Elohim Eternal: The Babel Code

Now this game, it's already been said that you get experience for lore. And what lore there is! In-universe, there's a lot of little hints and nuances that tie things together. Arguments, discussions, things that happen when cultures clash, how history and what is written changes, and how religion fits into all of that. You play this game for the story (and the RPG combat of course). But mostly the story. I am enjoying myself playing this game.

This game proves that a compelling story doesn’t require many characters—quality triumphs over quantity. The narrative is captivating, with an inspiration from Christianity that some might find “disrespectful” due to its mythological parallels with earlier religions like Greek and Roman. However, it’s handled tastefully and sincerely. The characters are very relatable, though it took me a while to warm up to Joshwa. He initially comes across as somewhat whiny. This was likely intentional, showcasing his growth throughout the game. The dialogue is well-crafted, and the story kept me engaged. I actually looked forward to playing again between breaks. I highly recommend this game. It offers the perfect-sized adventure—not too long, not too short.

Blasphemy! This is a pretty solid game with a great story that will keep you going to find out what happens next. The turn based combat is a little different since its all magic based and no physical attacks. It does get fairly repetitive but most turn based games do. The story makes up for it and i cant wait for the next game to see where the story goes next.

Great game! Can't wait for the sequel since it ends on a cliffhanger with a bunch of questions unanswered. I was a bit skeptical at the beginning since it was kinda of info dump-y with a lot of strange words that are hard to pronounce. But glad I kept going! By midpoint, when everything starts making sense, I couldn't stop rooting for the characters and see where the story would go next. Combat was fine although on the easy side since you can cheese all fights by stunlocking enemies with freeze loop.

Absolutely loved this game and can't wait for the sequel. I even enjoyed the many scriptures and lore. Such a detailed environment and character development. Well done to all involved.

Playthrough video on Youtube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YoM0BAwAiw Reading on the game when I was first made aware of it, I found it had an interesting story and concept. Took me a little time to actually play it but it was worth the wait. There are a few things I've seen in this game I haven't seen in a game before. First off, just talking to people offers actual experience points and sometimes items (most RPGs tend to give these only for quests or tasks). The battle system was another point; instead of a standard fight/magic/item scenario you don't have an actual fight command instead having two different types of magic and a timed-hit system (similar to Super Mario RPG in a way, or Legend of Dragoon). The big thing is the story. There is a LOT of story. So much so, that I feel that the developer went overboard with the dialogues early on. You run into a few sparse battles and then you deal with paragraphs of text. The game even has an option to skip all random encounters and just play it like a visual novel. This kind of led me to believe it was originally meant to be a visual novel and then the RPG stuff kind of got slapped on top. But once you touched the combat, you realized how much effort was put into it. The regular battles weren't too tough (except for one that practically destroys me early on; see the video in the link above) but the boss battles were the real highlight. The second type of magic in the game really comes into play on these tough encounters and requires a level of strategy I wasn't expecting. It made me want more battles and was the reason I pushed on through the first couple hours of the game. That being said, it is a wonderfully designed game. It uses many references of religion and ancient cultures and adds the modern concept of technology to create a world that feels like it has a life of its own. Although it is based loosely on ancient biblical times, the characters in the game are aware of worlds beyond their own and the concept of space travel. I do stress that if you don't like a bunch of dialogue, the early part of the game might put you off. But if you can manage to get through the first 60-90 minutes the game does open up and you can experience more of what makes this a worthy game of your time. For $9.99 USD it is budget-friendly for anyone looking to delve into the game.

[h3]Tl;dr[/h3] A completely linear JRPG Bible-esque fanfic, borderline disrespectful to source religious material. [h3]CONs[/h3] [list] [*] My first and foremost issue with this game is that I find some of usage of Christian and Judeo-Christian symbolism in it disrespectful while having no good reason to be present at all, e.g.: [*] usage of Chi-Ro monogram on a combo screen: it is there for no reason, really any other image could and IMO should be used there; [*] the in-game 'shop' device, which is called 'The Oak of Moreh' for no reason – this name isn't even referenced anywhere else in game materials beside the tutorial; etc. [*] The plot is absolutely linear with no variation whatsoever. [*] The combat is butt-clenchingly tedious rather than anything else. While there's a decent variety of enemies, the variety of combat is virtually non-existent. Of course there's an in-game item to turn off the combat in it's entirety, but throwing out good two thirds of a game instead of making it more engaging is a rather poor solution. [*] Optional side activities are few in number, are not very engaging or rewarding, and also are given to player in a very blunt way, which would make sense for a mission-style gameplay division, but not for a linear plot driven game. [*] Character quests, if you can call them that, are nearly perfectly identical. [*] The plot finale is 'yo dawg we heard you love cliffhanging so we put a cliff on your cliff so you can hang while you hang'. [/list] [h3]PROs[/h3] [list] [*] The enemy sprites are nice-looking, even if not always making sense combined with the zone they appear in. [*] Very nice tile graphics. [*] Good visual variety between game zones. [/list] [h3]Other[/h3] Worldbuilding is nice if you like Sanderson, not so much otherwise.