Steam Page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/296970/
Price: $20 ($12 during steam sale, put it on wishlist at least?)
A look at the game by Total Biscuit (apparently he loves it)
Do you like SRPGs? Rogue-likes such as FTL? Have you ever thought you should be able to defeat your enemies by being tsundere? If so, you might wanna keep reading.
A few days ago I happened to catch a stream by Vinny (Vinesauce) who was trying out this game for the first time. He didn't spend much time with it because it's mechanics seemed to overwhelm him. It also didn't help that chat was being like twitch chat and obsessed on dissing the art style. Even so it was enough to pique my interest, so I scooped it up during the steam sale. I hadn't ever heard of it beforehand, no one on my steam's friend list had it, and I could barely find any mention of it on GAF. So I thought I'd make a thread since I think this game deserves a bit more attention.
The basic idea around Renowned Explorers is that it's an SRPG rogue-like that takes a few cues from other games such as FTL and then throws a whole bunch more into the mix. The game is seriously deep, extremely challenging and if you can get past the initial shock of the art, it's very charming.
You start the game by assembling a crew of explorers, who are determined to try and become the most renowned explorers in the world even more so than your stereotypical pompous rival. There's 20 explorers to pick from, and you must choose 3 whom you think might work best together. Each has their own class, set of skills, stats and abilities which will change how you tackle each play through. One of these characters will be assigned captain of the expedition, which grants them an extra unique (and very strong) ability.
The crew selection screen.
Once that's done you'll start your expedition. In each expedition you have a limited number of supplies to make it to the end goal on the map. Much like the game FTL, you get to pick and choose your path through the map. You'll encounter skill quests, SRPG battles, and other obstacles all while trying to gather as many resources along the way. Examples of the resources include gold which is used for buying your characters' equipment, research points for unlocking bonuses in the research trees, and even various treasures which give you bonuses as well as respect from the other explorers.
Example of a skill quest, hovering over each will give a breakdown how the game calculates your win percentage.
Of course, a big portion of your time will be spent in the SRPG encounters. Renowned Explorer's battle system is quite different than anything I've played before, so I might do a bad job explaining it..so bare with me. Instead of just a normal move/attack system, Renowned lets you defeat your opponents in 3 major ways. The game labels these as Aggressive/Devious/Friendly, and which way you choose will change how the battle plays out as well as what rewards you receive. Your characters have different "attacks" which will fall under one of these 3 categories. No matter which category they are in, all will effect your opponent's spirit and if their spirit hits 0 they're defeated. So what's the point you ask? Well before each encounter you're shown what rewards you'll reap based on which you've used most in the battle.
Example screen of the rewards you may earn
Well easy right, just pick the one with the most rewards? Well.... if it were only that simple. See ontop of what rewards you might win, there's also the overarching "mood" of the battle. The mood of the battle is based on what types of attacks you're using vs what type of attacks your opponent is using. These moods give substantial buffs/debuffs to your characters, and sometimes you have to decide if the extra rewards are worth the risk. Case in point. I've been running a party that mostly uses devious attacks. I came across a boss, and the rewards for devious were by far way better than the other 2 categories. Since my party specialized in being devious, I thought it was a no brainer. Well unfortunately my opponents decided to be friendly, which changed the mood and gave me a serious debuff to my defenses. I was slaughtered in a single turn.
If you see this, yo're going to have a bad time
Likewise you can use the mood to your advantage if you're smart. The 3 categories work like a rock-paper-scissors, and if you happen to swing the mood with a winning category you'll get a advantage. Knowing this you can set an advantageous mood at the start of the battle, then defeat your opponents with another category to get the best rewards before the mood has time to change to a disadvantage.
This is much better
Oh by the way, this is just the beginning. Each of your attacks also inflicts various emotions upon each of your enemies. These emotions give that individual enemy debuffs, buffs, and it even allows some of your skills get bonuses based on your opponent's current emotion.
Remember when I said you could defeat your enemies by being tsundere? I wasn't kidding, Maria likes to send mixed signals.
If you manage to make it through the expedition successfully you're sent back to home base to plan your next one. Here you can unlock abilities in the research tree, hire specialists to give you bonuses, buy new equipment and even level up your characters. After that, you pick a new more difficult location and repeat the thing all over again. Each game is suppose to be a total of 5 expeditions, I have yet to make it past the 3rd one.
You'll be seeing this a lot
Also I should touch a bit on the art style. Though the art style might put some people off, the actual animations and characters give the game a lot of personality. Each character has their own animations for each of their attacks, as well as different animations when they're attacked. This really gives each character a unique feel outside of just their skills
Maria is pretty good with being friendly. Anna who is a lot more serious tends to be a bit awkward
Overall it's a great game, and I see myself plunking down quite a few hours in it. If you're interested the game is only $20 right now, and will probably be back down to $12 when the winter sale comes along. If you're not willing to pay full price (which it is worth), then at least throw it on your wishlist and think about it come the end of this month.
Price: $20 ($12 during steam sale, put it on wishlist at least?)
A look at the game by Total Biscuit (apparently he loves it)
Do you like SRPGs? Rogue-likes such as FTL? Have you ever thought you should be able to defeat your enemies by being tsundere? If so, you might wanna keep reading.
A few days ago I happened to catch a stream by Vinny (Vinesauce) who was trying out this game for the first time. He didn't spend much time with it because it's mechanics seemed to overwhelm him. It also didn't help that chat was being like twitch chat and obsessed on dissing the art style. Even so it was enough to pique my interest, so I scooped it up during the steam sale. I hadn't ever heard of it beforehand, no one on my steam's friend list had it, and I could barely find any mention of it on GAF. So I thought I'd make a thread since I think this game deserves a bit more attention.
The basic idea around Renowned Explorers is that it's an SRPG rogue-like that takes a few cues from other games such as FTL and then throws a whole bunch more into the mix. The game is seriously deep, extremely challenging and if you can get past the initial shock of the art, it's very charming.
You start the game by assembling a crew of explorers, who are determined to try and become the most renowned explorers in the world even more so than your stereotypical pompous rival. There's 20 explorers to pick from, and you must choose 3 whom you think might work best together. Each has their own class, set of skills, stats and abilities which will change how you tackle each play through. One of these characters will be assigned captain of the expedition, which grants them an extra unique (and very strong) ability.
The crew selection screen.
Once that's done you'll start your expedition. In each expedition you have a limited number of supplies to make it to the end goal on the map. Much like the game FTL, you get to pick and choose your path through the map. You'll encounter skill quests, SRPG battles, and other obstacles all while trying to gather as many resources along the way. Examples of the resources include gold which is used for buying your characters' equipment, research points for unlocking bonuses in the research trees, and even various treasures which give you bonuses as well as respect from the other explorers.
Example of a skill quest, hovering over each will give a breakdown how the game calculates your win percentage.
Of course, a big portion of your time will be spent in the SRPG encounters. Renowned Explorer's battle system is quite different than anything I've played before, so I might do a bad job explaining it..so bare with me. Instead of just a normal move/attack system, Renowned lets you defeat your opponents in 3 major ways. The game labels these as Aggressive/Devious/Friendly, and which way you choose will change how the battle plays out as well as what rewards you receive. Your characters have different "attacks" which will fall under one of these 3 categories. No matter which category they are in, all will effect your opponent's spirit and if their spirit hits 0 they're defeated. So what's the point you ask? Well before each encounter you're shown what rewards you'll reap based on which you've used most in the battle.
Example screen of the rewards you may earn
Well easy right, just pick the one with the most rewards? Well.... if it were only that simple. See ontop of what rewards you might win, there's also the overarching "mood" of the battle. The mood of the battle is based on what types of attacks you're using vs what type of attacks your opponent is using. These moods give substantial buffs/debuffs to your characters, and sometimes you have to decide if the extra rewards are worth the risk. Case in point. I've been running a party that mostly uses devious attacks. I came across a boss, and the rewards for devious were by far way better than the other 2 categories. Since my party specialized in being devious, I thought it was a no brainer. Well unfortunately my opponents decided to be friendly, which changed the mood and gave me a serious debuff to my defenses. I was slaughtered in a single turn.
If you see this, yo're going to have a bad time
Likewise you can use the mood to your advantage if you're smart. The 3 categories work like a rock-paper-scissors, and if you happen to swing the mood with a winning category you'll get a advantage. Knowing this you can set an advantageous mood at the start of the battle, then defeat your opponents with another category to get the best rewards before the mood has time to change to a disadvantage.
This is much better
Oh by the way, this is just the beginning. Each of your attacks also inflicts various emotions upon each of your enemies. These emotions give that individual enemy debuffs, buffs, and it even allows some of your skills get bonuses based on your opponent's current emotion.
Remember when I said you could defeat your enemies by being tsundere? I wasn't kidding, Maria likes to send mixed signals.
If you manage to make it through the expedition successfully you're sent back to home base to plan your next one. Here you can unlock abilities in the research tree, hire specialists to give you bonuses, buy new equipment and even level up your characters. After that, you pick a new more difficult location and repeat the thing all over again. Each game is suppose to be a total of 5 expeditions, I have yet to make it past the 3rd one.
You'll be seeing this a lot
Also I should touch a bit on the art style. Though the art style might put some people off, the actual animations and characters give the game a lot of personality. Each character has their own animations for each of their attacks, as well as different animations when they're attacked. This really gives each character a unique feel outside of just their skills
Maria is pretty good with being friendly. Anna who is a lot more serious tends to be a bit awkward
Overall it's a great game, and I see myself plunking down quite a few hours in it. If you're interested the game is only $20 right now, and will probably be back down to $12 when the winter sale comes along. If you're not willing to pay full price (which it is worth), then at least throw it on your wishlist and think about it come the end of this month.
.
