Fated Era Reviews

still early in the game but I'm enjoying myself so far. reminds me a little of Shining Force and that era of strategy. Takes a minute to orient yourself but worth doing.

This is so enjoyable rpg strategy! There's ton of fun everywhere, from micromanaging units to battles.

I was seeking a Ogre Battle-like game. I found me one. And a GOOD one to say the least. I've only found 2 downsides to this game which are: Classes are generic af, their visuals, i mean. Not a problem per se, but it just looks weird. And the infinite enemy reinforcement system, which you can fine-tune a liiiiiitle bit in your game save's preferences. Overall I'm having so much fun remembering the good ol' OB64 times. Thank you for that nostalgia feeling, devs. :)

A decent Ogre Battle clone - which means, considering how few there are out there, it's among the best options around. The game uses a randomised procedurally generated world map, though there is a story that works as a basic framing device and a good and bad ending. Still, it means it is much simpler than OB, no monster recruiting or tricky secret Deneb character. Instead, every battle map has pretty much the same, usually 1 secret village, 1-2 items, and a procgen character to recruit. It's an indie effort through-and-through, which means it does have some rough areas, most notably menu/UI is a bit clunky sometimes (but its still smoother and easier to get into than an actual 1980s game.) The graphics and sound are another area that, judging by other comments, has put some people off - this is def. a gameplay over presentation experience. But the gameplay is mostly solid. You enter a map, and can direct your units in real-time, taking over...err "liberating" villages and clashing with enemies. Like Ogre Battle, the actual battles play out automatically, and you mainly optimise your squad layout, classes and gear. However there are some further customisation options which bring a bit of needed depth - characters, on leveling up, get to choose a series of perks, and in theory, you could mix and match multiple classes to get a custom set of perks, though it isn't really necessary. There is also quite a decent range of equipment to select from, this is one of my favourite parts of strategy/tactics RPGs and the game mostly delivers on this point - you have weapon, head, body, and two accessory slots, and new equipment (found on the map or in the shop which adds more after every battle) comes in slowly enough that every iteration feels like an upgrade. That said, it is still somewhat limited. The number of classes is relatively small, and there's no class progression or anything like that beyond the perks. There isn't any thing like an elemental weakness system, e.g. fire swords or armour that resists ice or anything like that. The biggest downside is the randomisation though - aside from the fact that it lacks an in-depth hand-crafted campaign, it also means which items are available in the shop is entirely random, meaning RNG can be lopsided. In my main playthrough, the shop rarely added any armour except for some magic-user clothes near the end which provided pitiful defence. Conversely, the enemies seem to gear up in a more even linear fashion. In the later maps, my best guys were dropping like flies in one hit and I had to grind a fair bit. It is nice that you can grind, repeating maps which nets you more cash and updates the shop each time. There appears to be some incentive not to grind too much, with new maps having terms like "Ambush!" or "Reinforcements" with a countdown, however it was never clear what exactly this meant, but I presume the maps basically get harder if you let these countdowns expire. One area of contention that I saw mentioned was the weird way you level up units. As units get stronger, the cost to deploy them ("supplies") increases, and maps will give you a fixed set of supplies to start with, netting more with each town captured or from picking up random drops which sometimes appear. This in itself sometimes feels limiting but isn't necessarily a problem, but it does means your units can quickly get too expensive, and the game offers an... interesting solution - you can "retrain" your guys to lower their level but increase their "potential." Units progress through ranks from things like "oafish" to "competent" to eventually "master." As potential increases, each level up then nets better stat gains. This means you need to find a balance of keeping levels low enough to enter the maps - but not too low that the units are too weak to overcome the enemy (especially in later maps). All the while regularly upgrading units' potential. It's a little bit odd and takes some getting used to. Some have commented that it feels like being punished for leveling up too much. Thankfully, there is little danger of hitting a dead end - aside from the retaining which lowers level and increases potential, you can at any time outside battles pay a small amount to force level up a unit, or manually level them down for free, or change their class. Its quite flexible, and this does at least stop it from potentially ruining your teams. In the worst case, you just repeat an earlier easier map, gather some cash, then adjust units levels as needed. The only other downside is that, being from a solo indie dev, the game is small. The dev has built a solid engine, and imagine if it had a story campaign with handcrafted levels and secrets and story options, perhaps with procgen side quest maps, as well as the current procgen mode being an alternative gameplay mode, more classes, monsters to recruit, maybe a bit more gear, etc, it could be epic. All-in-all, a quirky but solid indie gem worth spending some time with if you are a fan of classic Ogre Battle type games.

Fun game. Lots of options to customize your army. The game play is fairly simple and the AI is very predictable, but its still a good challenge. The supply mechanic is where the basic challenge comes in, because the AI doesn't need to worry about supplies (although they generate even faster if they get them. I struggled a bit with the supply limit until figured out how to Retrain and Vacation units. Retraining is make all your units godlike eventually, but is also reduces their level by 3. Once they are Experts you can no longer train, but you can still Vacation to drop their level. Keeping levels reasonably low is a good idea because supply cost is based on the highest level unit in a group. So by judiciously Retraining/Vacationing units that have gotten too high you can keep supply costs manageable while continuing to improve the units. Also, don't forget to figure out a good perk path (multi-classing) for each guy.

Ogre Battle(like) game that's decently well put together. UI and controls...are sticky and no mouse support is kind of a pain...however if you can handle the sticky controls and steep learning curve it's fun and a little outside of the box from most of whats out there today. Better then advanced wars or any of it's clones by a few miles. Solid Effort 7.1/10

I love Ogre Battle. I wanted to love this game and it has its moments. I like the item system and the perks for soldiers. However, the game requires you to have supplies to deploy units. Supplies which almost instantly become far lower than what one good unit takes to deploy. So you have to send out a weak unit and hope to capture enough to get a better unit out there. To be specific, YOU have supply limits. The enemy has infinite supplies and can deploy as many units as they have. You also can't just recruit new soldiers, they are few and far between which isn't as much of a problem when you can't even deploy the troops you do have. You can work with what you have to make a decent unit, but you won't be able to send them out. The only way to counter this is the intentionally weaken your own units, literally degrade their levels. Grinding levels is fine in a game, but making a player grind for levels, punish them for having stronger units and force them to then lower levels only to grind them again is insane. It kills all fun in the game. If it changes, like having an options setting that removes supplies from the game or seriously adjusting them, I would be inclined to recommend this game but as things are now, 4 maps in you hit a hard wall and the RNG of the maps themselves means enemies often have all the towns near them and 4+ units on the field while you have 1 half-strength unit who must both defend and attack in multiple directions. Grinding the same early maps 50 times to gain minor advantages, while knee-capping your own soldiers if they get barely too useful isn't fun. A couple of number changes could fix this and I hope they do because the core of the game is still identical to one of my all-time favorites.

Okay, so this one is a complete lift of Ogre Battle mechanics, except that there are no monsters and your army consists entirely of ... I'm not sure? Interchangeable bored teenagers? The sheer number of goggles indicates a steam punk setting, but the equipment they fight with ranges from medieval weaponry to random garbage, so maybe this is a drunk teenager army simulator? Is that a thing? Anyway, your scrubs fight some other scrubs that wear different colors. One of your scrubs comments on the futility of this, but the other talks him into continuing to beat on everyone else wearing different color shirts. Good. You capture some towns, which provides you with more supplies (drugs? snacks?) with which to bring out more units of scrubs and so forth. If the procedurally generated level gives you towns nearby, you probably win. If not, you might lose as the enemy scrubs can bring units out faster. Boo. Sometimes you have to find really finicky little hidden things that require your guys to land on just the right pixel. Sometimes you have to escort a bomb cart to a city. Sometimes you just murder a bunch of goth teenagers. Why? I'm not at all sure! In each stage, you can find one hidden town, one guy who will boost one stat for one of your scrubs, and one new scrub to recruit. You get some money with which to buy garbage to fight with. The ones that look like weapons help a lot. Sometimes your guys gain levels, which gives them some stats and a choice of two perks. They all have some potential meter, which maybe gives them better stats if it's higher, but everyone you have is just varying shades of low potential, as befitting a troop of homeless whino children. (Edit: Apparently you can trade in levels for extra potential? Make sure to hit every possible button on every screen as there aren't great prompts to do so.) Anyway, don't buy this if you don't understand what a game of drunk Ogre Battle would end up being, but if you do, it's worth the low price to mess around with. The class change and trait flexibility end up being a lot of fun once you figure out what the heck is going on.

Having played this developer's previous game, Mortal Manor, Fated Era follows the same trend in being not only an homage to the games to be before it, but a want to make a very solid core experience and improve on the original games and I think FE does that well. FE is a want to fill a void left by the Ogre Battle series and I think this game does a great job of taking that core gameplay, adding some good "quality of life" elements and lets you get right into it. Do you like spending time in menus organizing your troops, buying the right equipment, changing classes, re-training, shuffling guys around, individually selecting their skills and equipment around and positioning your characters on maps to bring together a perfect victory? This is your kind of game then. Preparation is key in these types of game and FE is no exception. If you have never played these types of games, there will a little bit of a steep learning curve. Unlike Mortal Manor though, this game has some nice quick and dirty tutorials to go over the mechanics. But the game does have some excellent "quality of life features" to really help make the learning experience easier and more fun. Allow me to explain: - During a map, you can, without penalty, just quit and go right back to the formation screen where you left off before entering the map to change preparation. You don't need to reset everything and re-load a save because you made a mistake in your preparation. It takes seconds to jump out, go back to the formation screen, make your adjustment and start the map again. - There's a "hot and cold" indicator for hidden items. Villages/towns will tell you the rough coordinates of where an item or village is and an exclamation mark that turns larger and redder will appear as you get close so you aren't just wandering around for hours trying to find the one tiny area where something is like in the Ogre Battle games - Every map seems to have at least one place to resurrect fallen troops so that you can revive them on the same map and avoid the 20% stats penalty if you end the map with them dead - The fast cursor and movement adjustments can be done instantly. In fact, the entire interface for the game is incredibly snappy and feels exactly like you'd expect it to which is excellent. The visual language is great because it's very easy to tell where your units are going, and undoing and resetting their path is effortless. The games pace manages to feel way faster than any of the Ogre Battle games which is necessary for what is expected these days for the pace of gameplay There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek stuff as is becoming expected from Dogless Head, character design, item description, names of perks, names of fonts, etc. There's a lot of nods all over the place in this game, but it still is very clearly its own game with its own personality. Now, if you're looking for a story-heavy strategy RPG, this isn't it. The game is very clearly core gameplay focused. The joy comes from your planning paying off. Something else to keep in mind, this is a one-man development besides the music I think and this game is very impressive and the developer's skills have clearly grown leaps and bounds to make a very competent and fun strategy RPG. There's a ton of customization that can be done if you'd like a much more difficult experience, but I've been enjoying what's listed as the "normal" difficulty. The only quirk I've experienced is that if you try to move the game to a second monitor... it gets cranky and will swap back to whatever your primary is depending on what you're doing. It's the only thing I've run across that's a little funky but I just drag the window back and resume play. This game is a great pick up around $9 and offers a ton of game play and replay-ability for that price. If you've been wishing an Ogre-style game would get a modern adaptation I think this can definitely scratch that itch.