Passageway of the Ancients is a RtwP isometric RPG that aims to evoke the spirit of 90s classics but ultimately falls short in many areas. Although considerable thought has gone into the story and worldbuilding, the game unfortunately fails to create an engaging experience around that narrative. Many ideas seem either abandoned or underdeveloped, resulting in a confusing and often frustrating experience for players who find themselves questioning the original concept of the game.


You play as a Dragonkindt, a race often unwelcome in the human realm. To navigate interactions with strangers, you need to adopt an alternate persona.

To start, you will create this alternate identity. You can choose from three races - Human, Elf, or Dwarf. These choices are purely cosmetic and do not provide any traits or bonuses. The significant decision lies in selecting one of five classes: Rogue, Mage, Sentinel, Paladin, or Cleric. Customization of these classes is accomplished through skill trees. However, each class provides only a limited number of skill trees, which may allow players to max them all out by the end of the game. Furthermore, some skill trees are not exclusive to a particular class; for example, both the mage and the rogue share two skill trees, including one focused on picking locks and setting traps. Finally, you will distribute your attribute points across seven attributes. You can either let the game randomly generate your attributes and distribute 3 points freely, or you can manually allocate 28 points. There are no specific requirements for particular classes or races. Each attribute must be at least 8, but there is virtually no upper limit. For example, you can create a Mage with the attributes 8/8/8/36/8/8/8 if you choose. At this stage of the game, there are no skills or talents to select.


Your parents were murdered, and you are determined to find the culprit. You begin your investigation in the Gatehouse, where you will soon meet your first companion. From your very first interaction, it becomes clear that this companion's role is to provide backstory and guide you toward your next objective. Throughout the game, you will add two more companions, resulting in a total party of four. You do not have the option to choose your adventuring buddies; instead, you will have three pre-determined choices. All three companions share the same role as narrators and quest markers. However, this often feels unnatural and clunky, as one of your traveling companions will always seem to have a crucial insight to share at just the right moment.


If none of your companions provide insights, the rest of the story is primarily conveyed through your father's journals. As you read these entries, it's clear that significant care and thought went into crafting an interesting, unique world. Although the plot may not be particularly original, it develops well and consistently provides the party with reasons to advance, while also enriching the surrounding world. However, the issue lies in the fact that this narrative unfolds almost entirely through text, which ultimately fails to create any meaningful engagement.


You are retracing your father's steps, starting from the Gatehouse, in an effort to unravel the mystery surrounding your parents' deaths. While the Gatehouse initially appears to be a typical, peaceful residential building, it is actually teeming with monsters. After battling through the Gatehouse and its cellar, you use a teleporter to reach the Family Chapel. Naturally, one would expect a serene environment, a priest to heal your wounds, and a bed to rest in—but instead, you find yet another dungeon filled with monsters. In addition to this surprise, you are introduced to another hallmark of this game: excessively bloated levels. The so-called Chapel consists of over 20 rooms in a sprawling mega-complex.


Combat in this game is real-time with pause. You can choose a basic attack, allowing your character to automatically and relentlessly attack, limited only by the combat animation. Alternatively, you can select a melee skill or magic spell, in which case you will be limited by either Mana or Stamina as resources. Before entering combat, the game recommends that you configure your combat options. There are two available styles: melee and magic. For each style, you can choose from various settings, such as the stroke of your melee attack (Thrust, Slash, or Cut) or the phrasing speed of your spellcasting. These settings affect several factors, including attack speed, damage, and armor class. You can customize the settings for each character or let the game select them automatically for you. However, the automatically selected settings may not always be optimal, as different enemies have unique weaknesses to these settings. Using the wrong options can result in your characters frequently missing their attacks. As you engage in more battles, the bestiary fills with detailed information about these weaknesses. In theory, choosing the right combat options is crucial; for example, aiming high to kill spiders will often lead to missed attacks. In practice, though, I found that using medium settings for all fights worked just as well.

Another interesting feature is the ability to individually select the aggressiveness and maximum attack distance for each character. Although this setting is intended to enable a more automated combat approach, characters frequently refuse to attack, even when set to the most aggressive levels and when enemies are within striking distance.


Once you are engaged in an encounter, you will have the typical options of melee attack, magic, or support. In this game, skills and magic spells function similarly; they consume mana or stamina and have cooldowns. Most skills or spells you can learn are actively used, with the majority being damage-oriented. However, the game only allows you to equip four skills or spells at a time, which significantly limits your flexibility in combat unless you are willing to manually swap them frequently.

While this limitation is puzzling, I didn't feel particularly restricted during my playthrough. My melee fighters performed well with basic attacks, and I found myself using the same spells repeatedly for my mage. Although a variety of elemental spells are available, there are no elemental resistances in the game. Ultimately, using area of effect damage with lightning or fire didn’t seem to make much difference, so I stuck with my initial spell choices all the way to the endgame.

Combat in this game tends to feel automatic, with most encounters concluding in just a few seconds. The lack of positioning and crowd control options causes all characters, both good and evil, to be lumped together, making it difficult to understand what is happening on screen. I typically found myself sending my four characters directly into the enemy mob and letting them handle the situation on their own, including boss fights.


There is no need to worry about your defense either, as there appears to be no backstabbing, disengagement, range penalties, or other factors to consider. Although the game provides numerous consumables and spells to remove various status effects, you probably won't get hit with your first debuff until the late game.

Another poor design choice is the use of consumables. Players can use any potion or herb without penalty and as many as they like during pauses. Additionally, these items can be shared across different characters. This essentially makes your party unkillable, as you can pause the game and continuously use healing potions until your health is fully restored.

And you will have plenty of those in this game, as there is no shortage of any loot. The mega mansion levels mentioned earlier are actually rather sparsely populated with monsters. Much of your time will be spent searching a ridiculous amount of crates, shelves, flowers, pictures and so much more in otherwise empty rooms.


Most of the loot consists of junk, including consumables that you will likely never use. Even magical equipment does not significantly improve from the very first starter level. The one exception to this are equipment sets, which are scattered throughout the levels. Be sure to check every chair and bed for parts, as these sets are far superior to anything else you can buy or find.

You can sell your loot and make purchases at various stores. However, most of these stores are only accessible through a city map and cannot be found while adventuring. There are no settlements or non-hostile areas apart from individual shops, which means there are likely only around 10 NPCs in the game with whom you can interact.


Overall, the world feels strangely lifeless. I've lost count of the number of deserted taverns I've discovered. At one point, I even stumbled upon a large underground city, complete with typical buildings. However, you cannot enter most of the buildings, and the entire city is a ghost town, populated only by a few monsters.

This feeling of emptiness is exacerbated by the uninspired presentation. It resembles an asset dump, where developers have indiscriminately placed numerous assets in each level without any underlying concept or design. Although some individual elements are visually appealing, they rarely come together to create a cohesive level that I found enjoyable to explore.

The background music does little to enhance the atmosphere. Each level features a single track that plays on a relentless loop. There is no battle music, and even during moments when the game pauses for your character to reflect on their memories, the music continues unabated. This can be distracting and even irritating. Additionally, the few sound effects that do break the monotony often feel out of place; for example, in the only outdoor level, your footsteps sound as though you’re walking on wood despite the fact that you’re traversing grass.


Passageway of the Ancients is a unique game, but not for the right reasons. It claims to draw inspiration from classic titles of the 90s and early 2000s, yet I find myself questioning which elements in this game truly reflect those eras. It's unfortunate, as the story and world show potential and are well-written. However, the game fails to create an engaging experience, with many design choices falling flat. Ultimately, you'll spend the majority of your time navigating vast dungeons in search of the exit while resisting the urge to loot every single container.

This is a review of both the current Retail game, and the level 75 era private server Horizon. I will cover Horizon first, and then the Retail game. For context, I actually bought the big fat HDD and played the game on my PS2 for a bit way back when, but didn't stick with it. I played 200 hours of Horizon when it launched a couple years ago, then played Retail for a couple months. Then I came back to Horizon a few weeks ago to play with other HQers.



FF11 Horizon

Horizon is sold as a recreation of the early FF11 experience based on the Chains of Promathia expansion, which was the first expansion to launch for FF11 in the West (in the West, the game launched with the Zilart expansion already bundled with the base game). It also has some "balancing" changes. Basically it is the FF11 equivalent of a Vanilla+ WoW private server.

To get the game to work, I had to log in and log back out several times while I tried out the different controller presets in the Horizon launcher. The game was originally designed to be played on the PS2 with a controller. I also had to do some fiddling with the in-game options/config menu to adjust the aspect ratio and set my chat windows.

The first few hours of the game are pretty uninspiring to get through, as you are dropped off in a city with no overt guidance. You actually start off in a completely different section of the city than the questgiver who starts you on the nation storyline, the main storyline of the base game. You then solo to level 10, which amounts to a few boring hours of auto-attacking mobs. It is not practical to play with other people before level 10 as the party level syncing does not go down below level 10, so if you tried to party before that people would get wildly different amounts of exp. Level syncing ensures everyone is progressing at the same rate and makes sure that even players up to 10 levels higher than the synced player are getting exp equivalent for their level). Overall the introductory experience is bad, and the people I introduced to this game needed handholding to be walked through the setup and initial starter quest experience and encouragement/promises that the game does get better once you solo to 10.



Once at level 10, the fun begins. You then go to popular leveling zones, such as Valkurm Dunes or Buburimu Peninsula, to start doing what FF11 is about: the 6 man levelling party. In FF11, it is very, very difficult to solo mobs that are at the same level as you. You can run around everywhere looking for lower level mobs to zerg if you want, but that is very intensive and quickly becomes exhausting and boring. So you need to form a 6 man party (1 tank, 1 healer, rest are damage/supports) to kill higher-level mobs for more exp. To get the most exp your party wants to be fighting mobs that are labelled Very Tough (5 levels above you) or Incredibly tough (6+ levels above you). Combat is low enough APM that you can actually type and chat with your party while fighting. I have had more conversations with people in FF11 levelling parties than I have had doing "group content" in WoW, FF14, GW2, etc, where people are ostensibly doing something together but no one is really interacting.

Doing a levelling party in Horizon is a large time commitment, as mounts are limited and one way (can only be rented and ridden from a city, and then dismounted). You have to spend a lot of time travelling across several maps, dungeons, boat rides, etc, to reach a levelling camp location. You could be looking at 30 minutes to travel to a location to then grind there for a few hours. And if you die, you lose exp and can de-level and lose access to high level abilities or armor with a level requirement. So there are more stakes involved and more commitment is required to play the game, which in turn makes people more invested. It is also a private server with about 2-4k people online, and you will see the same names who are at the same point in their journey as you. There is a community feel in the game that is not present in continental megaservers like WoW or FF14 where you queue for a dungeon, get teleported to the dungeon with four other randoms, complete it in 15 minutes, and then everybody goes their separate ways and never sees each other again.

The game also gives players the tools to find other players on the same stage of their journey as you and form a levelling party with them. You can type "/sea all 30-40" to see all players online who are currently between levels 30 and 40. You can see what location they are currently at, what their job is, if they are a party leader (yellow name) or a party member (blue name) or unpartied (white name). You can also further specify what location they are at if you want people nearby, what job they are at if you want a tank or a healer, or if they are flagged specifically to join a party. You can then whisper those people and say, "Heya! Would you like to tank for my levelling party at Valkurm Dunes?" Some would say "well that's a more involved process than just queueing for LFD or duty finder!" and yes, they would be correct, but the point of this game is that it is more socially involved.

Anyway, that is pretty much the Horizon gameplay experience. 65 levels of the levelling party experience as you go from 10 to 75. You will occasionally form a party to go do story missions or an unlock quest together in which you battle enemies too strong to be soloed, or journey through a dungeon to reach a cutscene. There is a level cap "endgame", but most people won't get there quickly due to the long grind to level cap and how your friends might not be level capped and you might be syncing down to level them up.

The only other real thing of note is the job system/multiclassing, which is a little deceptive. It is not like Guild Wars 1 where you can fully be both classes. In FF11 you can equip a subjob. You would imagine that this would give you a lot of character customization, but in reality you're only really going to get one or two, maybe three notable abilities:

• If you equip warrior as your subjob, you will get provoke (taunt ability), berserk for a damage buff, occasionally auto-attack twice, defender ability which reduces incoming damage and is useful if you are tanking or you accidentally take aggro, and Warcry (group wide attack buff).
• If you equip ninja as your subjob, you can create shadow clones which will soak attacks aimed at you once (requires using stacks of expendable ninja tools, can be expensive to keep stocked if you are a new player), and stealth through areas. You can also dual wield, if you want.
• If you equip samurai as your subjob, you can regen 600 TP in 15 seconds, dodge an attack once every minute, and gain a damage buff for wielding two-handed weapons.
• Etc.
• Some jobs cannot be very effectively equipped as a subjob, namely the three pet classes of Summoner, Beastmaster, and Dragoon, as you either lose access to your pet or they become ineffective.
• (The Horizon private server made some changes for job and subjob abilities, listing them here would be getting a little too into the weeds)

This is an extremely, extremely time consuming game. When I played Horizon at launch, I sank 200 hours into the game to level up warrior to 30 and then to unlock and level up Dragoon to 35. The progression and community feel is very addictive and I would have liked to have continued, but unfortunately my time on this Earth is limited and there are other things I need and want to do, so I gave up there. I came back when RPGHQ became interested in this game and have sunk another 100+ hours into Horizon and have gotten to level 41 as a Dark Knight (also dabbled around in other jobs). I am not sure if I will make it to level 75, but I would like to at least beat the Shadowlord with the HQers which can be done at levels 50-55.

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Retail FF11

Retail differs from FF11 in that the game is not about the levelling party experience. The player base is concentrated at the level cap endgame, so before then it is a mostly lonely experience. You can acquire exp multipliers, summon NPC party members anywhere, and generally just level very fast and don't need other players' help for most things. I played a Summoner and only needed to ask other peoples' help for getting my summons (I do not recall at what level, I think maybe level 30-50ish). I wound up levelling to the high 70s/low 80s before stopping levelling to concentrate on the main story so that I did not become over-levelled and trivialize it. Retail is also different in that there are books in every zone and dungeon that you can teleport to and from. Unlike Horizon FF11 which is a simulation of inhabiting and traversing a fantasy world, Retail FF11 is pretty much teleport simulator as you travel to go get the next quest item or talk to the next NPC.

The early FF11 is a little strangely structured, in that you start by doing nation storylines but then the nation plots are forgotten as everything converges in Jeuno with the Shadowlord plotline. Apparently, the base game suffered from the same issue as Trails in the Sky FC, where the game had to be shipped out the door before the whole story was implemented. It ends half way through at the Shadowlord fight, and the other plot stuff is not resolved until the Zilart expansion, in which the central storyline and the nation stories are separated. So you have to go back to your nation to finish their stories from rank 6 to rank 10. Then you go to Norg to continue the main story from where it left off at the Shadowlord fight (and retcons in some additional events). The base game story (both the nation missions and the Shadowlord story) aren't much to write home about, but the main story does become a little more interesting in Zilart.

As for the nation stories, I overall liked Bastok's the most, since it had the most likeable cast of characters and the nation I was rooting the most for. San d'Oria's story has two twists, one at rank 6 (or 7?) that piqued my interest, but then also a twist near the end that soured me. Windurst's story is overall very boring up until the end, as you do lots of chores for different ministries that all look the same (both the buildings inside and the people you are working for), though it did get exciting towards the very end.

I got a little bit into the Zilart storyline before I got tired of Retail and unsubbed. I have heard that the story continues to get better as FF11 goes on, but I just couldn't endure the gameplay anymore. The Retail gameplay experience is fundamentally a lot of teleporting around, going to dungeons and farming mobs for a quest item or some other tediousness, and I just was not able to endure that for the sake of getting to the next cutscene. But in light of how boring the moment to moment gameplay of the latest FF14 expansion's story was (four hours of boring visual novel in which you literally never get to fight, vs lots of teleporting and running around to get quest items), I am not sure which of the two I would pick. Hopefully neither. And before anyone says, "Well they are MMOs, of course you are going to get a bad single-player RPG experience!", I would point to GW2 and WoW, which while they have dubious writing do have enjoyable moment to moment story questing-based gameplay experiences.





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The game looks aesthetically very nice. It has an overall grounded aesthetic without looking like a brown ugly game. I like how much of the game takes place not in generic green European medieval forests, but also in vast rocky landscapes (and, again, doesn't look ugly like in other games). It reminds me of places I have been hiking to like sandstone canyons. Reminds me of the Wild West.


There are more nice locations. The Japanese-y forest of Zi'Tah. The bridge city of Jeuno. The mining city of Bastok. The scenic ruins of Tavnazia. Even a few really high fantasy locations like Al'Taieu or Promvyion, but due to the cost and time to travel in this game (unlike in WoW/GW2/FF14 where I can teleport and fly and get a good shot within a couple minutes), I only posted the screenshots I had on hand.

I do have a gripe with Horizon, which is that they replaced the faces with redrawn upscaled textures. I do not think they look good, and there is no option to revert to the original faces. I have heard that there is a fix mod floating around somewhere. Apparently it does not address the custom faces that the Horizon devs implemented though, so you would have the redrawn faces next to original faces.

Another neat thing about FF11 is that you can get really big summons/pets, and they can remain on the field indefinitely unlike FF14's summons or WoW's Pitlord which just spawns in for a couple seconds and then spawns out. I do not have a screenshot from when I played a Summoner on Retail FF11, but I had a quite big Fenrir wolf summon. The only other MMO off of the top of my head that let you have large pets like this was Star Wars Galaxies.

The music is very good. Half of the base game's soundtrack was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, the other half by Naoshi Mizuta who would go on to do the expansion tracks. Overall I do not find Mizuki's tracks as likeable as Uematsu's stuff, but there are some good tracks here and there.

I like the anthem music of the Republic of Bastok.


I like the music that plays when you are on the boat to another continent:



I was going to post them all as videos, but then realized that would be a lot so here is a list:

• The cutscene music that plays when you fight the Shadowlord at the end of the base game:
• Dramatic cutscene music from Zilart
• Rendition of the Vana'diel March when you finish the nation storylines.
• Normal battle theme in the Rise of the Zilart expansion areas
• Fishing barge theme
• When you travel back to the past and fight in the war in Wings of the Goddess
• Wartime San d'Oria music in the past
• Traveling the jungles of Ulbulka
• Your private tropical island theme (FF11 did it first!)
• Iroha's theme

Beyond Galaxyland is a side-scrolling JRPG platformer adventure that invites you to embark on a quest to save Earth by exploring many extraterrestrial worlds. While the story is engaging and concludes satisfyingly, its short length limits character development and depth of its gameplay systems. However, it compensates for these shortcomings with visually great environments and an engaging story.

You play as Doug, an ordinary teenager from Earth. One night, after being pursued by a mysterious creature, you step through a portal into Galaxyland, the center of the universe largely controlled by the megacorporation DreamCore. Within minutes of your arrival, you discover that Earth has been destroyed by a force known as TheEnd. DreamCore has rescued a select number of humans and other lifeforms to preserve life far from their home planet. The game openly embraces the blatant evil intentions of DreamCore, playing with this trope rather than attempting to conceal it for a later big reveal.


The game's focus is on a blend of side-scrolling platforming, puzzle-solving, mini-games, creature collection, and combat. Platforming is generally enjoyable, particularly with the double-jump ability and sliding sections. However, they are not designed to be major obstacles, and you won’t even die if you occasionally miss a platform.


Puzzles are equally short and easy to solve. However, the game does a good job of offering a variety of challenges, ranging from pushing rock puzzles to labyrinths. You can auto-solve some puzzles as well, but at least the game does not automatically drop hints if it takes you a bit longer to solve them.

There are several mini-games scattered throughout, effectively serving as enjoyable distractions from the main gameplay. Like puzzles, these mini-games are generally not intended to be major challenges; instead, they add flavor to your overall experience. The only exception is one particular race, which suffers from an annoyingly poor camera that makes the entire experience extremely frustrating.


Another focus of this game is creature collection. You can capture most creatures you encounter in combat. Each creature provides specific skills that you can equip and release during combat to gain various bonuses or to attack enemies. Once equipped, these creatures level up, regardless of whether you use them in battle, allowing them to unlock much more powerful skills.


Combat in this game is turn-based. You control up to three characters from a pool, consisting of Doug and five companions you meet during your adventures. However, for most of the game, you do not have the option to choose all of your companions, as they are determined by the story. Some of the five companions also come into play quite late or only briefly; ultimately, you will probably spend most of your time with Doug, his transformed guinea pig Boom Boom, and one or no other character.

During combat, you can choose to attack your enemy, use a character-specific ability (such as healing or area attacks), utilize consumables, or release one of your captured creatures for a specific effect. Many of these effects are linked to six elements, each of which has a specific opposite that determines its strengths and weaknesses.


A key aspect of combat is the shared pool of ability points among characters, which can be used to unleash powerful abilities. This pool increases when you successfully hit an enemy, but it decreases twice as quickly if you miss. Additionally, if an enemy attacks, you must read their attack motion and defend in real time; failing to do so will further deplete your ability points. Effectively managing this pool is central to success in combat and is fun, as the risk of losing ability points keeps you engaged.

After successfully defeating an enemy mob, you will earn experience points. This is your only source of experience, as completing quests rewards you with money or items.


However, as you level up, your abilities (such as strength or intelligence) automatically increase without any options for customization. Character customization is determined solely by equipment and creatures.

One primary weakness of the game is its length. I completed it in about 13 hours, which feels a bit short for meaningful progression or customization of the seven characters. Roster management, which allows you to freely choose your companion, unlocks only a few hours before the end credits roll. Moreover, the game features only one difficulty setting outside of New Game+, making it quite easy overall. As a result, there's little incentive to optimize your equipment, skills, or combat strategies. For most of the game, I found that simply using standard attacks and ensuring I had enough points for healing abilities was sufficient.

Despite its length, this game features numerous optional quests and non-linear exploration. After a few hours, you are free to travel between several planets, exploring their secrets and tackling their quests. These quests are often much more substantial than typical fetch or kill quests, frequently providing powerful items as rewards. However, while these quests are optional, they’re typically gated behind specific level requirements. There are a few exceptions where the game allows you to attempt quests far beyond your current capabilities. Doing so will almost certainly result in failure.


One reason for its short length is the significant focus on presentation. While the characters may not stand out compared to many pixel games released in recent years and are generally quite bland, the environments are often beautifully designed. The diverse landscapes, biology, and architecture create a sense of adventure and exploration, despite the game's limited duration.

A significant amount of time was also devoted to the soundtrack, which features over 50 different tracks. While I appreciate the effort and some tracks nicely underscore the scene on screen, I found it to be overwhelming at times. In certain scenes, the music was so dominant that I had to lower the volume to focus on what was happening on screen. Additionally, I felt there was a lack of a cohesive theme or atmosphere among the tracks. They are well-crafted, yet each seems to be composed specifically for individual scenes rather than contributing to a unified experience.


In conclusion, Beyond Galaxyland is a fun, lighthearted sci-fi JRPG that never takes itself too seriously and consistently offers new experiences to keep players engaged. However, it does lack the length and substance found in other games. The story concludes satisfactorily and feels complete, yet it seems that the original scope may have been larger. For instance, after a few hours of gameplay, you will finish Season 1, and there is no mention of a second season. Recommended for any player who is not put off by JRPG mechanics and systems.

Old School RPG is a solo project released in 2024 with little fanfare. It is a party-based, turn-based, first-person dungeon crawler heavily influenced by classic games such as Might & Magic, Wizardry, and The Bard's Tale. While it generally delivers what it promises, it is held back by numerous bugs and a lack of content.


The game begins in Waters Edge, a small fishing town located on the Island of Three Towers. You are assigned the task of defeating an undead uprising by the arch mage. To accomplish this, you must obtain a red crystal that is located on a flying island. However, in order to reach the flying island, you must first repair a teleporter.

As the game progresses, the story takes you on a series of treasure hunts to collect items that are necessary to gain access to the next island. First, you need to explore three dungeons to find three crystals. Next, you are sent into three more dungeons on the hunt for three crafting materials. The story is not a major focus of the game and primarily serves to guide the player from one island to another.

But, before we can actually start slaying our first undead, we need to create our party of 4. The game offers three options: a default party; manually create a custom party; or a "random but balanced" party. If you chose to create your own heroes, you have choices among 14 classes and 13 races. Generally, the game itself does not offer many details about classes or races besides the skill groups each class can master. During character creation, this can be quite frustrating because you simply lack important information to make informed choices for your heroes. For instance, the Warlock has Arcane and Fire Magic at his disposal, while a Mage can also cast Divine, Air, Earth and Water spells. The downside of that increased pool of spells remain unclear. This is, until you consult the manual.

The manual contains a list of all spells unlockable for every class, allowing for a much more informed choice during character creation. The same is true for the 8 Attributes. The game does not tell you during character creation what skills are affected by what attributes; for that you will again need to read the manual which I would consider mandatory for custom party creation.


Following your first steps on land you engage in conversations with some villagers, picking up simple side quests of the fetch/kill variety, and browsing through the local merchants' stocks. However, the moment you step outside the village boundaries, the first skeletons attack.

The combat in the game is turn-based. One thing to note is that you don't have the option to position your party, but there appears to be a favored enemy system in place. This means that tanky characters are more frequently targeted by melee attacks. During your turn, you have the usual choices of attacking, defending, using consumables, or using support skills. However, the game is again lacking in terms of information provided. While you do receive some general information about each skill, it doesn't go into much detail.

For example, the skill Berzerking greatly increases attack power but comes with a small hit chance penalty. Unfortunately, no specific numbers are provided. The same is true for enemies – you only see their hitpoints without any information about resistances. This can be quite frustrating, especially when an enemy resists an attack and you're left wondering if they are immune or if you were just unlucky with your roll against their resistance.


A nice touch is the presence of a few synergies, although they are quite limited in numbers. Lightning attacks deal bonus damage to wet targets, while fire abilities can remove the wet status and few others. These synergies are mentioned in the manual and should be studied and pre-planned before character creation to ensure that your four heroes complement each other perfectly.

There are also limited items that you can use during combat - no scrolls, wands, or traps, and only a few options for potions for recovery and to increase your Strength or Quickness abilities. If your class does not come with a certain buff or debuff skill, it's unlikely that you will be able to cast it using any other means. For example, if you don't have any skill to remove burning, you will have to endure a 10% HP loss for a set number of rounds.[/color]

The turn order is primarily influenced by the Quickness ability, which has only this one use. Every round, the turn order is refreshed, but unfortunately, you cannot see the turn order of the following round in advance[/color]. Typically, my Paladin would go last, allowing me to decide whether to heal the most needy character at the end of each round. Should I heal my Necromancer or take a gamble that he will go first and heal himself via Drain Life? It's a blind decision, and I would have preferred either keeping the order consistent throughout the whole encounter or at least showing me the order for the next round so I can plan accordingly.

After achieving victory in battle, you collect every item from the enemy mob, resulting in hauling around 88 shields and 60 long swords after a few battles. With merchants who have infinite deep pockets, you'll never run out of money. Although there isn't much to buy, you'll discover the best equipment while exploring, along with plenty of potions to keep you alive.

Itemization in this game is quite lacking. New equipment items only make you stronger, and even Magic items only come with randomly generated modifications to certain abilities. However, later in the game, a few items are introduced that provide additional skills or resistances which can potentially alter your approach to combat.


Besides loot, you gain experience after victory, distributed evenly among all survivors. You can solo or create a smaller party to level up more quickly. Additionally, you can choose to dismiss a character during your playthrough. This can be advantageous if you feel you have mishandled that character or cannot find a suitable purpose for them. Unfortunately, you can only dismiss characters in the reverse order of their creation, which greatly undermines this otherwise good idea. You are even able to replace the dismissed character with a newly created one. However, the new character will always start at level 1, and gained experience is not scaled to their level. As a result, this potentially useful feature is only theoretical.

Generally you only gain experience via combat and for completing quests. Each level you have skill and attribute points to allocate. There is no skill tree or any other means of choosing skills, they are unlocked at a certain level for each particular class. You will find an overview of that in the manual. What exactly an increase in a certain skill does is mostly unclear. The game tells you that this particular skill is getting more effective but in what way remains a mystery. My Necromancer was additionally skilled in Water Magic, with at some point 24 vs. 8 levels respectively. Yet, I cannot say that spells of these certain class felt much different in power or hit rate.

In addition to level-ups, you will also come across numerous random attribute points throughout your adventures. This gives you the flexibility to redirect your character if you feel that your initial plan is not working out. This feature is particularly useful since the game does not offer any respec options.


You will explore the islands in real time, with free movement and mouse look. In total you will visit four different islands. However, it's worth noting that these islands all share a striking similarity in terms of their appearance and atmosphere. Additionally, these islands are relatively small in size. There is no need for a minimap, as you can consult your fullscreen map, follow the compass, and soon you will spot your destination. There are a few hidden things to uncover off the main path, and exploring a new island is generally enjoyable.


You will also have the opportunity to explore numerous dungeons, which become progressively more complex. These dungeons are filled with an enjoyable mix of traps, hidden doors, puzzles, and, of course, plenty of monsters. The traps are not only deadly but are often strategically placed, requiring careful exploration of the dungeon. On the other hand, the puzzles add flavor to the experience rather than being substantial challenges. Many of them are quite similar, and even if you come across a new type of puzzle, the solution is usually immediately obvious. The same holds true for "hidden" passageways - at least you won't need to go on a pixel hunt.


While it's generally fun to crawl through dungeons in search of your next quest item, these dungeons lack diversity. Most of them use the exact same presets and placables - the same walls, same decoration, they absolutely look identical - differing only in layout, monsters, and loot. It reaches a point where even finding a new bookshelf becomes exciting simply because it offers something different to look at.

One reason for this is likely the developer's ambition. The game looks fantastic for its scale. Besides the human models, monsters, dungeons, vegetation, and placables all look very detailed and, more importantly, consistent throughout the game. Everything fits convincingly together and feels like one cohesive world. The music enhances this sentiment as well. It's not overpowering, but also not memorable; it's simply there to underscore the atmosphere. However, there are some issues with certain sounds. Monsters growling from the void, sound effects on loop, and annoying party banter even while you are busy leveling up.

Furthermore, the experience is weakened by the UI. A lot of actions require too many clicks to achieve, although the developer has fixed some of these issues with recent updates. Additionally, the switch between vertical and horizontal menus is confusing. Ultimately, the UI is serviceable but certainly not convenient.


Lastly, let's address the numerous bugs present in the game. While the starter island feels fine, issues arise with mistakes in the dialogue that sends you off. The performance deteriorates, there are numerous mistakes in texts, enemies are pre-damaged, chests refill, monsters spawn on top of each other, skills do not work as advertised, and there are even game-ending bugs. However, to give credit to the developer, he has promptly addressed these bugs within hours of them being reported, either on the Steam forums or in our HQ thread. Nevertheless, in its current state, the game feels more like an Early Access title at best.

In conclusion, it's fun to browse the manual, plan your party, and see how it all plays out. The combat lacks some information, but it's satisfying when your plan works. And even if the game throws you a curveball, there's often a way to save the day. It's not the deepest system, but for a short game like this, it's enjoyable enough. It took me about 18 hours to beat the game on the recommended difficulty settings. It might take a bit longer on harder settings, but it should still be beatable within 20 hours. Even that feels stretched at times - the dungeons and islands almost seem procedurally generated because they're so similar. That's a shame because the exploration is small-scaled but fun. You're always on the lookout for traps, treasures, and unmarked adventures. This game, as it is, should have been an Early Access title with only 2 islands to iron out more bugs and gain more time and funding to create something fresh for the second half of the game.

If you enjoyed some of the often low-budget first-person dungeon crawlers from the past years, but wished there were more turn-based options available, then this game is for you. However, if you are not interested in this particular sub-genre, this game does not offer anything that will turn you into a fan.

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VLADiK Brutal is a solo-developed, indie first-person shooter game created by Vladislav Meshcheryakov over a span of 5 years. You play as Vlad, an ex-con who ends up fighting a one-man war against the iron-fisted dictator of a dystopic post-Soviet state.

THE WORLD AND LORE
In a fictional nation within Eastern Europe, a dictator of long standing holds power. The dictator, marked by paranoia, has carried out numerous purges, eliminating the opposition. Common citizens are monitored by tracking chips in their necks. Everyone wears identical clothing, each bearing a unique number, all regulated by the government. On top of all these measures, the dictator has established a 'Grand Research Facility', utilizing prisoners for nefarious purposes. The state incarcerates many for their resistance to the dictatorship, resulting in executions and exploitation as forced labor.

The game generally has a gloomy and somber atmosphere, but the interior levels, such as maintenance areas, metro stations, and the dictator's massive tower, stand out with their vibrant and colorful palettes.

CAMPAIGN
The game begins with you, Vlad, having a conversation in prison with your friend. You're discussing the new assignment you've received from the administration: you are to be escorted to the 'Innovation Center' and assist the scientists there with an experiment. Once you arrive, a scientist tells you to pull some levers ominously labeled AZ-1 to AZ-5―the latter being the label of the lever that triggered the meltdown of Chernobyl in real life. Unsurprisingly, things go wrong, and soon you're up against a bunch of monsters and military forces. Your main goal becomes taking down the dictator and freeing your country from his oppressive rule.

It's the standard post-Soviet shooter: everything is shit, dystopic, and hopeless unless you bring the hurt to those at the top.

One thing that bugged me, though, is the end of the game.
SPOILERS
The game has three difficulties: Easy, Normal, and Brutal. The menu is presented quite nicely, reminiscent of old shooters like DOOM and Wolfenstein. The details are even different for each difficulty (see: Codename, Appearance). It's funny how the Easy profile gives you a thin physique and calls you CHICKEN while the Brutal profile gives you a 'pimped' physique and calls you BRUTAL MONSTER.

ART DIRECTION
VLADiK features a highly cohesive art direction, each area feeling logically connected to the next. Metros appear authentic and the underground maintenance areas are filled with all the details you'd expect: small tunnels to crawl through, catwalks, emergency lights, sounds, etc. The atmosphere is further enhanced by the biomatter that covers most walls and floors, along with huge worms crawling everywhere. The experience is made even more immersive by the aftermath of battles between monsters, military forces, and even civilians present in each area.


The art direction is pretty consistent. Some things felt out of place, but that's probably because I'm not Russian; I assume it's authentic. The underground passages reminded me of Half-Life 1 and 2, which is pretty nice. It was also a nice touch to include corpses of both monsters and humans all over the areas. It makes the game feel lived-in, as though you aren't just running through a level with enemies placed all over.


VISUALS
The visuals are impressive, especially considering that the game was developed by a single person. It stands strong against games made by larger teams. The game offers a wide range of graphical options, including a preset optimized for the Steam Deck, allowing it to run at 60fps without any performance dips while still looking great.
I had everything on the highest settings, and the game looked very good, but when I was in areas that were dark and got my flashlight out, it was marred by a flickering noise effect all over the screen.


SOUND DESIGN
The sound design is excellent. From the satisfying gunfire to the eerie ambient audio and the cawing of ravens, the game nails the atmosphere. When you're underground, you may hear speakers repeating warnings or the distant, terrifying roars of rampaging monsters. Gunfights, the screams of men and women, and other chaotic sounds contribute to the tension. The military enemies sound similar to the Combine from Half-Life with their heavily distorted voices. After you kill a soldier, you can hear someone on the radio, likely asking for his status, followed by eerie silence.

The voice acting is serviceable, but nothing grand. The dev himself voiced the main character.

ENEMIES
The game features a variety of enemies, including mutants and military personnel, each presenting unique challenges. Mutants range from standard enemies with tentacles on their faces who rush at you when they sense your presence to invisible foes that can be detected by their distinct sounds. There are also naked mutant women who flee from you but spawn kamikaze children that explode on impact, the spawning stopping only when the 'mom' is killed. Prowlers, crawling on all fours, are known for their jumping attacks, while fat slobs move slowly but can deal significant damage if they get too close, though they can usually be taken down with two shotgun blasts.

The military faction adds another layer of difficulty with standard goons armed with pistols, baton-wielding goons who rush at you, and commandos who come in two types: green with assault rifles and blue with shotguns, both fast and aggressive. Riot shield goons are slower and try to protect their allies by walking in front of them, but they’re easy to deal with once you figure out their pattern. Heavies, heavily armored and equipped with machine guns, can absorb a lot of damage and possess significant firepower. Attack dogs track and attack you, snipers require careful navigation to avoid their long-range shots, and, in the final missions, you face two assassins equipped with jetpacks, making them elusive and difficult to handle as they dodge and get close.

It's a nice variety of enemies. I'd say the military are the more difficult to fight against since they have guns and run just as fast as you do; they also like to flank or run behind you. One nice feature is that they take advantage of their riot shields by having two ranged goons stand behind each while firing at you.

There were a few boss fights in the game. They weren't particularly noteworthy but worked well enough for situations in which you face them.

EQUIPMENT


The game offers a diverse arsenal of weapons suited for various combat scenarios. The revolver is a powerful sidearm with limited ammo, capable of one-shotting most enemies. The regulator fires electric orbs that pull in enemies and then explode, which is both effective for crowd control and very fun. You usually see a bunch of limbs and blood flying around when that happens, fun times! For close-range combat, the pump shotgun stands out as a particularly strong choice. Of all the weapons, I used it the most, as it is a fantastic close-range option that kills most enemies with 1-2 shots and remains effective even at mid-range. Because of it shigher damage output, the AS Val proves a superior alternative to the AK despite its smaller 30-bullet magazine; it's particularly effective against tougher enemies like the green and blue commandos. The AK itself, however, with its 45-bullet magazine, still remains a reliable and efficient weapon.

The Tokarev is one of the weapons I used the least. It is useful at the beginning of the game but gets replaced soon by the AK. If you have a steady supply of AK ammo, you basically don't need the Tokarev anymore. The two-barrel shotgun offers significant firepower, especially against heavily armored foes. For explosive needs, grenades detonate on impact, and Molotov cocktails are ideal for trapping enemies in confined spaces. The bolt-action sniper rifle can eliminate most foes with one hit, though it struggles with heavies. The RPG-7 is invaluable for taking down large groups and helicopters.

The gunplay was very well done overall, and each weapon feels good. The recoil is manageable; my only issue is that none of the assault rifles have a red dot sight or similar attachment, which makes aiming a bit more difficult.

NEGATIVES
Many of the game’s negatives can be easily adjusted through in-game options. Features like head bobbing, weapon sway, blur, bloom, and other post-processing effects can be turned off to improve comfort. However, you do need to reload your game manually after each death, so frequent saving is advisable. While the game does include auto-saves, they are often placed at the beginning of fights, which can be inconvenient.

CONCLUSION
Overall, VLADiK Brutal is a solid game, especially considering it was made by one person over five years. It's got that gritty, post-Soviet vibe down and has some intense action, a bunch of cool Russian guns, and a good mix of enemies trying to murder you. The atmosphere in each level feels great and the gunplay is satisfying even if some weapons are clearly better than others.