Svarog's Dream Reviews

insane

An absolute gem (even with a bit of jank). Honestly, kind of unexpected...

This game is very interesting. I think that this is a very polished and calculated experience. The developers obviously had limited means, but they extracted everything they could out of it. It feels like they had a very specific vision and realised it in full. The gameplay is well fleshed-out, the lore is engaging and mysterious, and you get all the Nietzsche quotes to make you feel smart. My favourite thing about it is the event system, which is really quite an innovative idea and should be replicated in all open-world type games. The world changes states not only proportionally to player action, but also time. It feels very dynamic because of it, compared to the usual static model of a world that waits eternally on the player. In some sense the game reminds me of Kenshi, not so much because of gameplay, but because of that dynamic aspect of the world which makes the player feel like they are not the only moving part. It does look a lot like Kenshi on a visual level, to be fair. I think it looks great myself, especially the particle effects. Sounds great too. The only two things I would have liked to see worked on are, one, some of the player models, and a bit of the dialog. The dialog is fine, it practices concision (some writers really could learn this), but it has these weird typos sometimes, perhaps due to language barrier. It's lacking some connectors and such, no big deal, but it could have used an editor.

This game's design makes it possible to lose ALL of your gear and money (which just happened to me) - and I am not talking about specific scripted quests. High level character and everything is gone. Just - wow. Edit: The devs were able to return my items and currency. I appreciate the devs responsiveness though I am still unhappy that this game allows for such a loss in the first place.

So, initially, I was going to give this game a thumbs up. I was going to simply criticise the horrible writing and terrible narrative, while praising the gameplay elements which make for an otherwise fun and engaging experience. But the preachy, self-help hippy claptrap along with the abuse of various bits of Mozart's Requiem repeated ad nauseam (one of the worst loops I've ever heard in a game) wore me through to the bone. So, instead, I shall have a nice solid groan about the fact that this could otherwise have been a splendid indie game, but for the above-mentioned groan-inducing elements. Initially, it seems that the narrative might become interesting, but it doesn't. You think there might be some profound revelation ahead--a spiffing twist, perhaps--but no. The game tries to take itself seriously, while consistently refusing to take itself seriously. The 'Old Gods' vs 'the One God' is just a touch too on the Judeo-Christian nose for me and far too analogous. It's almost akin to being leafleted in the street, except, you know, you're paying for this. The English is often *bad*. You can tell whover wrote this or did the translation is not a native English speaker. Paraphrased recent example: "What do we have here? Just a trash!" A... trash? I've spoken to rando non-English folk in MMOs over the years who butcher the language but have a better grasp of it than some of the lines in this game suggest. There's evidently a fair bit of heart in this game, and a few 'fun' things to uncover, but without a meaningful narrative, or a compelling quest structure, it's not only objectively pointless, but also subjectively so. Suffice it to say: Do I recommend this? Nope. Great gameplay; utterly atrocious narrative.

diablo mechanics/combat if diablo were open world and more fun. i like

Look, the action adventure mechanics are decent, not great, but decent. This game is worth playing because of how your choices can matter and effect the world around you. The most basic iteration of that is your character, the meat-suite that the spirit-you is controlling. If you die, that body stays dead, and you go get a new one. Mechanically, this offers a free skill-reset with minimal downsides. Except for the body, who is now dead. Great concept, well executed.

As a fan of necromancer classes, it's pretty amazing to find a game that lets you raise a large army of skeles to defeat your enemies. Only catch being when you have 20+ it can get a bit difficult to interact with NPCs and traders as they like to get in the way :D Also gotta love how big the hunting dogs can get... at about 500 they're the size of bears lol. Overall, the theme of old vs new gods and various factions vying for power, with the freedom to choose whom to support and the interesting death mechanics make it more than worth the price. Personally, I hope there will be some more expansions to new lands, stories and quests.

It's a great game with fantastic world building. The main topics are religion and philosophy, and you can tell that the devs are really passionate about their game.

First of all: English is not my native language. And: I don't want to talk about mechanics (mediocre), audio (very good), graphics (mediocre), skill trees (good) or performance (good). Nor about the game's unique mechanic of resurrecting the player in a different character after a permadeath, who can pick up the loot of the old one (brilliant). Now I come to the point: After more than 30 years of gaming, I would like to record something that only happens to me maybe once every 10 years, if at all: This game has touched me to the depths of my soul. Why is that? Immersion is the most important thing for me, and I'll always put away the polished AAA games for that. The games in which no true story is told, but whose sole purpose is to encourage microtransactions. Zeitgeisty poor pieces of workmanship in which the reality that there is good and bad must be denied in favour of wokeness and DEI fantasies to satisfy the organisations that represent the company's major shareholders. In Svarog's Dream, decisions don't just result in marginal changes of direction, no, they fundamentally change the narrative. And I don't want this world to change in a direction I don't want it to, so all my actions are meaningful and important. You can't give an RPG a better compliment IMHO. I would like to use this review to thank the developers for creating this gem and can only warmly recommend it to all other gamers who are looking for a deep gaming experience and have never had the opportunity to talk to God (or Diogenes :-)) in their real life.