Though the Heavens Fall Reviews

Killed a dragon and learned about Christmas 10/10!

Mucho. That should mean a lot to you. Personally I don't know much about the story. I'm more of the type to kill things, not ask questions later, and worry moreso about leveling up to kill things more faster and then do it again to kill it more fasterer. Hopefully there is a hardcore version where you play as jesus that doesn't want to die, and if you die, then you get stuck behind the rock forever. However, only time will tell. +2

As a warning to those reading this, I am a friend of the developer. As such, it's impossible for me to be truly impartial, but I will do my best. The core game loop of "gather materials, craft items, fight monsters" is solid. You'll be spending most of your time eyeballs-deep in the crafting system, so the relatively simplistic gathering and fighting phases of the game are a nice breather. With that said, the combat is still fun. The synergy system makes you feel smart by allowing you to have one party member set up another to do big damage or something for free. It's easy to understand and takes a little bit of time to figure out the best strategies, and the bosses will test your skills. Of course, the real meat of this game is the crafting system. It took me a while to figure out how everything worked, but once I did, it was obvious there was a lot of depth and skill expression there. If you like min-maxing, there's a lot to do. I had a lot of fun trying to craft the best armor and consumables I could. I'd recommend focusing more on bombs and survivability, as the characters' basic attack damage is relatively much lower. You can have shops make duplicates of your best consumables, so all you need to do is craft it once. With that said, toward the latter half of the game, I got a lot of analysis paralysis trying to figure out what compounds to use and what traits I wanted on my items. The story and writing are... not my cup of tea, but there isn't a ton of it, and it doesn't get in your way. The music bops. The game is in early access, and as such, it does suffer from some quality of life issues, bugs, and lack of content. The game has two control schemes, but the default one (at time of writing), which is more RTS-like, is buggy and the character can get stuck in terrain. I'd highly recommend switching to the more traditional WASD + mouse control scheme from the menu. There is one type of regular enemy per area, though they exist primarily for you to collect spoils for crafting anyway. There are few visual effects in combat, which can make it feel a little stiff. Overall, I'd recommend giving the game a shot, especially if you're a fan of the Atelier series. There's a good amount of fun to be had, and there's plenty more content still to come.

Early access -- basic systems are there & working. You can see the Atelier influences in the gameplay loop & whimsical narrative. It's nice to see a little nuance in crafting systems. As expected for the genre, the player should to master the crafting system in order to equip their party, provide a stream of consumable items (potions + bombs), & earn money by taking on side-jobs / commissions. In the interest of disclosure, I've done playtesting for the developer. The game's come a long way & the dev loves these sort of crafting RPGs. If you do too, consider buying a copy early to grow indie game devs in this niche.

A charming crafting RPG with some good bones from which to build off of during its Early Access development. From the perspective of one who's not usually a partaker of this niche of the RPG genre, the depth of the crafting system felt a little daunting at first, but there was a lot of satisfaction to be had in planning out item itineraries like a series of small projects, and once I had a better grasp on my party's supplementary crafting abilities, and a good spread of those abilities to work with, trying to maximize an item's usefulness felt appropriately challenging and, when it succeeded, rewarding - especially with the Inheritance system allowing you to preserve a particularly good item for future crafting use. The combat was fairly standard and straightforward, but the ebb and flow of the color affinities and their effects on your party's skills did a solid job of keeping me on my toes. The characters, through both their visuals and dialog, have a nice mesh of personalities between them so far, with some varying avenues already in place determine what direction you want to grow your party in. Bear in mind, this is still an Early Access title, so all the caveats that come along with that are present here, but if this kind of game interests you, go ahead and keep an eye on its updates going forward, or even take it for a spin yourself.

Had this game on my wishlist for a while and was really excited when early access finally dropped! You can tell that the devs have put a lot of love into the game, the crafting specifically is exceptional and extremely deep. The promise of no DLC we're going to have to pay for is refreshing, and i am very much looking forward to the more content that is coming. It's nice to play a game where i can tell the devs are passionate about the content they are creating and the message being made, rather than some cash-grab with a bunch of expensive DLC's etc. As it is early access, i can wait to come back and review more as it comes out. i doubt i'll be disappointed.