Prodigal Reviews

A fun homage to the Oracles games.

Link's Awakening fans, rejoice! This game rocks.

Excellent little zeldalike game. Not too expensive for what you're getting!

Bought this originally as both a study material for my own project, and as a lover for 2D Zelda titles... This game has helped in at least study material, if only in showing me what to avoid. The gameplay is droll, monotonous, and repetitive. I found myself actively zoning out while playing through parts of it. Additionally, as a very obvious Nostalgia hook it draws from older games... But doesn't refine the aspects of those games to stand up the test of time. Annoying pits that kill you and are overly sensitive to fall into, boring combat where you run away only to run back and attack (with your weapon that hits one space directly in front of you), fetch quests galore, and an overly unhelpful system for actually progressing the game (other reviews have gone into this better than I can, but the fact that optional NPCs are the only way to progress AND the games built-in "Hint System" doesn't tell you about that? Frustrating.) Overall really wanted to like this, especially with the amazing trailer they have posted on the page. But I just didn't. Not the worst however, and if you really like the old-school style, don't mind the obfuscation, and are fine with repetitive gameplay you might enjoy this. Just not my cup of tea.

Great action-adventure in GameBoy style. Obviously inspired by Link's Awakening but it really goes way beyond that inspiration and does its own thing in so many ways that are very fun. I'd even argue this map is packed even tighter full of content than LA was thanks to all the content that got added over the years. Puzzles never feel too hard and frustrating, the fights are fun but be careful because there are no health drops in this, the writing is surprisingly indepth for both characters and the lore, visuals very pretty GBC tilesets sprites and the music has some real earworms I had stuck after playing.

Lovely game packed full of charm and content. I found myself dedicating a lot more time than I thought I was going to to this game and I think I will eventually come back to do the stuff I didn't get to. Highly recommend

A lengthy Zelda-like with an emphasis on block puzzles and Stardew Valley-esque romance options...except the women in this game throw themselves at you like doves against a double-pane glass window. The writer(s) clearly watched a bit of anime. I was put off by it initially - especially considering your Luke 15:11-24 prodigal background - but it dies down over time and mostly stops if you marry someone (there is a canon wife and she's heavily hinted at). There's also a ton of lore in the game if you're willing to spend time tracking and theorizing on it mostly by yourself. Parts were intriguing, and parts were rather overwhelming considering they're clearly provided for future games in the series. To address a few reviews I saw (which may have been from closer to release): there are no instant death pits and your weapon hits more than one tile in front of you. The endgame content becomes increasingly difficult, and there are unlockable challenge modes if you're willing to replay. [h1]The Good[/h1] +Spritework is very well done and emotive for the low res +Lots of little attention to detail in the sound and art +The unlockable title screen changes are a nice touch +Unique inspection text on most environmental objects +Can talk to NPC's more than once for additional dialog +NPC's move around and change dialog based upon time of day +Major NPC's are pretty well-developed, all things considered +Multiple NPC's give guidance if you get lost +Some humor +A few nice music tracks that go beyond chiptune +Manual with some helpful info on Steam's Library page +Save anywhere +Mostly open world +Good puzzles +Lots of unlockable challenge modes, each more difficult than last +Can continue playing after beating each Act to unlock more content +Estimating 7-40 hours of play, depending on completion and if guides used +Family-friendly. No swearing, blood, sex, etc. [h1]YMMV[/h1] ~This needs a EULA? ~Game is generally very easy, unless you go for hardcore completion ~A few plot twists can be seen a mile away ~Can cheese or skip a lot of puzzles with a few items ~Mouse doesn't disappear when over game window ~100% achievements will require multiple playthroughs, speedrunning, etc ~Romance options unfolding in Act 1 can be a bit overbearing ~Some events in Act 2 don't make a lot of sense ~No proper wiki to explain or recap the series lore ~The game sets itself up for a full sequel (not necessarily Veritas), meaning a lot of plot threads are left unresolved [h1]The Bad[/h1] -Map is only available for overworld and is near-useless -No health drops gets annoying in late game as difficulty ramps up -A few rooms where enemies hit you nearly as soon as you enter -A few enemies (mainly the fanged slime things) have weird hit/hurtboxes -You may not even notice that you have a spin attack -Refreshing the health buffs is a pain -Needs a journal to track all the mentioned countries, ethnicities, gods, etc Played on: Win11Pro, i7-14700K, RTX4060 Ti 8GB, 32GB DDR5-6000 @ 1920x1080 Using PowerA Enhanced Wired Controller for Xbox Series X|S

Pretty fun little Link's Awakening-like action adventure thing. Very charming sprite work and writing, dungeons were a little straightforward but had some good puzzles. Has a lot of post game stuff that I personally didn't dig into much because I started getting turned off by the game's one iffy design decision - dying in a dungeon warps you back to the town hub instead of the start of the dungeon, leading to a lot of tedious walking when you start getting into the trickier stuff. Not going to be a turn-off for everyone, and game's scratching a very specific itch that GameBoy kids don't get scratched enough!

+ pretty good dungeon design + interesting characters + excellent music + ton of post game content ( nearly 50% of the game is post game!) - when you die you are transported back to your house outside of the dungeon! makes dying really tedious - some quest are really unclear and you waste a lot of time looking to progress them. in general really solid zelda like with so much charm