Recent reviews by ShadowRaiki

Escape from Duckov may seem like a cheap, parody game, but it actually has solid chops and a charming style to boot. Gun fights can be surprisingly hectic and in-game progression will keep you playing just one more round.

I would give Escape from Duckov a 7/10 with its score mostly being brought down by the end game experience. $17.99 is a fair price for the game.


Escape from Duckov is a single-player, top-down, extraction shooter (though modders have amazingly added multiplayer if that's your jam, just be aware it's quite buggy in its current iteration). What does this mean? It means you load into a map, kill enemies, find loot, and get the hell out.

While this may all seem... pointless, the quests are what give you direction. Think of them as a constantly changing objective each time you load into a map. Sometimes you'll want to prioritize looting a certain type of container in search of a specific item necessary for crafting, sometimes you'll need to kill a specific enemy, and still other times you'll need to deliver an item. These constantly shifting objectives are what make the maps so replayable as it forces you to play in a different way than the previous dozen times.

Finding specific items is how you'll unlock traits that grant you passive bonuses such as increased health and damage. These items are how you'll increase your stash space and how you'll unlock more NPCs. As a result, due to the RNG nature of looting, it can be frustrating to not find the exact item you need and thus Duckov smartly allows you to craft or buy many of these items so that your progression isn't completely blocked.

It's for this exact reason that the end-game goes from frustrating to aggrevating as many of the end-game components CANNOT be crafted or bought and must be found on a specific map meaning you'll be endlessly grinding that single map. And looting the entire map, just to not get the item you want, can feel like a colossal waste of time.

Still, I had a great time with Escape from Duckov. I enjoyed the art style and the ridiculous (in a good way) characters. The shooting was smooth and different enemy types and bosses kept you on your toes.

Early access preface: I played SurrounDead on patch 0.7.1. By the time you read this review, the game may have been updated and is a completely different game from the one I played.

SurrounDead is one of the better zombie games on the market currently. Whereas some games go all in on the simulation, ala Project Zomboid, while others go all in on the action, ala Left 4 Dead, SurrounDead manages to balance both sim and action without letting one bog down the other.

In its current state, I would tentatively give SurrounDead a 7/10 with there being more than enough content to justify the $11.99 price tag.

SurrounDead is not a game that pushes any boundaries. An open world, zombie survival game with crafting and looting? Tell me if you've heard that one before. But what SurrounDead does do is execute on all of those elements with a shine and polish that many games seem to lack nowadays.

Take for example, the early game of most zombie games where you're not yet powerful enough to take on a horde, so you creep around, trying to avoid the hordes of undead. Maybe you craft a bow to start off or have to use exclusively melee weapons. This is boring. In SurrounDead, guns are plentiful and there's more than enough ammo to go around (assuming you rotate your weapon selections and are smart about your shot placement). However, having a firearm does not guarantee your survival. Get too cocky and forget to check a corner, and a zombie will ruin your day.

As you explore points of interest, kill zombies, loot, and play inventory tetris (Escape from Tarkov players will feel right at home), you'll gradually find better armor, better weapons, and maybe even a few key cards that will let you tackle some of the higher-tier "dungeons". This is what I consider to be the mid-game and represents the bulk of the game. Stealthily taking down all nearby zombies so you can loot safely is satisfying as is running in with a shotgun, guns blazing. Vehicles allow you to both traverse the map faster and go further. Human enemies add some nice contrast to the zombie killing and if looting gives you a hit of dopamine, then you'll greatly enjoy SurrounDead at this point.

The end game is where SurrounDead is weakest. As mentioned earlier, there are more dangerous areas where you can acquire better loot. However, at this point, you most likely already have the best gear and nothing can pose a challenge to you. You can snipe every zombie from so far away that even without a silencer, they won't know your position. Hordes pose little threat to your machine gun with 200-rounds of 7.62x51mm, and nothing clears out an area faster than a noise maker combined with a well placed grenade. And since you already have the best gear, there isn't much point to looting other than to fund your ammunition expenditure. It's at this point you'll begin to realize that there isn't that much variety to enemies and even bosses don't have any mechanics that can really threaten you.

It may sound like I'm down on the game, but that's probably because I forced myself to clear every single point of interest on the map. Without a credits screen, it can be difficult to know when to stop playing. My recommendation is to play the game and when you feel that you're not finding any better gear, go check out the major points of interest and once you've done that, put down the game. Doing this will give you roughly 40-50 hours of game play and ensure you don't spend too much time in the end game where your opinion may sour.

I look forward to revisiting SurrounDead when multiplayer is added and base building has more purpose other than creating endless amounts of storage space.

Objectively, I would say The Last Remnant is a 4/10 game. It has an abysmal story, a convoluted crafting system, and a severe lack of in-game information that forces you to consult outside resources to better understand the game's mechanics. Despite my score, I still recommend folks at least try the game because it has one of the most unique combat systems I've seen in a JRPG in quite a while.

Given that The Last Remnant can no longer be purchased on Steam, it's hard to compare what I feel the price should be versus the actual price. If it were ever to return though, I would say wait until it's about $10.

The Last Remnant is an interesting game. It has one of the most subpar stories I've ever seen: characters conveniently awaken their powers as the plot demands, other characters are conveniently introduced when answers are needed, and worst of all, a character that is almost identical to another is conveniently thrown into your party as a replacement when the latter dies. The entire story is one of convenience with major events barely have any connecting threads as you progress from one set piece to the next. In fact, we don't even learn of the major villian's motivations until right before the final fight of the game!

Despite all this, I found myself engrossed by the gameplay. Using up to 18 characters, you are able to build a maximum of 5 squads. Whereas traditional JRPGs have you controlling a set number of party members, each with their own abilities, in The Last Remnant, you can think of each squad as a "party member" with their abilities determined by the squad composition. For example, have enough tanks in a squad? You can use the Defend command to take less damage. Enough medics? You can have the squad use a dedicated healing command. And if you want maximum damage? Toss in as many warrior-types as you can.

Battles occur on a 2D map where your squads can target enemy squads. You gain advantages for intercepting enemy squads or ganging up on them with multiple squads, however you'll have to be careful with your positioning because enemy squads can do the same to you.

Messing around with the characters and squads was where I had the most fun in the game. Should you have less squads with more units to make them more durable? Or more squads with less units so you can intercept the maximum number of enemy squads possible? Should each squad be balanced? Hyper-focused? How many melee squads should I have? How many magic? How many healers? As you recruit more characters, you'll constantly be messing with your team composition, swapping characters in and out as you see fit.

There is a surprising amount of depth to the gameplay. Unfortunately, most of this is never properly explained to you in-game and you'll have to consult external resources to make heads or tails of the game's many mechanics. Things like how to make characters certain classes, what each classes' bonuses are, what abilities each character will learn, thus determining if they're worthwhile to invest in, how to gain stats, and how the battle rank system works are just some of the things that should have been better explained.

Sadly, while the gameplay is interesting, that alone couldn't sustain the 50+ hour game. Up until near the end of the game, I was doing every side quest, only missing out on a few missions due to not realizing they were story-gated. But by the end, I was sprinting through every dungeon and ignoring all monsters to simply reach the final boss. And honestly, the ending was pretty anti-climatic.

Overall, while I didn't rate The Last Remnant that highly, I do think it's worthwhile for people to at least try the game for its combat system. It does give you a greater scale of battle and makes you feel like a commander rather than two parties standing on the sidelines, taking turns smacking each other. Whether it's worthwhile to finish the game after that is up to you.

Long Gone Days is a game where I mostly tolerated the gameplay in order to experience the story. Despite advertising itself as a modern JRPG, I would say the moment to moment gameplay was subpar compared to titles thirty years prior such as Final Fantasy I. While the story was intriguing enough to keep my playing, the short length made wanting a little more as not all the characters were as arc'd out as I would have liked.

Overall, I would give Long Gone Days a 6/10. Given the length of the game and its bog standard gameplay, I would say the game is worth approximately $10 to me.

Let's quickly talk about gameplay before we get into the game's story. Despite being a JRPG, Long Gone Days has no exp or leveling with the majority of your stats coming from your equipment and a smaller amount from temporary buffs during battle. Abilities are only gained at certain moments in the story. Additionally, HP and MP are not ever recovered except through the usage of items or abilities. When you combine all of this, it results in fairly monotonous battles as you spam basic attacks because you either have no useful abilities or want to conserve your MP for boss battles.

Items such as grenades do help to compensate for the lack of abilities early on and while the game is generous in giving you more items, because there are no shops or ways to readily acquire more of the same items, you're always unsure if you should be wasting that particular item or not. Perhaps a way to barter items you have an abundance of for items you're lacking would fit thematically.

The one somewhat interesting mechanic of battles is the ability to target enemy body parts. Aiming for their torso will result in less damage but a higher chance of landing a hit while aiming for their head will result in the opposite. You can also aim at their arms for a chance to paralyze enemies and have them skip their turn entirely. However, I quickly learned that the chance of paralyzing an enemy is so low that it's never worthwhile to target their arms and the increased damage of hitting their head greatly outweighs the reduced hit chance.

Weirdly, one of the things I did enjoy about combat was being able to see each character's facial expressions throughout the battle. Seeing their determined expressions really made me feel for each character and the struggles they were going through.

Now onto the story. I adore how the game handled multiple languages and I especially loved how you couldn't understand certain NPCs until you acquired a party member that was capable of speaking said language. Rather than create characters that were walking stereotypes to reflect their nationality, using linguistics in this manner allowed the characters to shine through with their own, unique personalities.

I enjoyed the themes that Long Gone Days presented and many of them are relevant in our present day. Totalitarian governments, propaganda, and following orders, some of them hit a little too close to home. The characters were also a delight with it being funny at times seeing how Rourke and Adair were experiencing life outside of The Core.

While I am a fan of shorter games, I do think that Long Gone Days suffers a bit from pacing and could have benefitted from being longer. For example, the game begins in medias res, but we reach that particular point in the story again so quickly that it makes me wonder why we didn't just start the story from the very beginning as opposed needing a flashback. Additionally, the twist where Rourke learns the truth of their mission happens honestly surprised me. Not because I didn't see it coming, but because it happened so quick that I was flabbergasted that the reveal was already here. It's almost as if characters are a little bit TOO emotionally mature, overcoming their trauma and making life-changing decisions before I've even had a chance to get fully invested in their arc (if they even have an arc).

So yeah, while I did enjoy Long Gone Days, I do think it could use some gameplay improvements as well as a few more moments to develop the characters. For example, the various ship and train rides would have been great moments for the party to simply talk to one another and shoot the ♥♥♥♥. Get us invested into the merry little band.

While we're here, let me just list a few quality of life things I wish Long Gone Days had:
- The ability to see what buffs your party and enemies currently have
- The ability to see hit chances for basic attacks
- The ability to see hit chances for debuffs
- The ability to see exactly how much HP an enemy has
- The ability to sort items by type
- In-game explanation for what each stat does

Troubleshooter is a game with more mechanics than is honestly necessary, the majority of which can be safely ignored and only really contribute to bloating the core mechanics of the game. And it's a shame because the core gameplay, creating unique builds for all your characters and having them wreck havok across the map, is fun. This is in direct contrast to the story which, while having good ideas, is nonsensical.

Taking all that into account, I would rate Troubleshooter a 6/10. $25 is a fair price for the game.

Troubleshooter is an interesting game. It feels like it should be an MMORPG and has all the hallmarks of one, but is in fact, a single player game. It has item crafting, item tiers, randomized stats on each item, and a menu scheme that should be familiar with anyone that's played an MMORPG before. It even has a small bit of overworld where you can walk around and talk to NPCs as if you were in an MMORPG. But the question is... why? All these mechanics do is dilute the core gameplay experience and for the most part, can be ignored unless you're planning to play on a higher difficulty.

At its core, Troubleshooter is a tactical RPG. Move along a grid, use abilities, and either take out enemies or complete objectives. This part of the gameplay is fairly standard, but where Troubleshooter really shines is in its ability customization. Every character can equip a number of masteries with certain groups of masteries unlocking special passives that greatly increases your strength. This is where the fun really begins as you try to find what mastery sets best synergize with one another and before you know it, you'll have created a unique build that works exclusively for you.

Though I did talk down on the story earlier, I will give it some credit. It has many decent ideas including the setting, but tries to do too much at once. Every party member has a subplot and by the end of the game, nothing is concluded in a satisfactory manner, including the main plot line. In fact, I didn't even realize I was playing the final mission of the game until the credits were rolling. The game makes you feel more like an observer of a larger story than an active participant in the events going on.

Overall, Troubleshooter is decent purely for its gameplay alone. It has a solid foundation and I hope the sequel can be more focused in terms of mechanics and story.

Also, be aware that the translation isn't the greatest. You'll be scratching your head on occasion trying to understand a certain ability or description.

Much like the subject of the game, Schedule I, is like crack. It's highly addictive and had me rushing home from work just so I could play that much longer before begrudgingly fufilling my adult responsibilities. But much like crack, its high was short lived and towards the end of my playthrough, it started to get a bit tedious.

This game consumed my life for about a week. Despite this, I struggle to remember much of it. It's simply one of those games that makes your brain tick. As a result, I find it difficult to give Schedule I anything higher than a 6/10. In terms of price, I do feel that $20 is a fair.

I had just finished binge watching Breaking Bad clips and thought to myself, "Man, I wish there was a game where I could be a drug dealer". Lo and behold, my prayers were answered with the release of Schedule I.

The core gameplay consists of: gathering the necesssary materials to craft your drugs, creating the drugs, and then peddling your drugs. For example, early on, you'll need to acquire marijuana seeds, soil, and fertilizer amongst other equipment such as pots and grow tents. You'll then need to plant, harvest, and package your crop and only then can you approach strangers on the street and offer them your wares.

This loop is surprisingly addictive and you have incentive to sell as much as you can in order to acquire better equipment which in turn allows you to speed up some of the mini-games or automate them completely. As your reputation increases, you unlock higher "tiers" of drugs which you can sell for even more money which you'll need to buy the even better equipment, etc.

Along the way, you'll be able to purchase additional properties to expand your drug empire as well as create new concoctions, all of which have randomly generated names and are good for a laugh when playing with friends.

While all of that is fun, especially with friends, Schedule I is otherwise surprisingly shallow. There are good ideas like the need to launder money in order to purchase legal goods and the automation aspect that really scratches the Factorio itch, but little really changes when going between the second and last tier of drugs. All you can do is more of the same.

The police are hardly a threat and "rival gangs" really only appear in the opening cinematic meaning you get lulled into a routine. Stock up your warehouse. Make sure your workers are paid. Check that your distributors have enough supply and if time permits, maybe make a few sales of your own. For a game about creating and selling drugs, they made it seem almost like having a normal desk job.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Schedule I. Did I love it? Not particularly. Did it engross me in a riveting story and change my perspective on the world? Nope. It was snacky fun and I'll probably revisit the game again when it receives a 1.0 release.

Etrian Odyssey HD is an over 15-year old game that definitely shows its age. While certain aspects of the game such as the mapping were extremely immersive, the combat was lacklustre and the story, non-existant.

Full price, this game is $40. I bought it for $16, which, at the time of writing, is the lowest price it's ever been on sale for and honestly, I still think that was too expensive. I would value Etrian Odyssey HD at about $5 and give it a 3/10.


Dungeon Crawlers are not a genre I'm a huge fan of, but once in a while, I do have an itch to play one with the last one I played being Legend of Grimrock back in 2014. I had heard good things about the Etrian Odyssey series and so I picked up the first game of the origins collection.

And thank god I didn't waste my money on picking up the entire collection as Etrian Odyssey HD was one of the most boring games I've played in a quite while.

The game plays like your standard Dungeon Crawler: move about on a grid, fight monsters in random encounters, and bosses in not so random encounters. However, because the encounter rate is so high, especially when you're constantly backtracking, managing your HP and MP becomes vital to diving deeper into the dungeon. What this means is that the vast majority of non-boss battles will be fought solely with basic attacks. At first you'll do your best to kill enemies efficiently as to avoid HP loss, but as your patience grows thin, you'll most likely auto-battle every fight, HP cost be damned.

Most times, I can overlook mediocre gameplay if the story at least keeps me engaged. But unfortunately, Etrian Odyssey is lacking in that department as well, having nary a story at all with your only real motivation being to reach the bottom of the dungeon.

So if the gameplay is tedious and the story is non-existant, then what reason do I really have to keep playing? Somehow I made it to 20 hours, but I was already thinking of quitting by the 10 hour mark. You can definitely tell that this is a game from 2007 as it lacks so much quality of life that has since been incorporated into other games and made standard. There's so much back-tracking, the side quests are uninspired, and the environments are visually boring.

The one thing I can say I enjoyed was the mapping elements of the game. The thing that I thought would be most tedious ended up being surprisingly immersive and I can see how it took full advantage of the DS's dual screen format back in the day.

Overall, Etrian Odyssey isn't worth your time. It's simply too outdated and there are probably better Dungeon Crawlers in this day and age.

Neon White's core gameplay manages to generate a sense of flow that I haven't felt since Mirror's Edge. This feeling is what ultimately kept me playing the entire way through as the story and setting were pretty lacklustre and seemed to exist solely to somewhat tie together the game elements.

All in all, I would give Neon White a 7/10. $25 is a little steep considering I collected all the gifts and ace medals within my 15 hour playtime, so I feel $20 would be a more fair price to pick the game up at.

Flow is a difficult feeling to define, but you'll know it when it occurs. Mirror's Edge, you have parkour against the backdrop of a beautiful, yet minimalistic city. Titanfall 2, you're bouncing off walls, mowing down enemies with the smart pistol, and now, Neon White has managed to join their ranks.

Neon White accomplishes this in two major ways, the first being excellant level design that ensures the player will almost always be able to reach the goal on their first attempt. While the player will be able to complete the level, this route is almost never optimal which brings us to our second point, making the player feel like a speedrunner.

Each level has three medals (Ace / Gold / Silver) with very fair timing requirements for each. While Gold and Silver can be attained with clean gameplay alone, Ace medals often require clever usage of your movement abilities to traverse the level in creative ways. Being able to find these optimal routes is immensely satisfying and allows you to blow through levels at breakneck speeds.

At first, you won't recognize these shortcuts, but the game graciously provides you with hints on where you can shave off time upon achieving a Gold medal. And once you've seen enough of these hints, you'll start to see the patterns and be able to identify these time saving maneuvers on your own.

While the core gameplay is solid, there are a few annoying bits here and there. For example, some of the later level designs can be confusing as more environmental clutter is added. This can be especially annoying as gifts become increasing difficult to find due to the sheer number of areas they can be hidden. This clutter also messes with the clipping at times and you'll sometimes find yourself stopped by a tiny ledge in the middle of a jump. Additionally, some of the side quests (namely Violet's) feel more like a mix of puzzle and platforming, which seems to contrast sharply with the rest of the game. But again, these are just minor issues.

The larger issue is story. It exists. It's there, I suppose. I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I didn't particularly hate it either. It's just that many of the conversations between characters feel so... vacuous. Often they seem so pointless and do little to progress the story. Oh look, they're rummaging through trash to find leftovers. Now they're having a barbeque. Can't forget about the beach episode. Like why? It's not even funny most of the time. And don't get me started on certain NPCs giving you random gifts that aren't even cool.

Since the game takes place in heaven, I think there was a missed opportunity to have some serious, philosophical conversations between characters regarding life and death, regrets, and ethics. Alternatively, because you can level up relationships, you could have had the characters open up more to the main character, Persona style.

At the end of the day, I can't imagine anyone playing Neon White for the story. You ultimately play Neon White for the sensation of executing three dashes through a group of landmines. You play for the sensation of flicking your mouse as you rocket jump between walls. You play for that sense of flow that can only be found in video games.

P.S - This game has an amazing OST by Machine Girl

Note that this is a review of only Final Fantasy X and not Final Fantasy X-2.

On that note, I would give Final Fantasy X a 7/10. Specifically, the themes of the game stood out to me (death, sacrifice, and religion) as well as the gameplay, probably being the most refined of the mainline, turn-based combat Final Fantasy games. To this day, the sphere grid is probably one of my favorite leveling up systems. Where the game lacks is mostly in the voice acting and pacing, but primarily the writing.

For two games, I feel that $30 is a decent price, but of course, it won't haunt you to wait for a sale.

Final Fantasy X (FFX) is a game I picked up on the original PS2, but never got around to beating. Finally though, nearly two decades later, I decided to complete the game as part of my Final Fantasy series playthrough.

If you are familiar with JRPGs then you should already be familiar with the turn-based combat. You select an attack while the enemy patiently waits, then they have a go at you. Repeat until one side is dead. However, one thing I greatly appreciated in FFX was the ability to see turn order which gives you more agency to plan out your party's actions. Additionally, I enjoyed being able to freely swap party members during battle, allowing you to adapt your party to the battle's needs, rather than being locked into a specific group for the duration of the battle.

Every character feels like they fulfill a specific niche and initially, there wasn't too much overlap between party members. Need to inflict a status ailment? Use Wakka. Need to heal your team? Switch to Yuna. Need elemental damage? Try Lulu. The overlap only comes into play much later in the game when you can essentially have characters "sub-class" into other character's classes through the sphere grid system in order to try and cover their weaknesses.

One major complaint I have with the core gameplay is that later in the game, encounter rates seem to sky rocket and when certain monsters have more HP than some bosses, it can be a bit of a slog. A minor complaint is that there are multiple traders in the game potentially offering the same items for different prices. As a result, you're always uncertain on whether you want to spend money at a specific trader or save your money in case you find a trader offering the same item for cheaper later on.

Now for the story. The story has so many great ideas, namely, the themes of what the game was trying to convey. Is it fair to have one person sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others? Is it okay to fool the masses with a lie so that they might continue living with hope? Themes of nature and machine, faith and the loss of it, but most of all, death.

Unfortunately, how the game conveyed those messages was not the best. I'm not usually a stickler for voice acting, but I played the English dub and felt there was a noticable difference in the voice for when the main character was speaking and when he was monologuing. Additionally, the pacing of the game had me feeling like the game was "about to end" for nearly the last third of the game.

But perhaps the worst flaw in regards to the story is the immediate writing. Conversations don't seem to line up at times with topics jumping from one to the next. Characters will mention wanting to do something, but we're never SHOWN them making any effort trying to do those things. For example, in one cutscene, two characters talk about wanting to save another, but by the next cutscene, the characters admit that they're stumped without having suggested a single idea in-between. Most annoying is that there's one character who clearly knows exactly what is going on throughout the entire story, but is intentionally vague and hides critical information from much of the party (and the player) for almost the entire story.

Despite all of the above, the overall story was competant and even emotional at times. While there were definitely some lows, the highs were of utmost quality and I'm not afraid to say that there were moments that elicited a tear or two from me. I suppose I'm simply disappointed that it could have been so much better if the above flaws were remedied.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Final Fantasy X and would definitely recommend everyone to at least experience it once. Other random highlights include the amazing score (Zanarkand and Besaid are stellar tracks), some of the plot twists, and even the main party members. It was nice having a bright, cheery main character for once, rather than some brooding, edgelord.

Our Adventurer Guild blew me away with the highlights being the organic story moments that the game generics between party members, the wide amount of class and squad diversity available, and the combat that's quick and snappy. While I do feel that the game dragged a bit between the middle and the end, it did pick up again once you unlock the final few skill tiers and classes.

With all that in mind, I would give the game an 8/10. Additionally, I feel $15 is an extremely fair price for the game and would have no qualm picking it up for full price.

I must admit, I was quick to judge Our Adventurer Guild. With an artstyle reminiscent of those "Learn to Draw Manga" books you find in the bargain bin at craft stores, I thought there was no way that this game could be anything more than mediocre. But I do love me some tactical RPGs and so I was wiling to give this game a chance.

Our Adventurer Guild plays like a hybrid of Darkest Dungeon and small party tRPG like Final Fantasy Tactics or Shadowrun. You take on the role of a Guild Master, from recruiting adventurers and sending them off on quests to building up your facilities and making sure your finances are in the black. Gameplay is split into three sections: town, questing, and combat.

In town, you manage your adventurers. This includes their skills, equipment, what party they're in, and even their mental state. While this sounds tedious, the game has plenty of quality of life features to try and make this as seamless as possible. Examples include allowing you to save equipment sets to quickly outfit characters of the same class and alerting you when characters are unhappy enough to consider leaving.

Note that the key word there is try. Not everything is perfect with the most annoying being the need to manage the mental state of your adventurers. Overworking them will make them unhappy, requiring you to buy them drinks and/or give them rest. At some point, you WILL call all your adventurers babies. But if that isn't the true guild master experience, then I don't know what is.

From town, you can build parties and take on quests. Quests all have different objectives and are represented by a large, 2D grid with you moving your party around in the four cardinal directions. Here, you can encounter random events, find treasure, and battle enemies. Moving consumes stamina and upon running out of stamina, you will be forced to camp.

Combat is initiated by coming into contact with an enemy in the quest overworld. Generally, combat maps are on the smaller side with the exception being story scenarios. Here, you'll put your individual builds and party composition to the test. Combat tends to be quick, usually ending in 3-5 rounds on average.

Defeating enemies helps towards completing the quest objective, which in turn gives you experience and money to be spent back in town before heading out on more quests. This cycle is pretty much 95% of the game and is quite addictive. With the amount of classes, skills, and character traits available, you'll spend a decent amount of time theorycrafting and trying to create optimal builds for the randomly generated adventurers you've been dealt. For example, I managed to build an assassin that could single handledly clear an entire enemy encounter by themself and seeing my assassin rampage around the entire map was immensely satisfying.

The strength of the gameplay allows you to overlook some of the weaker aspects of the game. Notice that I said weaker, which doesn't necessarily mean bad. The story feels amateurish and as cliche as they might be, the relationships between characters were the best part of the story. The same could be said for the artstyle. Again, artist's first anime is probably the best way to describe it. Objectively, neither is particularly great, but when combined, they give me strong Flash game vibes and honestly, I started to enjoy it after a while.

I ended up binging the entire game in just under two week's time. The game was strong throughout its entire runtime with the exception being between the middle and end where enemies got their power spike earlier than you. But once you unlocked your next tier of abilities, it was smooth sailing from there. Overall, I greatly enjoyed my time with Our Adventurer Guild. I felt that it had a lot of soul and I could really feel all the heart and effort that the developer put into the game.