legal gameplay system with interesting cases Beautiful art Great music Great historical setting Cons: The setting is totally let down by the writing. Holy smokes does it goes off the rails quickly. It goes from a decent historical political story to meta-fiction and hackneyed family drama in the middle of the second act, and the third act felt like it was made to annoy the player and spit on his or her choices. Battle system is filler trash. It has all the depth of a mobile game and actively pulls you out of the core legal gameplay loop. Overall, I'm happy I bought the game because I like to support ambitious developers, but next time I'll wait for reviews to see if the writing is improved before purchasing.
Check out Atermi's review. I agree with everything he says about the game being demanding, exciting, and a whole lot of fun. Just wanted to add my 5 stars to help our the developers, whom I admire.
This is a RPG set in a high fantasy Venetian city-state. The game revolves around the investigation of a missing scholar, Razitof, by Cicero Gavar, an exile whose brother's exploits have brought around much of the struggle which has enveloped the city. There is a decent base game here. It is a party RPG in the style of Baldur's gate, with some interesting skills and synergies to the combat. The story attempts to tackle some difficult and serious themes such as homosexuality in a lineage centered society. The world is fleshed out with lots of lore. That being said, the game never gets beyond that base, leaving the experience sour after a period of time. The only skills are combat skills, with no stealth or persuasion abilities. The experience is also entirely linear. You go to the next area. You fight several waves of minor enemies. You fight a boss. You proceed with the story slightly. You go to the next area. The combat never evolves beyond the basic synergies, such as grouping enemies together with one spell and then hitting them with several area of effect spells. The element system (connected to the world's magic) never really comes into effect. I played the entire game on hard, paid no attention to the element system after the 1st hour, and never lost a fight. Worse still, the story navigates its core mystery / save the city story decently enough, but all of the truly engrossing elements in terms of theme are handled with no subtlety. FIrst, the story occurs over a period of only a few days. In that time, you will become best friends with all of your companions and resolve all of their deepest issues. You are given no choice on how to react or respond to these characters, so the experience is somewhat frustrating as well as unbelievable. The other central themes, such as faith and class conflict, are handled with a similar lack of depth. Overall, Masquerada is a decent game, but a dissapointing one. Buy it only if you love party rpg's
