Operencia:The stolen sun

Caliane

Caliane

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This is out today on Epic store and xbox.
A dungeon crawler, aka bards tale/grimrock. I know we have a few fans of that genre.

I mentioned being interested in this, after seeing it on Epic store. But at the time, I was confused, I saw the 2020 on Steam, and thought that was is release date. But, no. 1 year timed exclusive on Epic store..
Operencia - The Dungeon Crawling RPG, Modernized




I'm busy with Outward, etc atm. So won't be trying this. Also, a very high chance waiting for steam even. But thought, I'd start a thread.
 
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Droigan

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I just came to post this. Bought it, played for two hours.

Game works as you expect. Grid based movement in a 3d world with turn based combat like Bards Tale 4 and the others like it. However seems much more stat based with RPG mechanics. A few puzzles so far, but the first dungeon is more like a tutorial of them, all of them fairly easy. Same with combat.

Fully voice acted and quite a bit of dialogue between the main character and the first person I've met. Though he keeps saying "let's do the sneaky way next time" after a fight when I did an ambush.

Starts off with a tutorial that lets you showcase the three classes (not sure if there are others). You can pick from three once you finish it. Fighter, Mage and Hunter. I picked mage. Each class gets different talent trees. Get 3 ability points and one talent point per level (level 4 by the end of dungeon).

Still in the first dungeon that you start in. I picked normal on all three options (when you start you can pick less saves and rest areas, no map, no objectives and permadeath). No map or objectives seem insane.

I got to the end of the dungeon where I get a prompt where I assume that once I finish it, I leave the dungeon. I stayed because it shows on my map I have 2/8 secrets.
I know there were two chests I passed inside some doors, but no idea where to get them, and missing one thing for a door. But no idea where the three secrets others are. Map doesn't give a hint about that.

Seems good so far. Time to path back for secrets!
 
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Droigan

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Found some more. No guides out yet, but found out that there are skills later on that you need to find all the secrets, and you can backtrack to campfires\dungeons later in the game. So time to progress I think. Apparently the game is around 20-30 hours depending on time spent for secrets\puzzles.
 
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DirkDonkeyroot

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Droigan said:
I just came to post this. Bought it, played for two hours.

Game works as you expect. Grid based movement in a 3d world with turn based combat like Bards Tale 4 and the others like it. However seems much more stat based with RPG mechanics. A few puzzles so far, but the first dungeon is more like a tutorial of them, all of them fairly easy. Same with combat.

Fully voice acted and quite a bit of dialogue between the main character and the first person I've met. Though he keeps saying "let's do the sneaky way next time" after a fight when I did an ambush.

Starts off with a tutorial that lets you showcase the three classes (not sure if there are others). You can pick from three once you finish it. Fighter, Mage and Hunter. I picked mage. Each class gets different talent trees. Get 3 ability points and one talent point per level (level 4 by the end of dungeon).

Still in the first dungeon that you start in. I picked normal on all three options (when you start you can pick less saves and rest areas, no map, no objectives and permadeath). No map or objectives seem insane.

I got to the end of the dungeon where I get a prompt where I assume that once I finish it, I leave the dungeon. I stayed because it shows on my map I have 2/8 secrets.
I know there were two chests I passed inside some doors, but no idea where to get them, and missing one thing for a door. But no idea where the three secrets others are. Map doesn't give a hint about that.

Seems good so far. Time to path back for secrets!
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Are there random encounters and stuff or just a set number of encounters?
 
Qhue

Qhue

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Been playing this after I saw it at PAX and then realized it was part of Xbox Game Pass. Lots of fun if you are a fan of the Bard Tale type genre (which I very much am) and the full voice acting is a nice touch even allowing for your own character to have both a voice and class specific dialogue(?!?! crazy right??)
 
Qhue

Qhue

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So binged the game this weekend and I'm super impressed with it and sad that I seem to be nearing the end. Always cool to see fantasy through the lens of a different culture and the game mechanics are pretty darn nice.

Also a plus: it's a lesser known title so if you get stuck on a puzzle the internet is ZERO help and you have to man-up and figure it out yourself.
 
Utnayan

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Had a great time with this last night for about an hour. I couldn't stop laughing at the initial voice acting though. But it got better after creating your character and going through the initial dungeon. Lots of cool back story. It is pretty weird having full motion but locked to tiles though - but getting used to it :)

Overall, really fun so far.
 
Caliane

Caliane

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got around to this. after steam sale a short while ago.
At this point it is seemingly bug free.

Its.. ok.
Medium length. medium focus on puzzles. most are fairly simple. The maps are set in zones/areas. and you can go back to them as the game progresses.
A decent focus on combat. which is arguably the biggest flaw.

the battle map has a cool idea. foreground, middle, far ground. with melee doing higher damage to melee, and less to ranged. and vice versa.. but, it just doesn't play out that way much. AoE is king. your own characters have no ranged/melee element. so, your casters all get attacked just as much as your melee tanks, etc...
And, the characters skills/stats all kindof suck. its just not really that FUN.

I picked a mage. and thats very interesting to note, that there is basically no pure mage NPC. only one is a cleric/mage and shes the last one you get, 75% into the game. 1 archer, and 4 melee fighters...

art is decent. fully voiced. the slavic accents, and lore is fun.


Anyone got any recommends for a GOOD dungeon crawl. might and magic x:legacy is my favorite, of the comebacks..
Bards tale... I probably would have fonder memories of, if I had waited for all the patches. player experience now, is probably better then when I played.
 
Vorph

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Bard's Tale is still pretty bad.

Can't really think of any good PC ones besides Grimrock. I love the genre, but all the best ones are on handhelds (Vita/3DS/handful on Switch). And require a pretty high tolerance for anime/weeaboo stuff.
 
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Droigan

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Caliane said:
Anyone got any recommends for a GOOD dungeon crawl. might and magic x:legacy is my favorite, of the comebacks..
Bards tale... I probably would have fonder memories of, if I had waited for all the patches. player experience now, is probably better then when I played.
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Well, there is Vaporum. Not sure if it fits into the category of "GOOD", more like ok, but it is a steam punkish/bioshock setting in the style of Grimrock. Not as fleshed out as Grimrock. Figured I'd mention it since it's a category (at least in the first person grid based sense) that doesn't really have that many games, and ok might be better than nothing.

There are two games. Vaporum and the newest Vaporum - Lockdown.



 
Pyros

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Yeah all these games are ok-ish, I played them all(well not vaporum lockdown didn't know they released a second one). Some are slightly better than others but not great regardless. Operencia had interesting characters but the game itself wasn't great. Vaporum was a bit below. There's the Fall of the Dungeon Guardians too in the genre which was fairly decent, but the class design in this one is basically just a copy paste of wow classes so it felt pretty boring.

There's some fairly low tier anime ones ported on PC too, Operation Abyss for example, which was kinda meh(class design uses very old school stuff with warriors having very few skills and mages using rest based circle based magic and stuff like that but in an anime highschooler setting). Stranger of the Sword City is similar although a bit better.

There's stuff like Mary Skelter too but haven't checked this one out(there's a Mary Skelter 2 on PS4 that also includes a remaster of the first one but this never was ported so it feels bad to buy that one). Also Labyrinth of Refrain, haven't checked this one out yet, too expensive for my taste so waiting for a deep sale. Apparently there's been or going to be a sequel.

Can also play 3DS and Vita games on emulators if you haven't played these. The big ones are obviously Etrian Odyssey on DS/3DS and on Vita the biggest one I think is Dungeon Travellers(anime to the max, but easily one of the best in the genre I've played). Sadly Dungeon Travellers 2 never got translated.

Ultimately it's a weird genre, lots of games overall but they're mostly indie and low quality games. I guess because they're somewhat easy to make. I still play them when I have the urge to play one, I have a few in advance, just yeah it's not really a genre with a lot of standout games other than the Etrian Odyssey series imo(and obviously this one is somewhat dead until they release a new one on Switch and hopefully since it won't have dual screen it'll be ported to PC too, I think they could make a lot more money like that).
 
Caliane

Caliane

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yeah, I have vaporum and lockdown. I played vaporum, have not tried the second yet.
it was also.. ok. More like Grimrock. 1 pc, action grid combat. more focus on puzzles, and locked into a single long dungeon.


I am curious how many older ones stand up. GoG has a ton. Lands of lore.. Wizardries. I do have wizardry 8 I started last year... but petered out on..

Do have stranger of sword city. its rough. way too japanese/korean. not just art. but, "go farm this room for .5% chance for monster to spawn, and drop item" type shit.
first review on steam echos my thoughts..
What can i say it mixes all the worst principles of NIS titles such as endless grinding to make progress, trash item rich world, and repeating the same area over and over again until your eyes bleed. With the absolute worst mechanics of a rogue lite like perma death for your hired npc's, paired with instant kill attacks with multiple hits and each hit can kill you. An absolutely nonsensical defensive stat availability, and lastly a very specific set of class abilities from multiclassing forever to get a character that wont instantly implode in any boss fight.. This game at most times is in fact a torture simulator.

The game is literally built on you taking characters you make and leveling them into oblivion to make them functional with incredibly slow xp gain outside very risky fights. every time you want to walk into a new zone, the amount you ground instantly becomes irrelevant as you need the gear from inside the new area to survive the new area. After you go through this process about 2-3 times and start permanently losing characters you have spent literal days in game time building up.

The defensive options are so stupid, its almost entirely based on evasion and hit, every non magic character basically has to rush 25 agi to hit anything even equipping + hit weapons on most classes will give you about a 30% hitrate. i have a character with 63 defense that takes less damage than my 79 defense character. And theres basically no way to preotect against magic damage until after its killed about 25 characters.

All in all its an RNG fest with terrible game mechanics that dont matchup to a fun experience. Normally with NIS i would power through because they have sometimes some very amazing stories like Disgai. but this game is almost devoid of any story.

I had heard Etrian Odyesseys were good. but hadn't considered emulator.

fall of the dungeon guradians has good ratings, might give that one a shot.
steam has it in a bundle with a bunch of other indie/low budget ones..
store.steampowered.com

Save 63% on Grid-based Crawling Bundle on Steam

store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com

Labyrinth of Refrain actually looks very interesting. NIS japanese.. mechanically as well.. I think I like more classic m&m/wizardry type base, but still.

underworld Ascendant ever get decent?
 
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Hateyou

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Vorph said:
Bard's Tale is still pretty bad.

Can't really think of any good PC ones besides Grimrock. I love the genre, but all the best ones are on handhelds (Vita/3DS/handful on Switch). And require a pretty high tolerance for anime/weeaboo stuff.
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I thought MMX was good. But yeah, I’m not really a fan of these types of games anymore. Not that I don’t like the style, just they’re not done very well these days.

I really liked Etrian Odyssey but I hated the map drawing. I don’t want to have to hold a stylus along with the controller, and take constant breaks drawing.

I would love a PC version of Etrian without the stylus bullshit.
 
Pyros

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Every 3DS Etrian game had automapping, only the old DS ones didn't(and MAYBE IV the first 3DS game, I don't remember, but starting with the remakes they added automapping). If you don't want to draw you just turn on automapping and let it draw on its own, can still edit to add notes and stuff, which makes it superior to like 70% of the other games in the genre which have automapping but no note feature which really fucking sucks when you have dozens of similar looking levels and want to remember to come check some place later on or whatever.
 
Hateyou

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Pyros said:
Every 3DS Etrian game had automapping, only the old DS ones didn't(and MAYBE IV the first 3DS game, I don't remember, but starting with the remakes they added automapping). If you don't want to draw you just turn on automapping and let it draw on its own, can still edit to add notes and stuff, which makes it superior to like 70% of the other games in the genre which have automapping but no note feature which really fucking sucks when you have dozens of similar looking levels and want to remember to come check some place later on or whatever.
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That’s cool. Never had a 3DS, so only played the first two or three EO games. At least you can emulate it I guess.
 
Pyros

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Hateyou said:
That’s cool. Never had a 3DS, so only played the first two or three EO games. At least you can emulate it I guess.
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The first 2 got 3DS remakes, with better balancing and all the QoL features they added starting the 3DS, as well as an optional "story mode" which has set characters, more story, voiced cutscenes and stuff like that. Sadly they never got around remaking the 3rd which is the best of the originals. Still that leaves 4, 1 remake, 2 remake, 5 and Nexus(which is some sort of big mashup of all previous games with several returning classes from all the games and stuff).

And yeah emulation for 3DS is pretty good now, the main issue is finding the unlocked ROMs and any potential DLC stuff you want which is a pain cause they took down the big website that had all of them last year iirc.
 
Caliane

Caliane

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Pyros said:
Yeah all these games are ok-ish, I played them all(well not vaporum lockdown didn't know they released a second one). Some are slightly better than others but not great regardless. Operencia had interesting characters but the game itself wasn't great. Vaporum was a bit below. There's the Fall of the Dungeon Guardians too in the genre which was fairly decent, but the class design in this one is basically just a copy paste of wow classes so it felt pretty boring.

There's some fairly low tier anime ones ported on PC too, Operation Abyss for example, which was kinda meh(class design uses very old school stuff with warriors having very few skills and mages using rest based circle based magic and stuff like that but in an anime highschooler setting). Stranger of the Sword City is similar although a bit better.

There's stuff like Mary Skelter too but haven't checked this one out(there's a Mary Skelter 2 on PS4 that also includes a remaster of the first one but this never was ported so it feels bad to buy that one). Also Labyrinth of Refrain, haven't checked this one out yet, too expensive for my taste so waiting for a deep sale. Apparently there's been or going to be a sequel.

Can also play 3DS and Vita games on emulators if you haven't played these. The big ones are obviously Etrian Odyssey on DS/3DS and on Vita the biggest one I think is Dungeon Travellers(anime to the max, but easily one of the best in the genre I've played). Sadly Dungeon Travellers 2 never got translated.

Ultimately it's a weird genre, lots of games overall but they're mostly indie and low quality games. I guess because they're somewhat easy to make. I still play them when I have the urge to play one, I have a few in advance, just yeah it's not really a genre with a lot of standout games other than the Etrian Odyssey series imo(and obviously this one is somewhat dead until they release a new one on Switch and hopefully since it won't have dual screen it'll be ported to PC too, I think they could make a lot more money like that).
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Labyrinth of Refrain is on sale on steam atm. 40% off. for 17.99
I bit, but have a list of other games I'll be hitting first.
 
Pyros

Pyros

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Caliane said:
Labyrinth of Refrain is on sale on steam atm. 40% off. for 17.99
I bit, but have a list of other games I'll be hitting first.
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Yeah I saw and I thought about buying it but then I figure I won't be playing it now, and then in a couple weeks I'll be playing Cyberpunk or FFXIV, then the other and at that point there will be another sale, maybe better than this one, or I'll just be playing one of the other games I already bought and haven't played, so it's not a big deal. I also have a few dungeon crawlers to go through, some japanese stuff and Bard's Tale IV, and I still need to get to playing EO Nexus, so not really in a hurry.
 
Vorph

Vorph

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Labyrinth of Refrain has very weird mechanics, like instead of actual characters in your party who are part of the story you just have stacks of generic "puppet" units. That alone was enough to make me lose interest after about four or five trips to the dungeon.
 
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