Reseñas

• gamedeal user

  Mar 11, 2022

  I've had my eyes on this game for quite some time now since I saw that initial reveal trailer. It looked right up my alley! I can safely say it's pretty enjoyable so far! I love being able to make my own little party, customize them, and build them up as we progress through the labyrinths. After the short tutorial, you're able to create some party members to start off your adventure. You can assign names, classes, and change their race and appearance. It looks like you can make up to 8 total and carry up to 3 on your team into the labyrinth? I think there's a 4th slot in battle for any summons too? I haven't unlocked the "summon familiar" skill yet for my Sorcerer character, so this is just an assumption based on the trailer. There are 8 classes (with their own unique weapons and skill trees) and 7 races with their own hair types, eye shapes, eye colors, skin colors, hair colors, and headgear options? I'm not sure on the last one yet... There are no hats you can select at the start, so I assume you can unlock headgear later on possibly? There is also no gender option, the characters are designed to look fairly ambiguous, but there are long hair/short hair options to mess around with if you want someone to look more feminine or masculine. Pretty standard fantasy stuff overall and the character customization isn't too deep, but there's a nice variety to choose from. For classes, you've got: 1.) Warrior - Sword/Axe, Shields/Two-handed, Heavy Armor, High Strength focus 2.) Knight - Mallet/Spear, Shield Techniques, Heavy Armor, Damage Buffer 3.) Cleric - Recovery skills, Club/Hammer, Mid-level armor, Exorcism (skills effective against non-living) 4.) Shaman - Recovery skills, Spear/Halberd, Mid-level armor, Medicine 5.) Ranger - Bow, Trap, Beast Trainer, Long-range attacks 6.) Rogue - Short sword, gadgets, evade, consecutive attacks, poison 7.) Wizard - Four-element magic, weapon enchantments, gravity manipulation, ranged attacks 8.) Sorcerer - Fire skills, sorcery, demon familiar summoning, ranged attacks For races, you can choose from Orc, Wood Elf, Gnome, Dark Elf, Goblin, Dwarf, and Human! Art style is cute and reminds me a bit of Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure. Really nostalgic to me for some reason. I don't know, but I'm a fan! It's fairly difficult too this early on, and you really need to plan things out before, during, and after combat. It's a classic first person dungeon crawler. You get a fire-lit torch you can activate to illuminate dark areas (it has a fuel meter that slowly goes down as you use it), a map that gets filled in as you explore, and a menu with different options to view your character(s), skills, etc... A neat feature for me is that any monsters you encounter get added into a compendium which you can view back at the home tavern area. Pretty cool. Wasn't really a fan of the default keyboard control scheme, but thankfully you can rebind. The combat is turn based with some complexity. You've got hit percentages based on how close your character is to the enemy. Icons above enemies show which character will be attacked at the end of the turn, and likewise for your party. Your character can develop resistances to certain damage types like Slash, Bash, Pierce, Flame, and Poison depending on their equipment or skills. You can attack monsters from different angles depending on how you first approached them before the fight (sneak attack from behind or attacking from either side). You have options to try to escape, guard to reduce damage (guards can be broken so be careful!), and rest to heal and regain stamina. Most actions or "skills" use up stamina which you'll have to pay close attention to or else you'll end up not being able to attack or guard. You can get overwhelmed very easily if you're not careful! Enemies also have stamina and will have to take breaks from attacking to rest. Something I've noticed that's different about the combat in this game is that even though you select every party member's action one at a time, everyone seems to attack all at once each turn, and certain characters can have skills that activate faster than others. I'm not sure how to explain it exactly, but it certainly isn't like most turn-based games... For example, a healing spell for one of my characters has a slight windup before its cast and during that time a monster might kill the person I'm trying to heal before I can get the spell out. There was also a Mandrake enemy that has a skill where it burrows into the ground and anyone that hits it in that state causes all party members to be damaged... It makes for a rather dynamic, engaging, and highly rewarding battle system where you can see what your enemy is about to do and you have to plan everything out carefully! Do I want to try to take him out early before he burrows? Should I focus on another enemy that's going to kill one of my characters while they're attacking him or should I just have them guard? Should I risk accidentally wiping my team or putting them near death if I hit him as he burrows? Be prepared as you'll be faced with a lot of these questions and similar scenarios playing this game. After battle, you get all your health back and any dead party members are brought back to life. There seems to be no HP/MP restoring items in this game either, and there's nothing you can really use on your party outside of combat other than weapons and armor. It definitely took me a little bit to get used to since I'm so used to traditional JRPGs where you have a wide variety of items you can use in and out of battle. SKILLS! The game is very skill-focused. You get a skill point every level up that you can put into unlocking these. Certain skills have prerequisites, so make sure you look at what unlocks what and what weapons you have on-hand before you spend your points. Potato Flowers is set up in such a way that you must rely heavily on decision-making and your skills to get you through each encounter. You have passive skills, skills that penalize enemies for using their skills, skills that persist each turn after casting, skills that increase damage negation for a party member, skills that can change your character's affinity to gain certain resistances, skills that imbue your weapons with status afflictions, skills that only work on a certain enemy type, etc... Enemies have a lot of crazy skills too and these come with unique icons displayed above their heads that you must learn. It's all super interesting, and well balanced I would say, and I'm having a blast figuring out which skills work best for my party and their builds. If your party is completely wiped out, you have to start back from the beginning, and all the enemies that you defeated are revived back in their same spots, but you get to keep everything you picked up and your levels too, so it's not a complete setback. I haven't figured out if there's any penalty in dying yet other than that... It's like solving a puzzle but in combat form. You have to learn your characters and their limits, level up a few times, adjust accordingly and try different strategies, and learn how the enemies fight as well since you'll be encountering the same ones in the same locations each time. It's not random, sadly, but maybe that could be interesting? You know what you'll be encountering, but it doesn't get stale since the battles require a lot of thinking... if that makes sense. From what I've seen so far, the labyrinths have chests, item pickups, unlockable shortcut doors you can get to and open in case you die, NPCs with important information, shops and upgrade stations, ledges you can jump down, levers, torches you can light, puzzles, and much more I'm sure. Overall a really cozy game and I can't wait to dive into it further! I'll try to update this review once I play through it more... :)
• gamedeal user

  Mar 12, 2022

  After playing a bit I have to say I love the art, music and how the camera works (you'll see). Story works so far. Party members check. Dungeons with puzzles check. The map system with the lighting is neat. Battle system is cool. Just enough character cosmetic customization. The skill trees look interesting, lots of possibilities. Seems like the game was made with love and I can't wait to keep playing.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 13, 2022

  A simple but highly strategic turn-based battle system, the kind that you have to stop and think about to prevent it from kicking your ass. There are no random encounters, so this is a game of careful planning. The experience system makes it very easy for underleveled characters to catch up to your party in just a couple of fights, allowing you to try out new classes quickly. At the same time, level-grinding is impractical. Skill trees and unique gear both allow for build diversity within the same class. The labyrinth maps are very well designed, with plenty of interlocking, optional and hidden areas, exploration puzzles, and the use of elevation within the same floor. I'm not far enough into the game to tell whether the story is anything more than mildly interesting.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 17, 2022

  This is a real A+ dungeon crawler. The levels are well-designed and satisfying to explore, with interesting gimmicks and thoughtful encounter placement. The combat system has some unique mechanics, notably the stamina system, that make you think about each individual round instead of just mashing attack basically ever. The party building is pretty straightforward but it's still compelling to put together a good synergistic team. Difficult encounters tend to feel like puzzles to be solved which often sends you back to rethink your party, which is fairly painless since the XP curve is such that underleveled brothers catch up REALLY fast. It also just has a lot of charm, in both the visuals and the understated and unobtrusive story. I won't spoil the objective of your mission, even tho it gets revealed right near the start, because it's a really original and elegant piece of worldbuilding. RPG quests can be for much more sensible and valuable things than magic swords and amulets.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 21, 2022

  There is a LOT to like about this game. If you're into craw/er/blobber/turn-based at all then I suggest you check this out. Try the generous demo. What I like: - character customization - not pixel anime portraits, some actual customization, overall system is fun - combat - turn based but the resource management and need to be defensive a LOT makes it feel so much more tactical and non-routine than typical fare - no invis/wandering mobs - mobs are purposefully placed and usually to e challenging - overall, the game is more tactical and less rng - you see monster intents in combat - who will be hit and with what, guard or get brutalized and love it, and the game map is similar - you know exactly what level and mob comps you face before you engage - it's kind of refreshingly "honest" compared to the typical - graphics - not something that's often a plus in this genre - either overdone to comedy or 30 years pixelized out of date. It's obvious unity but it's well done and for this kind of game it looks great and they've done it up 3D way better than many, with ability to move camera, nice use of mixing levels between maps - lighting - cool lighting system and it's cool how lighting impacts mapping/ability to use map - map - one of the best maps in any game I've ever played. I love it! The "map" is basically a shrunk representation of the actual entire game map so you can zoom, rotate, and view the entire thing in 3D, change to any floor of any zone and view any explored anything at any time. You can even add markers. - puzzles - the entire map is a puzzle but there are smaller puzzle sections to sort out (and no faeries - I still hate that crap from bard's tale) - lots of different ways to get around and unlock map areas - bosses - fun boss fights so far - mob diversity and ability diversity is huge so far - feels good to make progress - 8 classes, each has 4 trees, some indirect overlap (some stuff is the same but mixed up, placed differently, something, across classes - ex, warrior may get some of the same def skills potential as knight, but knight gets it "easier" (less prereqs) and can invest more into it (more x/lvl gain potential - it's actually a really slick system) - you field a party of 3, but you can recruit one of each or whatever, and since mobs reset ever time you rest, you can level up alts easily - good performance - fast loads between floors and such - minor preload up front that probably helps but it's worth it for sure - despite how sparse/spartan the UI can appear (see cons) there is actually a ton of stuff buried and available to you while playing Potential cons: - the overall "wrapper" for the game is super lean - main menu is spartan. Story elements are randomly injected and minimal - but they are there. You "camp/home" is also minimialistic - kb/m may be iffy, no clue I like controller for this kind of game despite being a typically kb/m PC MR type - as illustrated below, the game is full of mercy even though it's also full of challenges - some people really like to suffer thru gaming so the punch me in the nuts when I fail crowd might not like this - no romance - those who play games to fap over pixels are SOL here This game has several things going on that make typically tedious things less tedious. - your 8 chars share inventory and you can mess with inactive characters at any time, equip them something you found, take their gear, whatever - no weight or other nonsense - you can hire/fire characters at no cost so recruit one of each to check out their skill trees to decide which you wanna play - there's a return to base option you can use at any time to return to the "town" - handy in a variety of ways and eliminates the hassle of manually walking all the way back just to rest - save anywhere (but it's a save/quit - less ease of save scum, and as someone who is often scummy, I'm not missing it in this game - because - no death penalty - if you fail you're sent back to home and just lose time - even though mobs reset every time you return to home, there are designed shortcuts all over the place that you unlock such that trash mobs go from being mandatory to get thru a section to 100% skippable (and handy for leveling alts), so you only need to redo most trash if you're want to. - a lot of times you'll have to unlock a slice of map by fighting several tough encounters in a row, but once you beat that area, you unlock the ability to come at those encounters in reverse (and in this game, attacking from side/behind gives you a free round of attacks - so those encounters become more xp farmable)
• gamedeal user

  Mar 24, 2022

  A really cute dungeon crawler that somehow manages to be classic without having a direct lineage. The combat is simple to figure out, but is still introducing new ideas that are interesting and fun to deal with several hours in. The dungeon exploring is a lot of fun, I like it more than others of this type (like Grimrock), character creation is fun, and I love the little characters and flavor sprinkled through the game, such as: when you use the menu, your characters show up on the tile you're on, in various animations, like looking through the next door or cleaning their gear. I definitely recommend this.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 25, 2022

  Potato Flowers is a well-made turn-based 3D dungeon crawler. Notably, it makes numerous mechanical improvements to a stagnated genre that even the greats like Etrian Odyssey can learn from, which is saying a lot for such a small indie title. Pon Pon games is a Japanese indie circle whose sole developer goes by the handle WereratCleric, who previously developed A Healer Only Lives Twice. A summary of what to expect from Potato Flowers: - 16-20 hours to beat the final boss. - 30 hours for 100% completion (beastiary, drop table, cap levels and item upgrades). - 4 dungeons, between 1 to 6 floors deep. - No postgame, but you can keep playing or fight the final boss again, and NPCs will have a few extra lines as epilogue. - 8 available classes, soft level 50 cap. - Maximum party size of 8, active party size of 3. - Skill resets available. Cosmetics found as drops. Names can be changed. - No consumables. Available MP determines party longevity. - Inventory is big enough for hardcore pack rats. - Powerful skills have cooldowns. Most AOE spells also require channeling. - Restart at base if party wiped. No item or exp loss. - No random encounters. - Single save slot per party. - Full keyboard support, fully rebindable keys. - I've had zero crashes, zero bugs. - 2-man party is probably best for a repeat playthrough. Solo might just barely be doable. Progression is by obtaining keys, each of which unlocks a new set of doors. This means we'll be going back and forth between dungeons to unlock new passages which eventually lead to another key. There are a handful of key items (think metroidvania) e.g. boots that let the party jump down from greater heights, that also lock progression. In the dungeon itself, the party lights up the places they've been with torches (a bit like Minecraft). The lighting is necessary because the map could only be read in bright places, and the party's own torch fuel is limited. Running out of fuel makes the party fall back to a candle lamp, which is not bright enough to read the map with. As the party dives deeper, they will encounter NPCs. These NPCs have their own reasons for being in the dungeon, and they will provide short, but detailed expositions for what's really happening in the world. So for example, an NPC explains why it is that they're trying to grow potatoes from seeds, rather than the usual spuds. Each NPC embodies a struggle to find meaning and a way to live their own life, in a world that's clearly gone wrong, and that's my interpretation of the game's message. In combat, instead of the usual front/back line, the 3 characters are always front/middle/back. Characters in front tend to act first, and have better melee accuracy. On the other hand, characters in the back are less likely to be targeted. Characters and enemies' positions on the timeline are determined by the skills they're using, but a hit or miss on a particular enemy will cause their attack animation to be delayed by their hit or dodge animation, meaning if you get your ranger to quickshot the enemy mage, your own mage may be able to get off her fireball before the enemy does. Now let's talk about what the game really gets right. Every time the party encounters a new enemy or skill, the party can prompt the guild leader (the dark elf lady) to provide explanations for what to expect from each enemy and skill. We can do this as a refresher, even if it's not the first encounter, and the same information is available in the beastiary afterwards. This minimizes retries just because the information wasn't available. There are no random encounters, and all enemies' levels are immediately visible in the field, so the party won't accidentally engage a group that's far too powerful. The battle screen didn't impress me initially, however, all the information you need is right there. Every single hit chance, the exact targeting, all the status effects, all the HP/MP/stamina bars. After using a skill on a character, this skill is preserved in a dynamic quick-access bar, even across battles, meaning characters with a ton of skills like the mage, are such a breeze to use. The same keys will also behave just as you can expect in all situations. For example, the camera keys will rotate the screen, the map, the characters, even the beastiary or item entries, depending on context. This is called "universal design" in the UI literature. Mechanically, the game is as deterministic as it gets. Enemies do pick skills and targets depending on the situation, and hits with lower than 100% hit chance can miss, but that's all the randomness in the game's combat. There is no damage spread. All ailments are guaranteed, unless the enemy is immune. Escape will always work (assuming at least one member survives). The party can see exactly which members enemies are targeting, so the gameplay is very reactive-oriented, compared to other games in the genre. All the skills are explained in detail, down to which skill type it is (e.g. fire skill, so it's boosted by fire-boosting equipment), their action delay, and how much exactly each level in the skill gives that character. When enemy bosses change phases, this is clearly shown with a stance change along with the battle music. They also purge all of their debuffs. Since we are given this much information to work with, the game will punish tactical errors, or overly-lopsided party comps. Freed from the constraints of a simple grid map, each "floor" has multiple levels of verticality. However, without the aforementioned key items, much of this verticality isn't immediately accessible, so the nature of certain floors can change considerably throughout the game. The dungeons are small and compact, but the designer has clearly put a lot of thought into it, especially the main dungeon, and I'm saying this after having played most of the games in this niche genre for over 30 years. If you've made it this far down the review, you're probably a turn-based dungeon crawler enthusiast yourself. In that case I can't recommend this game highly enough. Potato Flowers is criminally under-exposed, and I would've missed it myself if I haven't happened to glance at an article at gamespark.jp, which I don't even frequent. Trivia: The original name of the game is 両手いっぱいに芋の花を lit. (May there be) An Armful of Potato Flowers. That's a really unusual name to expect from a dungeon crawler! It's so unusual that I suspect it's a play on the idiom 両手に花 (lit. a flower in each hand), which means to be doubly-blessed, or alternatively it's also used a euphemism for having a girl in each arm. A couple of minor suggestions for the developer: - Hide the enemy level and type if their beastiary entry is new and their tile is completely dark, e.g. make it ???. The party is only able to see their eyes. - Have a key item in the late game e.g. dowsing rod that detects shinies (hidden loot) nearby. - Deflate the amount of iron. I've given half a million iron ore to the blacksmith for upgrades, and I don't know how that'd fit in the room he's standing in. This might sound like a nitpick, but the rest of the game is surprisingly consistent with real-life details such as this, like why they're using iron to begin with. - Thank you for developing the game! --- Games that I'm drawing from memory as I make this comparison: - Etrian Odyssey 世界樹の迷宮 (III, IV, V, X, U1, U2) - The 7th Dragon games - Labyrinth of Galleria / Refrain ルフラン・ガレリアの地下迷宮と魔女の旅団 - Labyrinth of Touhou - Gears of Dragoon 迷宮のウロボロス・黎明のフラグメンツ - Yumina the Ethereal 輝光翼戦記 天空のユミナ - The Wizardry games - NetHack And some mediocre ones: - Class of Heroes 剣と魔法と学園モノ - The Mary Skelter games - Unchained Blades
• gamedeal user

  Mar 30, 2022

  I can't say enough good things about 'Potato Flowers in Full Bloom'. I picked it up with little idea of what to expect, and it certainly didn't disappoint. The name, and the idea of an RPG dungeon crawler about soil quality and seed banks might sound a bit silly, or even like an attempt by conservationists to educate the cool kids of today about the need for better land management. In terms of gameplay, though, 'Potato Flowers' does far more than what it says on the tin. Yes, it obviously isn't a high-powered, cinematic RPG with photorealistic graphics and real-time combat. However, as a casual gamer who loves a good dungeon crawl, I feel as if this is the game I've been waiting for for years. If you like strategic turn-based combat, you're going to love PFIFB. The battle system is easy to learn, but challenging enough that it never gets dull. You can't just spam attacks here, otherwise you're likely to lose the fight. Rather, you need to think about how to respond to what the enemies are going to do, and time your attacks, defences, and support moves accordingly. Even coming back to enemies you've fought before doesn't feel stale, as no two battles are the same. The fact that most enemies are weak to some types of attack and resistant to others, similar to 'Pokemon' type mechanics, adds another level of complexity to take into consideration. The character levelling feels well-paced, although having more than about four characters in your crew means you occasionally have to do some level grinding to keep some of them from falling behind. The skill trees are complex enough to give some variety to character builds without being overwhelming. Similarly, the range of equipment gives lots of variety to how you can specialise your characters, and gives them some versatility: changing a character's equipment changes their stats and the types of damage they deal, allowing you to tailor them to best deal with the latest bad guys. The first-person overworld is equally engaging, presenting you with locked doors and puzzles that you must solve in order to navigate the dungeon and explore it fully. The mechanic of the map, torches adds another level of enjoyable complexity. The guide character, who is an important part of the premise, is another well-balanced feature, as they give the player tips when needed, but they never feel intrusive or annoying, and communicating with them is mostly optional. The story and worldbuilding are comparatively original for the stock fantasy genre, and are a fun extra. While lightweight compared to the game itself, they feel genuine and are occasionally amusing. The graphics, as I've said, obviously aren't highly detailed, but they certainly aren't bad. The aesthetic is actually really nice, and its simplicity fits well with the simplicity of the game itself. The design of the enemies is also great, as is the quirky originality of some of the concepts. Aside from the standard RPG fare of skeletons, rats, wolves, and lizardmen (yawn), you also get to battle jackelopes, scarecrows with fire powers, and magical balls of slime wearing crowns. The music is nice and does its job, but, as with many games like this, it can get repetitive. One thing I would have liked to see is more cosmetic character customisation. You get to name your characters, customise their hair, eyes, and skin, choose from six stock fantasy races (these are purely cosmetic and do not affect stats), and put them in different hats. However, their clothes are determined by class, and you can't even palette-swap these (equipping different armour does not change the character's appearance). While some more variety here would have been nice, you can't really complain when the developers have clearly invested so much in everything else. Bottom line: Serious Gamers who want an RPG to be heavyweight and challenging aren't the target audience here, but they might enjoy PFIFB for quick break in between longer games. However, if you're after something lighter and you enjoy dungeon crawling, puzzles, and strategic turn-based combat, this is right up there with the Zelda and Pokemon franchises as one of the best.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 2, 2022

  This game was fantastic! So I just got off of over 100 hours of elden ring and though, "god... i really need something easy and chill, o i know, ill try that potato game i have it looks cute and chill." ALL LIES!! lol This game is hard as hell and yet, it is soooo good. Strategy in your fights is very important, you need to know what enemies are weak against, and what you are weak against, when to dodge, when to block, and when to just come back later when your overleveled. This was an amazing game, took me 18hrs to beat, and left me wishing it was twice as long but for the price it was a steal! Seriously, if you are considering this game here are some things to know: 1) High difficulty Curve 2) Beautiful simplistic isometric graphics 3) Classic old school dungeon crawler 4) No consequences for dieing, so when you do, and you will, no biggie 5) No matter how hard a part of the game is, ALL of it is very doable with a change in tactics, or increase in items or levels. If you are a fan of dungeon crawler, turn based rpgs, or games with high difficulty curve this is for you
• gamedeal user

  Apr 11, 2022

  Cozy vibes and crunchy RPG combat are what define this game. It's a bit slow and simple at the start, but I appreciate how your options expand as your team develops, and how easy it is to experiment with different builds. The loop as you return to your base (slowly filling with mementos of your journey) and uncover tidbits about the world is a good one. This isn't a game of perfect information, but outside of hit percentages you should have an extremely good idea of how any individual round in combat is going to go before you hit "confirm." The combat encounters are the lock and the team you create is the key that needs to fit that lock. Don't expect a lot of replayability unless you enjoy finding alternative solutions to puzzles you've already solved, but what's there is a great self-contained dungeon crawl. It's the first game in a very long while that has scratched the Etrian Odyssey itch for me - certainly don't go in expecting an EO clone, but I enjoyed it much more than the various Experience dungeon crawlers I've tried in the interim.