Renowned Explorers: International Society Reviews

5/10

Great game.

🎮 Gameplay 🔲 Excellent 🔲 Good ✅ Average 🔲 Poor 🔲 Staring at Walls is better 🌄 Graphics 🔲 Beautiful 🔲 Good ✅ Decent 🔲 Bad 🔲 Paint.exe 🎵 Audio 🔲 Eargasm 🔲 Amazing 🔲 Good ✅ Not too Bad 🔲 Bad 📖 Story 🔲 No story 🔲 Text or Audio Floating Around ✅ Average 🔲 Good 🔲 It will replace your life 🛡️ Difficulty 🔲 Just press "A" 🔲 Easy ✅ Average 🔲 Easy to Learn / Hard to Master 🔲 Difficult 🔁 Replay-ability 🔲 No replay value 🔲 Maybe Once ✅ A few times 🔲 Many Times 🔲 Infinitely replay-able ⏳ Length 🔲 Short (4 to 10hr) 🔲 Average (10 to 25hr) ✅ Long (25 to 50hr) 🔲 Very Long (50 to 150hr) 🔲 To infinity and beyond 🖥️ Hardware Requirement (1440p resolution / 75+ Frames per Second) ✅ Check if you can run paint 🔲 Potato (GTX 980 equivalent) 🔲 Decent (RTX 2080 equivalent) 🔲 Fast (RTX 4080 equivalent) 🔲 Ask NASA if they have a spare computer (GTX 5090?) 🪲 Bugs ✅ Never heard of 🔲 Minor bugs 🔲 Can get annoying 🔲 Game-breaking bugs 🔲 The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs 💸 Worth Buying 🔲 It’s free! ✅ Worth the price 🔲 Minor sale (<30%) 🔲 Major sale (>70%) 🔲 You could also just burn your money 📝 Rating 🔲 1 🔲 2 🔲 3 🔲 4 🔲 5 🔲 6 ✅ 7 🔲 8 🔲 9 🔲 10 [u]Description:[/u] Renowned Explorers: International Society is a whimsical, turn-based strategy adventure that blends globe-trotting exploration, team management, and tactical encounters with a charming sense of humor. It’s part roguelite, part tactical RPG, and all wrapped in a Saturday-morning-cartoon-meets-19th-century-expedition aesthetic. It’s clever, bright, and deeply replay-able which makes it perfect for players who love strategic depth without the grim tone. 👍 [u]What works:[/u] The game is bursting with personality: Tone and art style are delightful, from its colorful, cartoony visuals to its light-hearted, often hilarious writing. You’re not just raiding tombs or stealing artifacts rather you’re building fame, dealing with rival explorers, and choosing whether to charm, impress, or defeat locals. It plays like a cheerful parody of classic adventure tales, but with genuine affection. Tactical encounters offer unique depth: Combat isn’t just about brute force, and “Encounters” can be handled through violence, friendliness, or intimidation, each with its own abilities, counters, and consequences. A charming diplomat can be just as effective as a brawny fighter, creating diverse strategies and team builds. Emotions matter here: the “Attitude” system changes how enemies react depending on how you engage them. Team building is flexible and rewarding: You choose your expedition team from a roster of quirky, varied characters who come with unique traits, abilities, and synergy potential. Combinations lead to wildly different playstyles, encouraging experimentation and replay. One run might be a scholarly charm offensive, another a brute-force treasure hunt. Replay-ability is possible but finite: With randomized maps, procedural events, and branching choices, no two expeditions feel the same. The game encourages multiple playthroughs with new teams, new strategies, and new challenges, unlocking perks and traits over time. However, one can burn through the game after enough play-throughs since there is no "infinite" RNG element. Great for bite-sized or long sessions: Each expedition can be finished in under an hour, making it ideal for short bursts. But stringing together multiple runs to master routes, optimize builds, and chase high scores gives it plenty of long-term value. ⚠️ [u]What to know:[/u] Despite the Indiana Jones vibe, this isn’t an action game. It’s heavily menu- and stat-based. If you’re not into managing resources, reading events, or planning your every move several turns in advance, this might not be your speed. Success in events or encounters often depends on dice rolls and RNG, which can be frustrating if you're close to a perfect run. While good strategy helps mitigate randomness, it can still throw curveballs. There’s a lot to track from character moods, encounter types, resource types, renown gain, perks, campaign paths. The tutorial covers the basics, but some systems click only after a few runs. New players might need a bit of patience. 🎧 [u]Audio/Visuals:[/u] The game leans into a light, animated aesthetic that’s clean, colorful, and full of charm. Every character oozes personality, from design to animations. Maps are vivid and full of detail, with events illustrated like pages from an old explorer’s journal. The soundtrack is upbeat and fitting, think whimsical orchestral flourishes with a touch of pulp adventure. Sound design is subtle but adds to the cheerful, exploratory tone. 👎 [u]Weak Points:[/u] Some encounters can feel overly dependent on RNG. Difficulty curve ramps up quickly on higher levels. Lacks a strong overarching story or narrative payoff. Can feel repetitive after many runs without variety in your playstyle. [u]TL;DR: Renowned Explorers is a quirky, smart, and endlessly repayable strategy game with a ton of heart. Its mix of tactical encounters, charming world design, and deep team customization makes it a standout for fans of turn-based games and lighthearted adventures.[/u]

I love this game. Tons of unlockables without DLC barriers. DLC is entirely separate campaigns with completely different mechanics. It's a roguelike RPG where story elements are revealed through finishing exploration campaigns and reading newspaper excerpts, in campfire tales which are unlockable through playing the game with various character combinations which vastly increases replayability, and through interractions with boss level characters in each expedition. Between expeditions you spend resources equipping, doing click actions to acquire more resources to spend on skill trees, and hiring help to give you buffs for resource gathering. It is punishing. You will die a lot as the RNG/dice rolling elements give you great fortune, but the combat system is very unforgiving especially as you are forced to try different player combos to unlock more content. 10/10 tons of fun. Bought at full price because it scratched an itch and was one of the first games that was fully steam machine compatible with the steam controller. So it works on the deck, fine, obviously.