Buy Chronicles of a Dark Lord: Episode 1 Tides of Fate Complete

I am only 6 hours in, but definitely worth the 5 bucks I paid for it if not more. Not too far in but there are a few things that jumped out at me right away:

1. It's very much like Dragon Warrior 4, and it borrows concepts from Final Fantasy. They don't try to reinvent the wheel, which is a good thing, eg the thing that revives a dead ally is called a "phoenix feather," that which cures poison is an antidote. Simple and good.

2. tl;dr - You can avoid battles when you want to /tl;dr. The battle system is turned based, and each character's time bar fills up at a rate based on the character's agility. Time stops when a bar is full. Encounters are not random on the world map or in encounter zones. Instead, a "battle bar" fills up with each step you take. When the bar is full, there's a battle. If you stand still for a second or two, the bar will begin to empty until it is.

3. The characters and their abilities are good and balanced, and they don't contain fluff or spam.

4. They did a good job of taking the elements of classic rpgs that drive you nuts / are overdone / are unrealistic out, and instead put in refreshing updates to an older genre. I don't want to give out spoilers but the protagonist is a bad ♥♥♥, not some wet behind the ears kid who just had his mind blown learning that he's the savior of the world or some whiney teenager with "teen angst." Npcs for the most part don't have duplicate dialog, meaning every npc you talk to has something different to say. They've completely removed unnecessary hyper-morality that is common in old school rpgs. The story and dialogue are interesting but not overbearing. There are many, many more examples of times you will find yourself smiling just because they did something better than it's been done in the past.

5. Lesbians


I have only a few criticisms of the game at this point, and none of them are "bad."

1. Character sprites in battle are the same as they are on the map, while enemies' sprites in battle are elaborate. I would have made artfully elaborate battle sprites for each of the characters to give them more depth, personality, and make them more likeable over all.

2. There are two areas in the game so far where it seemed to be "laggy," which doesn't make sense because it's basically a super nintendo game. One area had "fog" which seems like it could almost make sense, but the other was in a castle i beleive.

3. If you turn off all three sound options (listening to music, at work, etc), there are two sounds during battle that are still heard. Issuing battle commands and critical strikes.



As you can tell from these "criticisms," there's nothing not to like about this game. Buy it.

I don't often write reviews, but this game only had two at the time of this writing, so i wanted to endorse a good game. I will update this review once I have more time in.

I like the idea of playing as the bad guy. About two hours in so far and I like the story and the characters. Battle plays smoothly and is a simple turn based system. Looking forward to playing more of this and seeing new releases from these guys in the future.

This is an RPG that can VERY easily contend with Final Fantasy. With its dark storyline, revamped battle system, and badass music, this is one RPG that you'll spend your whole weekend binge-playing.

Overall, this game is decent. It's a typical "bad guy wants world domination" thing, and there aren't any big plot twists or surprises in the bland story. The characters are very different than what you'll find in a typical jrpg, but they lack any real depth. Your party members are all important people, monarchs, badasses, with you the greatest of them all, but you're never given any serious backstory on any of them, and the game only takes a shallow dive into their personalities. The game also seems to favor women a lot, with plenty of lesbians and only one male in your party, but that's fine.

So what makes the game worth playing? Well, the combat is solid. Characters' abilities are all useful, items are often essential, boss fights are common and tough, and occassional grinding is a must. If the dev could take this battle system and expand on the story and characters to lend more meaning and emotion to the fights, this game would be fantastic. Hopefully the sequels improve that way.

tl;dr: Usual story, different but shallow character types, solid combat. It stays entertaining enough to play to the end.