Operencia: The Stolen Sun Reviews

Steam only gives the option of "yes or no", so when one has a game that can easily sway to both sides of the fence, I can't just pick a neutral option. But I will go "yes" here, an just say that it falls on the "better than average" side of the equation. What does that mean? When something is "above average", it could either be because it does everything slightly better than normal, or it does some things amazingly, and others... less so. This game is the latter. First off, this is a Blobber game. Unlike Grimrock et. al,, the battles take place not in-grid, but on a separate battle screen, so... Grimrock meets Etrian Oddessey. There's nothing wrong with that; but you do have to be a fan of these genres to enjoy this game. I was, so I got it. But preamble aside, how is it both good and... perhaps not, at once? [hr][/hr] [h2] Graphics [/h2] For starters, the graphics. The graphics are very nice; art is smooth, animations are mostly reactive and crisp, and it looks for all the world like it could be a triple-A title. And then... the cutscenes. the backgrounds are single, often still-image shots, and conversations are done via the "show the character portraits talking, and light up whichever is currently saying something" approach. Granted, this is the same thing that, say, Fire Emblem likes to do, and by itself isn't bad... but we aren't even talking, say, Ace Attorney here, where everyone has 6 images (neutral, happy, mad, dejected) that are used to express the situation. It's literally a single image that lights up occasionally. This is a STARK contrast to the rest of the game's (awesome!) graphics, to the point that, at least for me, I cannot look past it. I'm not saying it's not allowed, but... pretend you are playing a final fantasy game, with a typically bombastic boss music theme. Now imagine that theme playing as you rest for the night at an Inn. Even if the theme is amazing, that just isn't fitting with everything else, is it? Not everything has to be ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR at all times, but parts do have to fit together. At least with the Fire Emblem example, the art of the images matches the art of the rest of the game. Putting these still-frame different-artstyle single images on the screen as there is currently a fully-beautiful-boss-battle going on in the background is a major blow to the Suspension of Disbelief that a fictional visual-based medium needs. Ok, enough graphics-conversation nitpicking. what else? [hr][/hr] [h2] Story-to-Sound [/h2] How about the character audio vis-a-vis the storyline? This game is the utmost in "quaint fantasy". Kingdom under attack, only your hero can save it, find the magic sword, slay the dragon, and [spoiler] inherit the kingdom [/spoiler]. Stock, but serviceable, so long as it's done well. (as TvTropes says, "tropes aren't bad") The issue is that the writers seem to have decided that any form of originality is unnecessary. The game's twists are minimally surprising, and the very start of the game has two guys run into each other, and within 10 seconds of conversation, appear to be the best of longtime friends? Which is a shame, because, while the story is too bland to describe in a review with any justice, the voice actors they got for it are high-talent. One of the most effective ways I got through the visual-dichotomy of the conversations I whine about above, was to just turn my head, and listen to the conversations instead. It came across like hiring Hollywood talent to play in a highschool-written play. The same issue as the visuals; the game designers obviously COULD do better, but the quality of different parts of the same scene clash to unignorable degrees. Still reading? No? Fair enough. But if you are... how about the most important part of a game. The gameplay? [hr][/hr] [h2] Is the Gameplay right for you? [/h2] Grid based world movement, world-based fast travel to any save point, turn-based battles in the old Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest style, full restoration at any camp if you choose to use one of the game's limited "firewood" resources (for reference, I finished the game with 9 to spare. Enough to have a buffer, not enough to rest after every fight). And... This game uses the Might&Magic style of monsters: a finite number of spawns in the world. You will have a hard cap to the amount of experience you can earn, and therefore, the level you can achieve. The good news is, the game is lenient with gaining that exp. Someone not in your active party for the fight? They get it too. Someone dead before you win? They get credit. The only "loss" you can have to a character is if you fight a battle before they join (later) in the story, but they come with comparable levels anyway. AND, you can respec your characters outside of combat. All of them. Skills AND statistics. Any time, no cost. So if you want to try out a totally different combination of skills to overcome a challenge, then go for it. Just save before trying ;p. Long story short, it's nigh-impossible to screw up your characters; you can always just rebuild them. (I suppose you could try and break the game by selling and rebuying all of the game's limited gear until you ran out of money to pay the repurchase fees, but... don't do that ;p) For anyone who wants a challenge in the form of *fixed* variables, this is right up your alley. However, to anyone who prefers a "grind it out" style of gameplay, you can't. You get the achievement for "hitting the highest level" at 24 (apparently, in some versions, 25 is possible, but I didn't see it). I'm not making value judgements here. But if your desired way of handling a fight you *just barely* can't beat, is to go out and grind a couple more levels, you are going to be heavily turned off by this game. [hr][/hr] So, there ya have it. A game with a number of things that bring down the enjoyment; some things that I will personally call "flaws", and other things I will call "personal preferences that I may not share". But through it all, I'll still give the thumbs up. It does beat a number of other Blobbers out there.

This game... just sucks. Bought it on a recommendation from a video on YT because it looked interesting, sorely regret it. The combat isn't fun. The only way to significantly affect enemies is with skills that have both long cooldowns and high energy cost. Energy can only be regained by resting at specific points out of combat or by "defending" in combat, which means you spend most of your time in combat waiting for cooldowns and energy regen. The enemies are constantly CC'ing you, which just isn't fun. No way around the CCs either, unless you use aoe skills. There may be ways around this later in the game, I don't know, and frankly, at this point, I don't care to find out. Most of the time out of combat is spent backtracking to rest points after fights, because if you run into certain enemies with anything less than a fully healed party, you're screwed. The story is... bland at best.

Really wish there was neutral stance, it's neither bad or particularly good. At first I was enjoying the game, until I meet the "spawners". It's an enemy that spawns infinitely, more or less. There can be one left and the next time you get to play you're facing 6 or 7 of them. I my first play-through I fought a group of those for over 2 hours, I kept getting unlucky with the timing to kill them all at once. But that was just one of the annoyances. It nothing major and once I realise you can re-spec at will, you characters you can easily adjust you team to face any kind of treat. The fights are slow and heavy on animations, which was nice-ish at first but after a while you just want to finish the fights as fast as possible. Story was entertaining, puzzles in almost every map. The puzzles are usually very easy with clues that walk you to the answer. For some reason in one instance, when I played the mage, the clue got messed up, but it was ok the other time I played. I tried all 3 classes available for the main hero, the fighter was acceptable, the ranger was close to useless and the mage was a rock star. You get companions that have a profile close to the ranger and the fighter, but none that matches the mage. If you go all in on intel, it will often fall in battle at first. But if you can cast one spell you'll still do most of the damage in the fight in the vast majority of cases. And since intel gives you initiative you often act first. Also close the the end you'll get items that will greatly increase the mage survivability. It was an ok game, but I will not reminisce about it.

A great DRPG that is definitely a good entry point for people who are new to the genre. Voice acting, a decent enough story and good combat with no grinding as the amount of enemies in the world is limited with no random encounters. There are multiple difficulty adjusters from combat difficulty to auto mapping and more. Full play through is around 30ish hours as well which is pleasantly short compared to some others in the genre.