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• gamedeal user

  Jul 24, 2022

  I am a bit torn on this but ultimately I have to give the game a thumb's down because, towards the end of the game, it has simply turned into a chore to play. The class system is fun. It is VERY inspired by FFT, which I love, and I have enjoyed playing with classes and building my characters. The characters themselves are mostly fine, though the writing suffers a bit in its simplicity. All in all, though, considering it's an indie game I have to commend it for being well done. But the fights - to be frank - become exceedingly tedious and frustrating as the game goes on. It has an awful "Drowning" mechanic which you cannot turn off. This means if an enemy pushes you into water you instantly die. This is made even worse when you have enemies that can actually TELEPORT you right into water, instantly removing one of your characters as early on as turn 2 even if your character is nowhere near water. This is, to be honest, complete BS and even though they say "this has counterplay" it, quite simply, does not. Fights are also pretty much always the same: You start out on the lower ground and fight your way up through tons of status effects and ranged enemies. Eventually you can turn the tides but it's very simplistic in its delivery. Honestly, I enjoyed the first like 15 or 20 hours of this game. However, the last 10 hours has been... not fun. To the point I have to convince myself to get on and play and, more often than not, I'm raging as I turn it off. I was on the Veteran difficulty since I have played strategy/tactical games pretty much all of my life and I love them. However, Fell Seal simply has too many "gotcha" mechanics that are not fun to play with or around.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 7, 2022

  Fell Seal is a FF Tactics successor in mechanics only.

  While there's a lot of improvements in terms of customization and build theorycrafting, the game is bogged down by its uninspired writing. If this game wasn't graciously saved by its mechanics, and sold at discounted prices, I would not have recommended it. I will discuss the bad, the good, and the great of Fell Seal.

  The Bad: Writing and Narrative Consistency

  If you find the intro sequence/first battle awkward and a bit immature in setting up the tone of the game, the bad news is the writing won't improve for the rest of the game. The good news is if you don't like it in the first sight, you can directly refund. The game's biggest flaw is in its characters. The three mains are wooden dolls of morally uptight respectable mentor, the naive student, and the jokey reliable uncle with a disturbed past. They stay that way for the remainder of the game despite the crisis, challenges, and events that turned their realities upside-down. The big baddies are, well, big baddies. They are corrupt, selfish, and morally wrought. Sometimes also arrogant. The lackeys are typical dumb henchmen incapable of coherent speech. Trope is one thing; lack of character development is another. The only thing that change is the writing of their wits: in one instance, the main can quickly discover the ploys of the villains; in another, it would take them a few turn of events to discover a bad guy's motive, because the plot wills it. Dialogue is written pretty poorly in particular. There is one instance when a villain threatens their incompetent henchman that they would "retire" them if they repeat the same mistake. The villain then adds, and I quote verbatim, "In case that is too ambiguous for you, by 'retired', I mean 'slain.'". Uuu. Scary. There's a whole lot of similar dialogues in the game, where the writers seem to struggle to sound smart or scary or whatever they intent to do with the characters. Strangely enough, the first half of the game seems to embrace a faux-Shakespearean writing in the vein of FF Tactics War of the Lions. Then in the second half suddenly they just drop the writing style. Last, there is a tonal inconsistency that fails to blend seamlessly with the game mechanics. At one point of the game, you discover a grim past of a character and find a way for them to cope. Then the character unlocks a special class named... Spymaster, which has nothing to do with the character's story.

  The Good: Music and Streamlined Gameplay

  While much comments have been said about the graphics - which I don't really have any opinion of - the game's better artistic aspect is the music. It doesn't hold up to FF Tactics' remarkable composition, but still manages to give a distinct character and leave memorable impression during more important battles in the game. The game streamlines consumable a few aspects you typically see in tactical RPGs. Instead of having to micromanage items and end up hoarding too many potions, consumables here replenish after each battles. You don't have buy potions or revivals or remedies; you have a fixed amount of them and if you want more or stronger ones you need to upgrade through crafting. Crafting here is not a huge element like you see in Monster Hunter series, but it helps the flow of the game as an alternative to buying things outright. You can get some better gears earlier before they're available in shops by crafting, and some items (upgrades, consumables) can only be acquired by crafting.

  The Great: Customization

  Fell Seal is really saved by its excellent customization, and you can see them right after you start the game. You're offered customizable difficulty settings in the beginning where you can configure the enemies AI (their combat decision-making such as use of items, revive, etc), enemies gear and attributes, level scaling, and a couple others. There's a preset if you're too lazy to decide yourself. If you want to customize even more, you can go to Documents\Fell Seal\customdata_examples to extensively tweak the game config yourself - from EXP gained to damage output. Then after your first battle you're introduced to guild, where you can not only recruit but also visually customize your non-story characters: their unit models and portraits. Of course this is in addition to the usual class and abilities customization, just like in FF Tactics. Speaking of class, you have one main class with a subclass, with stat growth and various abilities you can mix and match, so you can theorycraft the perfect build to your liking. The great thing is, the game doesn't penalize experimentation if you go crazy trying out different classes. There's no "wrong build" - even if you feel so, there's an option to reset the character to level 1. With the DLC, you can use AFK-timer missions to send your non-story units to gain EXP and Ability Points (as well as money and items). You don't have to turn on your game all night because the time counter works outside the game. If you like tinkering further with class, modding this game is extremely easy. You can download class packs on Nexus Mods (I recommend the most balanced Simon's Class Pack) and/or you can make some yourself through editing the XMLs in Documents\Fell Seal\customdata_examples.

  Verdict

  Fell Seal, like the inspiration it cites, similarly inherits the game's failing at balance. Some classes are awkward to use or downright useless that you'd get them only for their passive abilities. At certain level too you'll slaughter your enemies in seconds just like you'd do in FF Tactics even when playing in the harder difficulties. And as already mentioned, the writing is completely forgettable to the point it ends up dragging the game, making optional battles and one-off sidequests more enjoyable than reading the character's interactions. However the extensive customization and seamless gameplay really saved Fell Seal. I suggest at least you try this game (at discounted price) once and see if you like it.
• RedFox

  Aug 22, 2023

  A really nice nice tactics game with a large number of classes to use and a good art (no many people like the art, but if you take a good look, the art is good with a lot of small details). The game have a good balance and it's possible to make some crazy class combinations to deal a lot of damage. Since the game is moddable and have a customizable difficulty settings it makes the game really nice to play multiple times.
• Bootymancer

  Sep 6, 2023

  5/10 Story and Character writing are honestly abysmal. World building is quite bad. The portrait artwork looks pretty good but the sprites do not. Soundtrack was passable but totally forgettable. Gameplay was ok. Grindy, but didn't feel like there was a ton of depth.(ignore hours played, I left this shit on in the background. Probably more like 60-80 hours of actual playtime) Completely pales in comparison to every FFT game which it is attempting to imitate. Mercenaries Blaze is in the same Indie SRPG/FFT imitator space as this and does basically everything a bit better. Fell Seal isn't totally bad, but it isn't good either. Ultimately a pretty forgettable experience.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 7, 2019

  People compare almost every tactical RPG to Final Fantasy Tactics where it's pretty much a cliche. In my book most games don't quite scratch the same itch. NIS's games like Disgaea are more about grind than combat tactics, Fire Emblem plays more like a strategy game with the lack of character customization, and most indie titles I've tried have trouble walking the line between having enough interesting options to build characters around and not having anything obviously broken that dominates the gameplay (to be fair, FFT is crazy broken as well). Of all the tactical RPGs I've tried in the past decade+, Fell Seal has done the best at living up to this comparison, and in many ways improves on the classics' formula. The core mechanics are a mix of FFT, FFTA, and Tactics Ogre. There's a similar speed system to all three games. MP starts at 0 and ticks up like in Tactics Ogre. There's a job system with characters having a primary job plus a secondary skillset and you earn ability points to buy new abilities for your current job like the FFT series. There's even shared learning across characters; if you bring your Wizard and Ranger into the same fight, your Ranger will get a few Wizard points and vice versa, just like FFT. That's not to say it's a direct copy -- Fell Seal has its own ideas too. Every character (including enemies!) has access to Items like Potions, and you get a fresh stock each fight so you're encouraged to use them instead of hoarding. There's tons of character customization options since each class has two innate passives and two slots for cross-class skills which enables a lot combinations. The balance is also well done with each class having its own niche and feeling reasonably unique. Whether you have the Peddler which lays traps on the battlefield that trigger on enemy movement, War Mages which can imbue their attacks with spells, or a Knight which doesn't even need a weapon since they can use their Defense as their attack stat, every class makes you think about how to build a character around their skillset and what passives complement it. The game is also delightfully transparent with things like stat growths and formulas for abilities available in-game and easily accessible in the UI, even during combat. Customization extends to other parts of the game as well. Difficulty can be tuned in a wide range of ways, be it affecting how enemies scale, what items they have available, and penalties for characters falling in battle. If you want more options, the game has modding support just by modifying a few .txt or XML files. Modifying basic game mechanics like MP per turn, tweaking existing abilities, or even adding new classes are all options. That said, I haven't had much urge to mod since the base game has tons of content and is well balanced already. I also want to mention the art because it doesn't exactly make a strong first impression on most people (including me). Honestly, the art is half the reason I felt like writing this since I'm worried people will skim past the game since the art makes the game look less polished than it is. All I can say here is that it grows on you over time. There's also a good amount of customization in how you can dress up your non-story characters which is fun too. The game has a free demo available on their website so give it a try!
• gamedeal user

  Apr 30, 2019

  Estimated Time for a Single Playthrough: 30-50 Hours (Determinant on difficulty, how much side content the player is willing to do, and how much level grinding a player decides to do) [9/10] for those who are familiar, and enjoy SJRP's like Final Fantasy Tactics. [8/10] for those who have a neutral perspective on the SJRPG genre. I highly recommend this title for a variety of reasons such as enticing gameplay, solid replay value, decent music, flexible customization, and fantastic "secret" content. While I personally would consider the story slightly below average - I still found myself occasionally captivated by the narrative being presented and invested in some (heavy emphasis on "some") of the characters presented. Whether or not a story is a determinant factor that makes, or breaks a game for you, Fell Seal offers cutscene skipping which is complimentary to those of us who would rather focus on the gameplay aspects of this title. The gameplay is incredibly fun, challenging, rewarding, flexible, and I would 100% encourage anyone even slightly interested in strategy RPG's to give this a try. [PROS] • High amounts of customization with a multitude of different classes, and abilities that can be mixed to create builds. Experimentation is highly encouraged, and pulling off a good build to clear difficult content feels very rewarding. • Different difficulty levels. This is great for replay value. • Some music tracks are very good. While admittedly not all the tracks acquired my intrigue, I would rate the soundtrack in positive light. • Unique classes to certain story characters, and secret classes for non-story characters only that adds to the overwhelming variety of build options. It also encourages players to level up generic units since some secret classes are exclusive to the generic non-story characters. I found this to be a great incentive to keep going forward in the story out of curiosity to see what the next story character will be, or secret class I would find. • Mod support (Unfortunately there is no steam workshop available, and I read that the developers were considering it. Although manually downloading mods hasn't been a very difficult endeavor for me so far) • Usable items in battle are low in quantity, but replenish every battle. This allows players to fully utilize what they have available to them without the feeling of "wasting" an item that would be better allocated elsewhere. This is also complimented by a crafting system that expands on the potential of usable items. • Generic character appearances are customizable. While the options are limit, it is still a nice feature to see. • Level, and class progression can be quick although it is still a grind to "master/max" all classes and levels on a single character. This provides a sense of "pacing" that you aren't powering up to slow, or to fast. • Equipment is flexible. You can decide to not equip a shield in exchange for an extra accessory, etc. • No random encounters. Instead you can choose when to participate in a random battle for when you want to level grind. • Skippable cutscenes • Developers are currently very active with the community, and take feedback into consideration. [CONS] • Story is nothing groundbreaking, but not completely bad. It definitely picks up during the second half of the game, but regardless you can always skip cut scenes if you just want to focus on the gameplay aspects. • Accuracy may invoke feelings of being "cheated" at times. Many attacks will project between 80%-95% chance to hit which would make misses feel very punishing, and discouraging. While I believe this is the nature of the beast in regards to this genre, I can definitely understand how may serve as an angering factor for other players. • There is a very defined difficulty spike that occurs during the game. • Art style is subjective to individual taste. I personally didn't like it at first as it looked akin more to a "internet browser flash game", but it grew on me the longer I played. Although I can understand the criticisms associated with the artistic design AND understand the developers decision for employing the art style as well. [Things I would Love to See Added] • Steam Workshop Support (Easier modding) • DLC Unique/Story Characters and Events • More classes (the amount of classes in the game is satisfactory, don't get me wrong - but who doesn't want more?) - Modding classes helps scratch this itch ALOT! • More appearance customization options • Alternative appearances for main characters (potential DLC?) [Conclusion] In conclusion I highly encourage anyone who loves strategy RPG's to give this game a chance. I would advise you to not look into this game just thinking of it solely as a "successor" or "replacement" for Final Fantasy Tactics. Fell Seal should be looked as its own entity that does some things better, and worse than previous titles that may have already seeded themselves deep into our poor nostalgic hearts. While I would consider this a "complete game" I still found myself certainly wanting more - and wholeheartedly hope that additional content is released whether in the form of free patches or paid DLC. I commend the development team for what they have accomplished with the resources they had, and consider my desire for even more content to not be a flaw but rather a testimony to how much I enjoy this game. While Fell Seal may not be for everyone - I would encourage anyone to look into this game. EDIT: 04/30/19 - Fixed a formatting error.
• gamedeal user

  May 1, 2019

  The most fun I have had since Final Fantasy Tactics on the PS1 ! PROS: - Classes are diverse, fun and unique - Monster diversity - Development of chars - Art is very nice, who needs 3D in a fantasy strategy game ? I don't, rather have quality over realistic graphics - Equipment is very diverse and well made - Hidden stuff CONS: - Story is so so, if you compare it to FFT - Some story characters' special classes aren't that useful - Dialogue is also not that good, could have been more polished It has it's flaws like any other game, but it is fun as hell if you like games like FFT, Tactics Ogre and Vandal Hearts.
• gamedeal user

  May 16, 2019

  I'm really struggling with writing this review, because I want to like this game, and I want to support more games like it being made. It's just that the act of playing this game, and attempting to enjoy it, is a frog-boiling so delicate and so slow that you don't realize how painful it is until all of a sudden you realize: wow, fuck this. Pros: - The classes are cool, the hybrid skill tree / AP system (JP for y'all FFT-heads) is a new take on a done idea - The way leveling works means that you're encouraged to try new classes and keep a deep roster, which is more encouraging than "spam your version of Orlandu and Agris" - It's a lot of Final Fantasy Tactics but with some fun wrinkles! - QoL stuff like being able to pick "Patrol" to force a random encounter onto a map you've beaten is really cool for grinding (but see below for why this isn't as cool as it could be) - Tons of difficulty sliders so you can customize not only how easy/hard the game is, but WHY it's easier or harder (like, "enemies spam phoenix downs more often" or "there are more enemies, including rarer ability configurations" on one end of sliders, and "enemies have flatly lower % stats" or "dying is a lesser/nonexistent penalty" or "enemies start with fewer items or won't use them as intelligently" on the other end). Cons: - 12 hours in and all but 2 maps so far have the same gimmick: All enemies start high up, you start at the lowest possible point, and they spam ranged slow/root/dot/aoe abilities on you while you navigate your way to doing anything meaningful - The turn/speed system interacts absolutely horribly with how stat-based level ups are calculated - The above two combine so that the following occurs: Enemies who start as a high-speed primary class (which is most enemies so far, because there's a lot of Scoundrels, Rangers, and similar light-armor, fast-attack dudes) have almost the maximum possible speed you can have at the same level, so most fights start with your specialized Fast Person going 2nd or 3rd in the turn order, then every single enemy in a row, then your team. If you're lucky maybe they have somebody slow who goes only halfway through your team's rotation. - Those 2 maps that weren't Dorter Trade City But Loud? A boss fight that spams aoe disables that you don't have protection against, at all, at this stage of the game, and a Mandalia Plains remix where every square is obscured by the camera angle + rows of fantasy world corn. - Special mention goes to the Cathedral Rooftop But Worse fight where enemies start, at absolute best, 3 turns away from being attackable due to pure verticality, while you're forced to escort a perma-berserked "ally" with another AI NPC who, despite being a caster, loves to slam his face into enemy knives as hard as he possibly can - The "anti-grinding" measures this game has to prevent FFT-style walking-between-encounter-dots is...you get dramatically less AP for non-story fights. I understand why they're trying to keep people from just doing what they're going to do anyway, but folks...people are going to do it anyway. You're just making it painful. Verdict: I can't recommend this game. I want to love it so badly, after multiple maxed-timestamp FFT playthroughs on my old PlayStation and countless emulated hours, this game looked like everything I could want out of FFT but made 2 decades later. But the combination of a series of individual design decisions (enemy party ability make-up + stat per level scaling on speed + map geography) makes all those nifty difficulty sliders I mentioned earlier not really amount to much---even if the enemies are 15% weaker on the whole, I'm still slogging my way up to them up Murder Stairs all day, forever. I'm hoping the designers are receptive to feedback and open to changing things, because I'd love to play this game for thousands of hours. As it is, I can hardly stomach one more.
• gamedeal user

  May 21, 2019

  Fell Seal is exactly what I always wanted from this genre. The game has everything what made FF Tactics and Tactics Ogre great, from the robust class system, map design with elevation and such, combat mechanics and elements, exploration and team building, to story pieces in-between missions. No gimmicks and no cards mechanic, it's truly inspired by FF Tactics at its very core. That said, Fell Seal is not exactly a copy, as they also added some (optional) mechanics, including the injury system. If a character falls in a battle, they will be injured and get gimped stats if you choose to deploy them in the next battle. It's there to encourage having a substitute character ready just in case. It also encourages you to try different kind of characters and classes. Consumables also work differently here, as they replenish after each combat so you can freely use them to as you see fit. Instead of obtaining stronger consumables, you can upgrade them in the crafting menu.Speaking of crafting, there are lots of stuff to craft too, from consumables to gears and accessories. The game gets harder the further you progress, especially since the enemies are more varied and consisted of more endgame jobs combination. The AI is also pretty smart and will fully utilize their tools and the map conditions. However, it doesn't stop you from breaking the game with OP jobs combination too. If you like managing your party, you'll spend a lot of time tinkering in the party menu. Each job is unique and there are lots of job synergies that you can try. It's the highlight of the game for me. Sadly, the story is not that great. It's serviceable at best. I like the characters, but they didn't really develop throughout the game. If they can hire better writers and get bigger budget (for VA, for example), their next game could become a masterpiece in the genre.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 7, 2019

  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Ratings 10/10 (Excellent Class Change, Innovative Crafting System) -----------------Update on June 26, 2019 at 346 hours ----------- The new DLC was released on June 23, and was a great addition to the game. I loved it. For the last few days, I literally spent almost all my time playing the DLC in NG+. I had a fantastic time. Here's some of the key features in the DLC, which is aptly named Mission & Monsters. 1. Missions -- You get to build a very large guild consortium that span 5 different cities in your empire. As you select what features to build, each feature will give you different advantages. Subsequently you get new guild related missions which is totally different from the previous main and side quests that are offered in various cities. You can send 3 or 4 teams to do these guild missions while your main team is doing city related main and side quests. 2. Monsters - You can now tame and add monsters to your existing team. Previously I had a team of 7 story characters, and 4 user-made characters. Now I added another 18 different monsters into staff, and can then organized them into suitable teams for the various guild missions. Each monster also get to learn skills from different monster classes during the various missions too. All these seems a whole lot of busy work. However, in fact, the amount of work that I have to do with the DLC is actually less!!! This is because the game has now added a very high quality AI auto fight capability. You can still set high level strategic guidiance, like specifying different roles for the team members (damager, healer, guardian, do nothing, manual control, etc), and let your computer to the fighting for you. Well, the game AI is very high quality, and can cast various spells or used appropriate skills too. In fact, I would say that the AI playes even better than me, and at a very fast speed too. I love this feature, and let the AI do all the busy work and grinding for me, while I take a break or watch movies on my dual screen. Wow, this is life !!! The DLC adds 10 more achievements, and I spent about 100 hours or so having a good time. -----------------Update on June 16, 2019 at 213 hours ------------ I finally finished the entire game, and every achievement in the game, with extreme satisfaction and closure. This game still definitely deserve the rare 10/10 ratings. Although this game currently does not have a NG+, there was a lot of things to do after finishing the campaign story. There were post game contents, in the form of another totally new area to explore called the Ancient Path, with great story as well. Then there was the 4 Mastery type of Achievements which is extremely time consuming and satisfying. To get all the achievements, you need to Master all Unique Story Classes (7), Master all Human Classes (20), Master all Monster Classes (20) and Master all the hard to get Hidden Batch Classes (6). Since each class give the player additional bonuses, you would want each of your 7 story characters to Master EVERY available classes too. This is the fun and enjoyable part for me as I loved the meaningful grinding. To give the game a lot of room for grinding, each character can go up level 99. I finished all the achievements at level 95. Totally satisfied !! ------------- Original Review June 7, 2019 at 50+ hours----------- I have been playing RPGs for 4 decades and I very rarely give 10/10 ratings. However, this game is truly excellent and addictive and deserve such a high rating because of the following reasons: This game has one of the very best class change system that I have seen in years. My first RPG was "Wizardry 1: Proving grounds of the Overlord" that was made by Sir-Tec in 1981 and has a great class change system which I love. Over the years, the other great game is FFXI (Final-Fantasy 11) that has a great class-subclass mechanism. This game improved on both these system (Wiz 1 & FFXI) to come up with an even more addictive class change mechanism. There is a wide variety of classes (and hidden classes) that you can unlocked and changed into. Beside that there are 7 story heroes, each of which also have their own unique "super" classes that are tied to the development of the story. In the early part of the game story, you are given access to only 3 of the story heroes, which make it necessary for you to create your own heroes. Although the heroes that you created do not have their own unique story-based "super" classes, they can however changed into 6 additional super hidden classes using 6 badges that have to be unlocked through detailed explorations. These badge classes are not available to the story heroes, as to balance their power, and make it more interesting to play a mix of both story heroes and your created heroes. There is also a very different non-human story hero that can transform into various monster-based classes and sub-classes. This give additional significance to killing those powerful monsters on the map, as they will add to his ability. He also get unique ability to fly, hover or swim based on those monsters as well. This allow him to get unique loots from hard-to-access places. The game allows for a lot of intensive and fun grinding, as it has 99 levels for each character too. Beside classes, the item crafting system is also very unique and fun. This is because items are extremely hard to craft, but once crafted they can be used for EVERY battle. For example, if you managed to craft 2 healing potion and 1 greater healing potion, then you can unlock & use this 3 items for EVERY battle without using them up. All the more, this make it totally worthwhile to just craft 1 more healing potion, or 1 more mana stone, no matter how difficult it is. Of course, beside items, you can also craft unique story-based armor and weapons too. You can also craft an interesting type of item called "gadgets" that are used by the class Gadgeteer. As you can probably realized crafting components are extremely difficult to get (because of the unlimited use of items), and this make any kind of crafting extremely valuable to the gamer. After 50+ hours, I am still at the early stages of this fantastic game. However, I am taking some time off my gaming to write this review to introduce the game to my friends. Although the price of this game is rather high, it is totally worthwhile to get it at full price of $30 for such an addictive game. This game totally deserve the 10/10 game rating.