Caves of Lore Review

INTRODUCTION
Caves of Lore is an isometric, turn- and party-based indie RPG, with retro-pixel graphics, developed solo by Mike Robins (Codex username @LoreMaster) over the course of ~6 years. You play as a shepherd who goes looking for a lost sheep in a mysterious mist, causing you to fall into the eponymous caves, which is the start of your adventure.

Caves of Lore features tactical, square-tiled combat with a party of up to 6 members. Character development is primarily skill-based, with feats available through a unique (as far as I am aware) mechanic. Exploration incorporates time through the use of a lunar system that can affect the game world. Dialogue is keyword-based, with new keywords becoming universally available as appropriate.

THE WORLD AND LORE
There's a lot going on in the world of Solmaria, where your adventure takes place. When you begin play you're part of the only known village left in the world, cut off from everywhere else by a mist that saps memories from those who walk through it. Everything - and I mean everything - is more than what it seems, if only because everyone seems to be losing all their memories at a varying pace. As the game progresses you'll discover more about what is happening now, and the several-millennia history of Solmaria.

Throughout the game you will discover books, all of which can be read for varying effects. Some provide snippets of the world's history, some provide clues to items and interactions available in the game, some grant the use of spells, and some when read will grant a one-time bonus to a given skill for the entire party. This is one of the few games I've played in the last two decades that I would say makes every in-game book or note worth reading. There are three primary reasons: certain gameplay and plot advancement elements are unlocked through reading notes, scrolls, books etc; the lore of the world is actually interesting; and no book or note will take longer than 3 minutes to read. There is no distracting word-vomit here. Not everything read is useful for gameplay, but I actually enjoyed reading new books and scraps of paper, a rare accomplishment for a game.

For the lore itself I note again that this is the first game in a long time to make me genuinely interested in the world's history. Primarily my interest arose from small opportunities to interact with that history through gameplay. Every map has at least one or two secrets that are callbacks to journal pages, books or conversations with NPCs. And almost all of those interactions, when successfully completed, reward the player, usually very well indeed.

THE PARTY
Your party can contain up to six active characters, one of which will always be the main character. Each character comes with pre-set stats, a unique (though not necessary except in one case) exploration ability, and two unique combat abilities which it can "upgrade" once each (learning a new, usually more powerful ability) with mastery (more on that later). Each character has their own background and motivations, and all can be spoken with, either in the main hub of the game (the underground/overground town of Kalindraur/Emerisk) while idle, or during camping breaks.

Character personalities are pretty predictable. There is minimal party banter during important events, but overall nothing to write home about. The plethora of available characters and their wide range of attribute specializations, exploration abilities and combat abilities means there's something for everyone. It's fairly easy to tailor your party to your taste. The notable exception is a character received very late in the game via an unusual method, whose exploration ability is absolutely and uniquely critical to unlocking all of the secrets in the game (as it reveals certain things which can't be discovered in any other way, as far as I know).

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
Caves of Lore character development is a mix of attribute-, skill- and feat-based. You create the main character by setting his attributes using a point-buy system that will be familiar to any modern CRPG player. Each attribute can be raised for an escalating number of points. You also select one feat which gives a bonus to a specific weapon or spell category.


Character creation is pretty bog-standard.

Attributes primarily work by modifying various skills. Equipment and spells may also have minimum attribute requirements in order to use them effectively, or at all. Attributes do not increase much throughout the game. They are primarily raised permanently through the discovery of special in-game locations, and temporarily through the use of music at camping and from item enchantment bonuses.

Skills are the primary method of determining the outcome of all in-game actions. There are 15 general skills, available to all characters. Each spell and ability has a skill level. Finally, each character has access to two unique abilities which are also skills. Increasing skill level has predictable effects, with increased damage, area of effect, duration and so forth as skill goes up. Skills are primarily increased by using them; swinging a one-handed sword increases the One-Handed weapon skill, while attempting to disarm a trap or pick a lock will increase the Disarm skill. Spells, too, increase skill level through use.

Spells and abilities (both generic and character-specific) can be mastered (denoted by a purple square outline around the skill icon) by attaining a skill level specific to each spell/ability, granting a unique one-time bonus. Mastered spells can be cast without the use of associated spellbooks, while the character-specific abilities grant access to one new ability each upon mastery.


The general skill screen, covering everything from combat styles to camping and bartering.


Spells, similar to the ability screen. Note the thumbnail image for prerequisite spells under locked icons.

You gain levels with experience, obtained from successful combat and by completing quests. Each level grants an increasing tranche of discretionary skill points, which can be distributed to any of the general skills (but not to abilities or spells). At each 2nd and 3rd level you also gain an additional available feat, and a new combat ability respectively.

As a general rule I am not a fan of character development that focuses heavily on learn-by-doing, and this game is no exception. The idea of certain skills slowly improving over time based on what you enjoy doing is fine in theory; in practice, I often had to force myself to use skills and spells I cared nothing about for various reasons (primarily spell mastery of useful spells). The drudge of mastery and simply raising, say, combat skills, is exacerbated by the fact that later characters don't start with a large skill investment when recruited to the party. Using them in place of characters you've had from the beginning of the game can be extraordinarily painful, especially in the case of one character who is clearly designed to be a powerful mage, but starts with absolutely no mastered spells, and only a deceptively large pool of unspent skill points (which again, in practice, doesn't amount to nearly the skill levels of party members who have been with you from the start). Getting this character to even a basic functional ability with spells, and replacing the lost general skill coverage from previous characters, hurts, a lot.

The game does provide you the ability to train characters who aren't in the party in the use of spells and weapon skills, but only one spell or skill at a time per character.

On the other hand, the mechanics themselves are pretty fun in moderation, with a nice bonus bestowed for mastering spells and character abilities. Scaling power means your favorite spells and abilities also remain useful throughout the game, provided you use them continuously. And certain spells become much more useful with skill, making exploration and world navigation more comfortable. On the whole learn-by-doing could have benefited from a little pruning of the -doing part, and an eye towards easing the process of bringing new characters up to speed as they're recruited.

Feats are acquired solely through leveling up, every other level. Feat points can be stored to await more powerful feats if desired. They start very generic and gradually become varied and specialized, with later feats tying their strength to, say, moon phase or time of day. In theory this could encourage making considerations of time etc a big part of selecting when to start combat. In practice most times such feats just gave a nice unexpected bonus when initiating combat under the correct circumstances. Still, the variety was much appreciated.

Finally a word must be said for the acquisition of feats, in my opinion the coolest overall aspect of character development. Each monster has its own lore entry, filled gradually by fighting that monster in combat. Entries are filled at a speed dependent on each character's Monster Lore skill, which makes getting everyone to at least basic competence (10+) in Monster Lore a good idea, if not strictly necessary. Each monster grants access to a new feat for purchase on levelup after a certain threshold of information is passed in its lore entry. As far as I know this is the only game that ties learning monsters' strengths and weaknesses (and actively seeking out encounters with rarer monsters) directly to in-game power (rather than meta-power), and I love it. It's a lot of fun to suddenly see new sets of feats available on character levelup, and it also gently nudges players to pay attention to each monster's lore entry, encouraging them to learn each monster's strengths and weaknesses. In turn players can expect to be able to take on much more challenging difficulty levels. It's the smoothest challenge-ramping encouragement and reward mechanic I can remember playing with, and very satisfying.

COMBAT
Caves of Lore's combat is carried out on a separate, 6x14 square-tiled grid. In almost all cases, your characters will start in up to four rows on the left side of the grid, and monsters will start in varying positions on the right side. Combat is turn-based, with each participant rolling initiative at the start of battle to determine turn order for the rest of the fight. The sole exception I've seen is being ambushed while camping (extraordinarily rare), which causes your characters to start in the middle of the grid surrounded by the monsters that ambushed you.


Your first combat, against the standard and ubiquitous Giant Rat(s). Note the turn order queue at the bottom of the screen.

You have a limited ability to control your turn order through the use of a wait command, which will move you one spot in the turn queue. However in practice this is sometimes useless. If you have two characters you desire to hold through monster movement, they'll end up waiting one turn and continuously giving each other the next spot in queue, switching back and forth.

Each character has a set number of movement points determined by speed, and is allowed to take one full-turn action which will end his turn. Certain actions (such as the musical effects from a specific character's unique abilities) will not end your turn, generally allowing small pre-buffs or setups for normal actions (attacking, spellcasting etc).

I very much appreciate the style of combat (turn-based, grid-based), and the variety of actions and enemies available. I never got bored with combat during my playthrough. However in execution there are some problems, some of which are very frustrating.

Pathfinding in combat is unpredictable and sometimes dangerous or fatal, especially for ranged characters. Never, ever, ever, ever click-to-attack with a ranged character when the desired target is outside of attack range and/or LOS (if you can determine LOS, see below), even if in theory the character has the movement available to get in range. Always click to move into range first, then click to attack. I have had multiple instances of ranged characters using bizarre routes to get into attack range, sometimes walking directly next to their targets prior to attacking. In the case of one particularly fragile character this is almost without exception fatal. Even moving without attacking can sometimes result in highly unintuitive routes, resulting in wasted movement points and, occasionally, failure to reach spots that are clearly in movement range (due to a zig-zagging path taken attempting to reach it).

I also found presentation of obstacles and determination of line-of-sight to be confusing and occasionally frustrating. Objects which look like they should block LOS or movement may not. Characters and monsters are sometimes able to occupy the same space as what appear to be blocking props on the map (large stalactites, statues etc). Props which look like they should block skills sometimes don't, and vice versa. The dev has made admirable progress in clearing out a great deal of the jank from this game post-launch, but clearly communicating movement and LOS, and predictable pathfinding are two areas with a notable lack of progress. At no point did these issues cause me a quitting level of frustration, but they were very much felt.

Overall combat is functional and enjoyable, with a large variety of skills and monsters, and a much-appreciated 6-man party granting a wide set of options. Just remember to remain vigilant against the game's pathfinding and have some patience to work through LOS and movement-blocking use-cases.

EXPLORATION
Caves of Lore features isometric movement and exploration over a gradually-expanding range of maps. It is not open-world, but each area is expansive enough (and in many cases, revisited enough) that it never felt restrictive or predictable. Exploration is distinguished by the game's lunar system, which tracks the position of the game's three moons and sun. Each moon, or combination, can have various effects depending on their position and the time of day. The effects range from combat-related, granting bonuses to spells and skills and activating certain feats, to exploration, opening up new paths and unlocking secret areas or treasures.


The sundial. Figuring this sucker out and properly mastering its use is frustrating, fun and very rewarding.

The game also has an in-game automap, filled in as you explore. There is just enough detail on the automap to jog your memory and aid you when trying to recall bits and pieces of unfinished puzzles, without being so explicit that it gives the game away. The automap also allows for an (as far as I know) undocumented auto-travel feature, useful when backtracking or moving about in town and so forth. It also keeps track of how many of each area's secrets and ores you've discovered. Normally I wouldn't appreciate such a tracker, but in this case, with the myriad secrets and some uncertainty about whether the doodads on the map are actually used in the game or not, I didn't mind it too much.


The automap.

Let's get this out of the way now: I'm a huge fan of this game's exploration mechanics, and I believe it is by far its most enjoyable aspect. You never feel bored wandering around. There are always new areas to explore, or old areas with expanded avenues opening up, or interesting opportunities to interact with the environment. Discovering the mechanics behind the game's lunar system is the best kind of joy: frustrating at first, then deeply satisfying once you've attained mastery. And since treasure unlocked via lunar mechanics is by far the best in the game, it's always a huge rush to figure out a given puzzle. Learning the little peculiarities of each type of puzzle was also fun and satisfying.

For those (like me) who had a difficult time figuring out the lunar system solely through in-game experimentation, there are a series of books giving more detailed explanations, while still leaving room for further discovery, and several spells which are solely exploration-related to expand options as the game progresses.

Camping is conducted anywhere with enough room to seat your party of characters. You have a range of jobs which can be performed during camp, as well as some options for passing time, both in terms of hours/days and moon phase. Your hp and mana will regen while encamped, dependent on each character's Survival skill.


Camping. Probably the safest place to be in the entire game.

A few sour notes detract from the overall experience. First, a game tied to a lunar system which depends on the passage of time necessarily entails a lot of time spent waiting in the game (usually via camping). You're going to spend a lot of time staring at the game's sundial while encamped if you want to unlock every secret. I'm not sure how to solve this problem (or even if it's wise to mess with it), since the feeling of time passing is tied so tightly into exploration.

Second, one character's exploration ability is absolutely required in order to unlock several secrets, which does not in my opinion fit with the other characters' theme of "useful but not necessary" exploration abilties. In particular there is a great deal of pressure placed on the player to conduct a ton of grinding in order to bring this character up to speed with the rest of the party, so he can be useful to the party in combat (which also ties back to the character development issues talked about earlier).

Finally, camping is effectively a risk-free refill mechanic. The only potential throttle is the possible amount of time required to completely refill the mana of mage characters. Especially at higher levels it's usually faster to stay the night at the inn or dormitory since it instantly refills health and mana overnight. The developer recently added the ability for nearby monsters to ambush you while encamped, but practically speaking you will only risk this happening if you camp right on top of a monster (within a couple tiles).

Still, I cannot emphasize enough how happy I've been to enjoy exploration so much. As I've commented elsewhere, I don't remember the last time I looked forward so eagerly to finding out what's just around the corner. Maybe the Exiles, from when I was a teenager. A very impressive feat, and the developer deserves major kudos.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT, BUYING AND SELLING, AND NPC SERVICES
The inventory in Caves of Lore is standard fare, with an expandable paged grid, each item taking up one grid slot. Items can be sorted by type, in a customizable order, with the type selected being placed at the top of the inventory. Containers of varying sizes are scattered throughout the game, which can aid in keeping items organized.

Buying and selling also works as expected, conducted via a functional interface. Discovered shops in the game's main town of Emerisk will drop a "Shop" sign on entrance, which can be clicked on to go directly to the relevant NPC's shopping inventory in lieu of finding the NPC himself and talking. Expanding this functionality to all shopkeepers in the game would be much appreciated, but overall shopping works fine.

Some NPCs also provide special services, such as training skills, enchanting and forging, which can be accessed via the same interface. Enchantments can be stripped from magic items and stored for later placement on another item of your choice. They can also be strengthened, enhancing the bonus for a given enchantment. Each operation costs a certain amount of Manatite, with the cost increasing concomitant with the power of the enchantment. Forging works much the same way, using various metals to bestow a small range of properties to a given weapon or piece of armor.


The shopping interface. You can also switch to NPC services from this screen.

I didn't bother too much with forging or enchanting (a by-product of - perhaps foolishly - never increasing the difficulty beyond Normal), but the possibilities are pretty enticing. The interesting part here is that the "enchantment" from forging can also be strengthened, via repeated forging with the same metal. For instance, Silver makes a weapon effective against Undead and Arcane monsters, but it also lowers the strength requirement for equipment. If you're willing to spend additional Silver, you can drastically lower the strength requirement, say to allow a mage character to wield a desired 2-handed weapon or piece of body armor. This works for each metal effect.

The system overall is interesting and I had fun customizing my weapons and armor to the limited extent that I used it.

The inventory itself has had the most visible work and progress post-release, but some of the most visible frustrations still remain, on par with combat issues. It is now possible to use a "Sort All" function, which works loosely (but not completely) as you would expect in any other game with a sprawling, always-large inventory. Yet finding items, sorting, buying and selling, and enchanting still have rough edges which makes dealing with your equipment and other items always feel like a low-level chore. On my first playthrough I consciously avoided interacting with the inventory to the maximum extent possible. As I said, a great deal of that early frustration has been ameliorated via continuous patched functionality. But there's still lots of room for improvement here.

CLOSING THOUGHTS AND RATING
The game closes a little abruptly, with an ending that makes it obvious a sequel is planned. I clocked in about 45 hours of playtime, a significant portion of which (probably a good 5 hours) was spent in the camp interface waiting on various moon phases. Yet the plethora of secrets, wide range of character development options, and the many areas of the game where I know there's more to discover mean I have already started a new playthrough. Needless to say I look forward to any sequels.

Caves of Lore is easily my favorite RPG played this year, and ranks up in the top 20, at least, of my favorite RPGs played ever. Distinguished by its excellent exploration mechanics, Caves of Lore was a contender for Game of the Year for me even before the continuous work put in post-release by the developer. After the many bugfixes, improvements and quality-of-life additions, Caves of Lore is easily my choice for Game of the Year, and an outstanding addition to the ranks of both the CRPG genre and the efforts of indie developers. Mike Robins aka LoreMaster deserves praise and appreciation for his work, and it is my devout hope that he will continue making CRPGs well into the future.

OVERALL RATING: 9/10

Edit: switch image hosting from Catbox to the Vault, minor spelling correction.

Demise - Rise of the Ku'tan. A game I have had a love/hate relationship with for almost half of my life.

This being a very niche and not really popular game, I doubt many of you are familiar with this title. So, what is it, exactly?

Demise is an old-school dungeon crawler, one coming from a proud lineage starting way back in 1977 with Oubliette, continuing through Avatar, Mordor and ending with Demises very own fan-made expansion/revamp called Demise: Ascension (13 years after the initial release!), one of two that were in development (the one that didn't quite make it to release status is called Demise: The Revelation and can still be found around here and there - in fact, it is the version I am currently playing myself).

The basic premise is very simple - you create a character, picking from one of nine races (human, elf, giant, gnome, dwarf, ogre, yeti, saris, troll) and three alignments (good, neutral, evil), choose which guild will the character initially join thus determining its starting class (artisan, warrior, paladin, ninja, villain, explorer, thief, barbarian, magi, warlock, sorcerer, cleric, membership limited by alignment, race and attribute scores) and distributing a few spare points among your six character attributes - strength, dexterity, constitution, wisdom, intelligence and charisma.

After generating a character you enter the town, where you can obtain plot quests, check the billboard for bounties, visit the guild house to increase your class level, sell and buy items at the shop, resurrect a character at the morgue, store your shit at the bank, go to the town seer to get some spells cast on you or divine the location of a monster or item, check the confinement to buy and sell companion monsters and, finally, enter The Dungeon, where the rape magic happens.

Gameplay is very simple as well. The game runs on a horribly dated 3D engine, the entire dungeon is a predetermined 30-level (more in the expansions) grid-based 45x45 squares-per-level monstrosity. There's a map which you fill yourself as you explore each level, square by square. Combat is turn-based with initiative resolved in real time, although you can pause it at any time to pick a spell to cast or use an item on your turn.

But what makes it so difficult exactly, you may ask? It seems so simple, straightforward... rudimentary, even. Well, let me fucking tell you.

For starters, the very first character you create will always end up being a useless gimp later on. Always. It's probably what turned most first-timers away from this game - when you suddenly realize that after hours and hours of playing, your character is simply too much of a chickenshit to make the cut in the deeper levels of the dungeon. That Roger the Ogre Barbarian who you cared for, nurtured, saw through many hardships and seen grow from a tiny ogre baby to a manly ogre killing machine is a fucking pussy that gets absolutely wrecked no matter what you do. All because you didn't know what the hell you were doing at the very beginning. Oh well.

One cause of this is the HP limitation. You will get a bigger HP increase per-level when you level up the first 20-30-40 levels, up to a certain point - the amount depends on the character class and, more importantly, on your constitution score. Since you can only increase your ability scores via certain potions and books you find in the dungeon, you will inevitably end up with a crippled HP pool. Now, it's not THAT big of a deal, in fact, you can make up for it with a good character build. Which takes me to the second cause - the guild/race system.

Hoo-boy. Okay, so you pick one guild at the very start - but you can actually join more than one. The amount of guilds you can join is only limited by your race, natural ability scores and alignment - in fact, if you want your character to actually be good, you need to be in several guilds (with some exceptions, Villains and Ninjas for example make for decent solo guild characters, more on that later).

The reason for that is simple survivability. A good example of this is starting off with a caster character. Who doesn't like to blast away nasty monsters with fireballs and thunderbolts. Might seem like a good idea, right? Hell yeah, let's throw some spells in this bitch. Wrong. Dead wrong. In this game, if your character doesn't know how to fight with weapons, he or she is completely fucked. Combat magic only takes you so far - between mana not naturally regenerating, even the weakest spells being prohibitively expensive to cast at the beginning (and later on as you have to cast stronger spells to keep up with the stronger monsters deeper in the dungeon), having to memorize which monsters are resistant and immune to which effects and how will your specific spell damage fare off against their HP, playing a caster without any fighting ability in this game is simply impossible in the long run.

In short, versatility is the name of the game. You don't want a caster that doesn't know how to fight, but you also don't want a fighter that doesn't know any spells. Magic is still crucial, even if useful purely on a situational basis. And you probably want to throw some thieving ability into the mix as well. Starting out, you don't know any of that - a good strategy is making a simple fighter, say, a giant warrior, to scrounge the first few levels of the dungeon for loot to pass on to any actual characters that you want to make.

One other thing that makes most first characters complete garbage are the experience penalties. Different races come with different experience penalty rates, same as guilds, which, in certain race/guild combos can yield a character that requires an absolutely insane amount of experience to level up. You gain your Attack and Defence scores (how likely your character is to hit a monster and avoid a hit from a monster respectively, also increased by bonuses bestowed from equipped items and ability scores) from your leading guild (the guild in which your character has the most levels), but the more levels the character has in its leading guild, the bigger the penalties are for levelling up in the other guilds its in.. which is further increased by the inherent racial experience gain penalty. So while you level, say, your warrior class your villain class penalty can easily run into hundreds of thousands or even millions of experience points required just to gain one single level. And yes, that is a lot.

Might seem like it's easier to just go with a solo guild character. However, you need the class abilities. Fighter-type guilds give you increased ability to do critical hits (absolutely crucial in the deepest reaches of the dungeon) and attack multiple times in a single round. Magic-type guilds give you not only combat spells but also spells which ease movement throughout the dungeon, allow you to resist certain damage types (very important), heal themselves and other party members, and even dominate and use monsters as companions which aid you in combat. Thieving-type guilds make it less likely monsters will steal your shit (yes, some monsters can pilfer your gold or even your items), perform backstab attacks (not as good as critical hits, but still, bonus damage is bonus damage) and give you the ability to identify and disarm traps on treasure chests. Some guilds, like barbarians, ninjas or villains, combine multiple ability types to make for more versatile characters but that comes at the expense of increased experience penalties (villains in particular are ill-advised to be in more guilds than one) and the jack-of-all-trades master of none effect.

So all that to say, making an actual playable character requires knowledge and prior game experience. You need to know which races combo with which guilds well, and which guilds combo with each other well.

Next point, already touched on that - experience. This game is the very definition of a grindfest. This is the motherlode of every man that likes to fap to the idea of working at a sweatshop. This game makes any MMO you can think of seem like a walk in the faggot park, people just sucking dicks and having a good time. In fact just thinking about people whining about grinding in MMO games makes me laugh, after partaking in the excruciating yet strangely satisfying process that is gaining experience points in Demise. If you think you know what grinding is, you know fuck all until you play this game. Theoretically, you can go up to level 999 in every guild your character is in - practically, good fucking luck getting there, since reaching around level 400 takes years (yes, years) of playing. On character builds easy on penalties, that is. And you actually need to be around that level to comfortably defeat every monster in the game (well, in the expansions, at least). Oh yeah.

Speaking of monsters. Well, mobs. Enemies. The Ones That Have The Cool Shit You Want And Make You Stronger When You Kill Them. The pieces of shit in this game do not take any god-damn fucking prisoners. They are finely tuned instruments of destruction, hell-bent on turning your precious character into a jumbled mass of twitching bloody meat. You'll get punched, slashed, crushed, stabbed, burned, frozen, electrocuted, dissolved, drained, paralysed, poisoned, diseased, scared to death, turned into stone, exploded, drowned, decapitated. You will die of old age (yes, your character can die of old age in this game) and have your soul sucked out through your nose. You will die. You will die a lot. Your items will get stolen and destroyed. Your ability scores will get drained. Your HP pool will get permanently reduced. You will be left with no mana, with barely any HP, with no idea where you are and no means to get back into town alive, praying to whatever god you believe in that the next room you go into will finally deliver you from this madness. You will get absolutely fucked. And that's just the beginning.

So yes, this game is frustrating. There's a ton of bugs (most of which are apparently getting fixed in Ascension). The interface is terrible. The mechanics are confusing, esoteric and counter-intuitive. Graphics are ugly. The learning curve so steep you could drop a deuce from it on the moon. But it's still a gaming experience which, for whatever reason, I treasure enough to keep coming back to, for more than a decade, at least several hours per week.

10/10

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PS. I omitted some stuff which actually makes the game easier. You can play with a party of up to four characters, for example. But that's for pussies. Also, levelling several characters concurrently in this game is just... painful. You only get experience if you actually deal damage to a monster, so only one or two characters end up gaining any significant experience from fights. Also, there are companions (actual game monsters which were either bought in town, joined the character willingly due to his/her high charisma score, obtained from completing bounties or were dominated with spells), which any character can have four of at a time, and there are some that make it considerably easier to play. But again, proud warriors rely on no-one but themselves... let alone a puddle of purple slime or a stinky cave bear.

Fuck bears.

One sentence review: Labyrinth of Zangetsu doesn’t set out to revolutionize the dungeon crawler but does provide a solid classic experience.


Exploring the map. Doesn’t this look like a beautiful world worth saving?

Like most dungeon crawlers, Labyrinth of Zangetsu has a story, but you’d be forgiven if you can’t remember what it is while playing. A plague called “The Ink of Ruin” is turning people into madmen or demons. With the land overrun, Ido stands as the last holdout and calls for warriors, mages, and priests – and perhaps even more unscrupulous types - to fight back against the plague. But all of this is just a setup for classic Wizardry-style dungeon crawling.
The first thing you’ll notice is the hand-drawn artwork. You won’t find anime here, by design. The stark black-and-white style brings the ink theme to the forefront. The character portrait style fits in nicely (apart from several anime-style DLC portraits) with the overall look and feel, but the number of different portraits is too limited.

There are two difficulty levels: normal, where your team transports back to Ido on a party wipe, and hardcore, where the fallen team’s corpses remain on the tile where they died until you bring a new party around to pick up them and their equipment. Considering that resurrection costs five hundred times the character level (and double that upon failing!), hardcore does provide a challenge. The real difficulty, of course, rests in how you build your party and how much you stock up on supplies.

Character creation
Creating a new conscript is straightforward: Choose a race, roll for bonus points, and select a class. There are six races to choose from when creating a character and their strengths and weaknesses align with what you would expect. Humans are decent all-arounders with average stats apart from higher charisma. Dwarves are physically strong and make for good fighters and clerics. Elves have high intelligence, making them excellent wizards and sages.

Three non-standard races are also available. Cavegrams are creatures who live underground and have extraordinary luck – an apparent reference to hobbits or gnomes (they are called hobbits in Japanese text). Their high dexterity makes them great for starting as thieves. Nekomata are catlike people well-suited for samurai. Finally, Half-Oni have the highest physical attributes of any race, making them excellent front-line fighters of any kind. They also receive a small bonus to regeneration each round, but the limit on maximum attributes means they cannot become Sages.

Likewise, there are nine classes to choose from, and each has minimum stat requirements to join. The base classes are Warrior, Cleric, Wizard, and Thief. Monk and Samurai are advanced classes: with enough bonus points, characters can qualify for either of those classes even at creation. Finally, Paladin, Ninja, and Sage are the special classes. You’ll need to advance your characters a bit before they have the required stats for those.


Character screen – look at what 22 bonus points can get you: Class change to Paladin at level 6!

Alignment
Character alignment is one place where Labyrinth of Zangetsu does try something new. Upon character creation, after choosing a race you choose an alignment for the character as well. Unlike most games in the genre, parties can contain a mix of good, neutral, and evil characters. Healing effects work more strongly on good parties, while evil parties receive a bonus to damage – and a chance that resurrection will not work. Mixing character alignments cancels out these bonuses.

Classes can be of any alignment as well – even paladins or assassins – but some class abilities are restricted by alignment. Your evil-aligned paladin won’t be able to use holy attacks against enemies, after all. The developer has hinted that he may add additional abilities for these “off brand” aligned classes in a future update or DLC (more on that below).

Leveling
As a “classic” dungeon crawler each character will increase hit points and gain (or lose) a few attribute points when leveling up. Every few levels each class receives a special ability as well. Some of these special abilities have alignment or minimum stat requirements. Each class has a maximum of 20 levels with the exception of Sage which has 30.

Provided your character has the minimum stats required, you can change classes at any time. The first time you change into a new class, the character will reset to 1 in the new class and lose two to three points in each stat. Moving back into a previous class also costs one or two points, so think carefully about what you want the character to focus on.

Exploring and Fighting
When your party leaves Ido, you can travel to any dungeon that’s been opened up to you. Dungeons are all standard square grids with enemies to fight, traps to avoid, secrets to discover, and NPCs to talk with. There are no wandering random encounters. Certain squares are covered in a smoky ink containing a random group of enemies to fight. These encounters have a chance to be avoided if your team sneaks through them, though, and they reset each time you leave the map. You may occasionally run into “neutral” enemies as well and actions can move your character alignments toward good or evil.


A typical battle screen. Get used to hitting that “repeat” button.

The grid is auto mapped, and while you technically aren’t shown which direction your party is facing unless you cast Orientation, a single move in any direction makes it obvious where your party is moving. Darkness effects also prevent the auto map from appearing.

The battles themselves are nothing new: Each fight is round based, and you can set each of your characters to attack, defend, use magic, use a skill, or flee. Some enemy attacks will “corrupt” your character, reducing their maximum hit points until you can return to town and cleanse them in the temple.
After each fight a locked and possibly trapped chest will appear which your group can attempt to unlock, disarm, or bash open. And you’ll be opening a lot of chests since the market in Ido has only the most basic of supplies to offer.

Negatives
At launch the game had a bug with not auto-saving for some non-English versions, especially severe since there is no manual saving. The easiest way to avoid this bug is to use the English version of the game, but a patch is being released to fix it.

Like many JRPG dungeon crawlers, the UI is console focused, most clearly seen in the default controls. Thankfully, all inputs can be remapped. The inventory screen also suffers because of this.

Each character has indicators for whether you have a weapon or armor that can be equipped in equipment slots. It is supposed to tell you whether the available equipment is better than what is currently being used. Unfortunately, the indicator wasn’t especially useful as it didn’t distinguish whether another character already had that item equipped. It also doesn’t take into account any special effects the item might have.

Auto mapping is controversial. My preferred method is that used by the Bard's Tale Trilogy remasters, where the auto map can be toggled on and off, and more map features appear depending on spells cast. This game needed a boost in this area.

A bestiary of enemies encountered would have been nice. A bestiary that progressively gives you more information about enemies as you defeat more of them would have been nicer. The unusual enemy types made it difficult to know whether a spell or attack was especially effective or ineffective against them.


The first map. Sorry if spoiling this ruins the game for you. Who knows, maybe I left a secret for you to find.

Dev secrets
For now, information like class guides is extremely limited. In fact, the only known game guide is on a single Japanese language site – but thanks to a little known program called Internet Explorer and Bing Translate, all of the site’s secrets were mine! The developer has been active on Steam providing more detailed information about the game and his plans for the game’s future. That includes a DLC with an additional dungeon and tweaks to the current balance.

He has also provided insights into the game’s development: he felt that many players are turned off by the “complexity” and anime style of many modern dungeon crawlers, so he wanted to bring create a game with a straightforward gameplay. Also, the game contains several homages to D&D, including d20 attack rolls (all of this is behind-the-scenes).

In addition, there are many puns and wordplays in the original Japanese games that were not carried over into the English version. For instance, the game’s name for Dwarves is “Daruma,” which are a type of Buddhist monk that are often depicted in a dwarf-like appearance in good luck charms.

Conclusion
Labyrinth of Zangetsu is tailor-made for those looking for a classic dungeon-crawl experience with some modern elements. If you’ve played most games in this genre, you may feel that this doesn’t bring enough that’s new to be worthwhile. Completion times can range between 20 – 40 hours, depending on how much time you spend maximizing characters. There’s not much replay value unless you want to try out different classes.

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I know most users here like Thief, and those that don't should be cast out as the intellectual lepers that they are.

Sadly, not many developers particularly care to make games like Thief, and playing fan missions can only take you so far. Not to disparage the very talented Thief community, but a change in locale is very welcome.

GENERAL PREMISE

It's been a year since Sporey left the Blackburn Gang to make her fortune as a freelance thief. But when her former fence and mentor tracks her down, Sporey is forced back into servitude to settle an old debt. A temporary setback, she thinks. But these days, honour among thieves is wearing thin. Which of her old comrades can Sporey trust?

Filcher is Thief-lite - and by that I mean the developer clearly set out to make a game that tries to emulate the original as much as possible, but either due to inexperience, lack of time or resources was not able to fully realize such a vision.

By this I mean that the game lacks some mechanics present in Thief 1 and 2. Chief among them are mantling, varied objectives depending on difficulty, water arrows (or equivalent), rope arrows (or equivalent), pre-mission purchase screen, leaning against doors to hear better, and voice acting - to name the most notable ones. In practice, this means that the levels do not have the degree of verticality you would see in a Thief level, and that most lights cannot be put out unless you find a switch to turn them off. Levels will also not have the funny guard banter you would expect in a Thief game.

Not to say that Filcher is a bad game. It's very good in fact, just that it should be approached with the understanding that it was made entirely by a single person with access to limited resources.

NARRATIVE

The story is nothing special. Functional is the best way I'd describe it. Besides a few in-mission twists all the other story beats were fairly predictable, and the narrative played out as you'd expect it. That being said, if the player is willing to dig deeper in the penultimate mission it does cast a different light on some of the characters and their motivations.

The Paynesque comicbook cutscenes are a good example of the game's striking art direction and bring the characters to life.






The readables in the missions were always fun to discover and peruse, and combined with the environmental storytelling they help to make each locale feel more like a real place.

THE CAMPAIGN

What the game offers is a 9-mission campaign with varying objectives - from robbing the apartment of a rich couple, to a daring heist of a treasure vault inside a jewelry store, culminating with a raid on the city's police station and infiltrating the mansion of your former gang. No mission is the same, each one offering a unique challenge.

As an example, the first mission will require you to move across a room cross with laser tripwires, that you have hopefully sabotaged beforehand. The floor is marble, with a few carpets strewn about, and a guard is patrolling down the hall.


The room in question, from the game's store page

The mission where you are robbing the jewely store will require you tp deactivate and navigate past the security system - of which the most challenging part is going to be the shutoff switch for the vault camera - that gives you a scant 90 second to reach the vault door. This requires the player to have a very good grasp of the movement mechanics and map layout, especially if aiming for the "ghost" ranking. There's a degree of skill (or luck) to this sequence, as not only do you now need get to the vault door within the time limit, but also do so without being detected by the patrolling guards.

The vault door

A subsequent mission features a lighthouse that is constantly illuminating the restaurant you are infiltrating, requiring you to keep track of it lest your shadowy cover evaporates at the most inopportune moment (a mechanic very similar to the one found in Gloomwood).


Your main antagonist for the mission

ART DIRECTION

The most striking feature of Filcher is the art direction, and you will either love it or hate it. I previously described it as Dark Deco. If you have ever watched Batman: The Animated Series, you will instantly recognize it as a direct inspiration. While the graphics are very rudimentary, and all NPCs are 2D sprites, I found the game pleasing on the eyes since it emulates the look of the cartoon so well.

Example of inspiration from B:TAS


...and a screenshot from the game with a similar composition from the game's itch.io page

SOUND DESIGN
Another area where Filcher truly shines is the sound design. All sounds in the game have that clear, crisp feel of Thief 1 and 2, allowing you to tell just how far away a guard is from sound alone, what surface you are walking on from the sound of your footsteps, the alertness of the guards based on their grunts etc.

The music, on the other hand, is very understated, mostly used to build tension or set the mood, and never getting in the way of the gameplay itself.

ENEMIES

Standard guard
These will be your primary antagonists in most missions and come in a few variants (guard, cop, mobster). They communicate their alertness via silly grunts and are not terribly bright, but will investigate noises, alarms and if they see you while out of shadows or with your flashlight out (though only if you are shining it when they are looking directly at you, you can keep it aimed at the back of their heads and they will not notice it). Sometimes they will be equipped with flashlights, making them all the more dangerous.

Enemy guard with flashlight

They are all armed with guns and, unlike Thief, there are very few ways for you to fight back. The blackjack is much less effective if they are alerted to your presence, the dart gun takes time to knock them out and the flashbang gives you only a temporary reprieve, while their hitscan bullets pack a punch.

Dogs
Despite what you might assume, dogs are no better at detecting you in the dark, nor smelling you. The biggest challenge is that you can't knock them out with your blackjack, and that they are usually accompanied by a patrolling guard, so even using a dart gun to knock them out is a risky proposition.

Guards with helmets
The rarest and most challenging enemy of the game. No different from the standard guards, but the helmet makes them impervious to your blackjack, leaving only the dart gun as a way to take them out.

EQUIPMENT

Blackjack - works pretty much exactly as it does in Thief games - if you sneak up to an oblivious enemy and hit them on the head, they will be knocked out for the duration of the mission, unless an ally finds them and wakes them up.

Sleep-dart gun - your only ranged weapon in the game, but unlike in most other stealth games, hitting an enemy with the dart will not immediately put them to sleep, but will instead make them alert and aggressive, trying to find you and also alerting every other enemy they encounter on the way. It's usually very difficult to stay undetected when using this weapon: the ammunition is very limited, you need to arc the shots to hit enemies even at moderate distances, and headshots do not lead to an instant knockout. There are very few instances where you will wish to make use of this weapon, and will altogether avoid using it if you're going for the higher scores.

Lockpicks - work nearly identically as they do in Thief, but without the need to switch to a different lockpick. Much like in that game, the challenge and tension comes from the fact that picking a lock takes time, which you may not have.

Flashlight - fairly obvious tool, helps see in the dark, but will also make it easier for enemies to detect you.

Flashbangs - if you are using these, then you have already fucked up and will probably need to restart the mission. Their only real use-case is to blind the enemies for a few seconds so you can either hide (optimal approach) or shoot them with the dart gun (not a good idea).

Noisemaking windup toys - again, a fairly obvious piece of equipment that can be thrown to distract and draw enemies away from an area. Has far more uses than many of other items in your arsenal.

Clump of moss - works exactly as in Thief, creating a clump of moss on the ground you can run on silently, though limited to how far you can throw it, unlike the moss arrows.

DRAWBACKS

In terms of negatives, the biggest stumbling block for many people is going to be the fact that there are no in-mission saves. This can be frustrating in certain missions, especially if you are trying to earn the "ghost" rank, but since the levels are much smaller than those in Thief and can be finished in around 15 minutes or less, it doesn't lead to too much time being wasted. You are expected to go through the missions multiple times to find out all the secrets and the most optimal routes to complete your objectives. I can understand why people criticize the lack of saving, or even in-mission checkpoints. Later levels can be brutal, with a single mistake requiring a restart. That being said, there's nothing quite as heart-pounding as sneaking past a bunch of guards in a crammed security room to reach a switch and unlock a door to progress further.

There's also some additional quirks to the game. While the sliding mechanic is a good way to quickly navigate the environment, especially where you need to duck into cover quickly, tying it to the crouch command can lead to unfortunate accidents like sliding off ledges to your death or into guards, thus alerting them. Another puzzling quirk is that the doors close automatically after some time, which can be mildly irritating as you are forced to open and close them multiple times while waiting for a guard to pass.

All lights in the game are electrical, and while you can turn off many of them, many more are permanently on without any switch to shut them off, despite there logically needing to be one. I understand that this was done for game-balancing purposes, but I feel it could have been handled more elegantly and would have helped alleviate some of the more frustrating parts of the game.

The lack of mantling is also a puzzling design choice, since there are a few instances where having the ability to jump over low walls or fences to more easily sneak past enemies would have been a welcome option.

CONCLUSION

It took me about 14 hours to 100% the game, including finding all the secrets and ghosting all the missions, which for the asking price - either full or discount - was money well spent.

if you're on the lookout for more Thief, this is as good as it's going to get outside of fan missions.

PROS:
- gameplay that clearly tries to be as close to Thief 1 and 2 as possible and largely manages to do so
- varied missions, each with their own set of challenges and quirks
- unique art direction
- slide mechanic is a welcome addition, though no substitute for mantling

NEUTRAL:
- the protagonist is no Garrett and the writing is functional, if not particularly engaging
- enemies and certain objects are 2D sprites
- most of the equipment at your disposal is not very useful

CONS:
- lack of in-mission saving will be off-putting to many
- doors automatically closing after a certain time can be irritating
- sliding move can lead to unfortunate accidents on occasion
- guards mostly communicate in grunts, which sometimes makes it challenging to tell in what state they are in
- guards being sprites can make it hard to gauge what direction they are looking in
- lack of mechanics that were present in Thief 1 and 2 limits player options