Ephemeral Tale

Very fun combination of a lot of fun concepts from different games rolled into one. The monotony of random encounters is toned down by the fact that any monster could possibly drop your next big item. Every piece of equipment you find has a durability and will break (unless you get one of the highest rarity, then it doesn't break.) It may seem frustrating, but with the diversity of items has you cycling in and out different types of armor/weapons with different abilities and random stat bonuses which keeps the random encounters interesting.

The random loot system may have some novelty value, but level design is very poor. Just started what seems to be a tutorial. There's a lake thing "locked" by two crystals that you must activate by collecting the local equivalent of keys, unhelpfully named essence. There are two paths, left and right. Left path leads you to the first key in an obvious place and a circuitous path spanning multiple screens with lots of dead-ends and leading to nowhere. Right path leads to just two locked doors and one locked path, without any clue on how to unlock them. I've spent about two hours running in circles and visiting same locations over and over again hoping to find some missed clue to what to do next, but I'm constantly interrupted by random monster encounters, forgetting where I was going or what I was supposed to explore. And I've played long enough to probably lose my refund ability, DUH! :(

[h1] Pretty fun, but not worth the price tag. [/h1] There's a number of issues with this game that outweigh the fun you can derive from it. Let's start with the pro's and con's. [b] Pro's: [/b] 1. Surprises all around - Loot driven RPG's specifically centered around RNG like this make the game fun and unpredictable. It's a big randomizer from a pool of items maybe sorted by the zone and the level range. 2. Gameplay is reminiscent of nostalgic turn-based RPG's from the Gameboy era. 3. There's a simple and clean battle system, it's not hard nor easy, all up to RNG just like the game's premise because you can be OP, but your enemies are also OP. Maybe it makes the game too linear, maybe it adds spice, up to how you perceive it. [b] Con's: [/b] 1. There are so many areas where you can crash and lost your data if you don't habitually save. The beginning dungeon has areas where you can freeze just by trying to interact or bump into some pots. The later areas have issues with chests where you open it and you don't get any items whatsoever. Sometimes the chest itself freezes your game from just opening it. 2. Some story events don't happen so you may get stuck in certain areas. [spoiler] I beat the Forest and then unlocked the Oasis, but nothing is happening. Every other side quest item has been done. All switches have been pressed. I've fought so many things that my level is way higher than most other players yet I can't seem to trigger the next cutscene [/spoiler] 3. Overall gameplay just gets extremely boring and repetitive despite the RNG loot. Since abilities are limited by the gear you equip, most of the battles are you just auto attacking over and over with a skill mixed in here and there. It gets stale fast. 4. The encounter rate seems to be a bit too high. Now, you can definitely adjust this as a setting unless I read wrong, but the base rate still feels a bit too high if it was ever adjusted by the dev. Every zone I walk through has me encountering three battles each. 5. Party members feel inadequate more often then not. Since they don't benefit from the loot system, they're locked into whatever they have access to at the time, making them either completely useless or just a meatshield. Since the game can get dicey with strong enemies, you want a party member that can take hits for you, but that's frankly, boring. It means there's no way to create synergy in the party dynamic. Overall, I've sunk too many hours into this game to request a refund, but it isn't worth the current price tag. If it is $8 USD or less via sale, then you can pick it up as a quick time-killer.

[h1][b] TLDR: A simple old-school RPG that fills me up with nostalgia – both good and bad. As you get to the end of this short game, the repetition starts to run rampant. [/b] [/h1] [h1]PROS: [/h1] ✅Classic turn-based combat ✅Interesting loot concept [h1]CONS: [/h1] ➖This is definitely a game of three’s – go to these 3 places, in these 3 zones, and hit these 3 crystals….and do it all again 3 times. ➖Repetitive ➖Simple story and gameplay, you’ll be normal attacking 90% of the time. [h1] [b] Content (Game world/Narrative/Lore) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] In Ephemeral Tale, you take control of a hero with no backstory and adventure around to complete objectives because an NPC told you to. It’s a rather simple story, but when taken as a whole package, the game is a definite homage to old-school RPGs. However, what older RPGs lacked in gameplay mechanics and graphics, they made up with an amazingly creative story, which is something that ET also seems to lack… I feel like simple is unable to convey the depths of simplicity that are contained within ET. After the first 2 hours of gameplay, you have a good grasp on how the game world is set up. What’s even worse is that as you approach the [spoiler] “ending”, you’ll be presented with a large “twist” that anyone with working eyeballs could have guessed the second they met the NPC. [/spoiler]. This leads then to an alternative type of game world where you pretty much do the same things you already did over again, as the pattern of 3’s continue. [h1][b] Gameplay (Controls/Mechanics/Loop/Difficulty) – [5/10] [/b] [/h1] I felt that the gameplay was a bit better than the content in ET, if possibly only for a single thing – the gear. As you fight through random battles, you will get absolutely tons of gear. The gear that you can equip helps raise your typical RPG-like stats: Strength, agility, magic attack, mag defense, etc. I found this a bit unique due to two elements- special abilities and durability. Some of the gear has special abilities on it. Maybe your chestpiece will have a thorns-type ability. Maybe your sword poisons on attack, maybe your bow deals a ton of damage, but has some kickback damage to your character. Nothing super overpowered, but it’s a neat aspect for gear. As for durability, you’ll either love it or hate it. Similar to Zelda: Breath of the Wild, gear drops all the time and for a reason, it will break constantly. Thankfully, this game has some drops that never break, but in the beginning, you’ll be constantly shifting through gear, which I found to be one of the only mechanics this game has to address the otherwise simplistic gameplay. There is also a talent tree, but it’s more of an illusion of choice, as you can just simply fill the entire thing up if you grind enough. And that leads us to the core loop of the game. Like most RPGs your goal is to grind and become strong enough to beat the bosses. I found the loop to be almost like Dark Souls, how you grind up points, then go to an NPC to turn the points into talent points. Then rest at a campfire to distribute the talent points. I appreciated the difficulty. You have the option to tweak certain aspects of the game like monster toughness/damage and combat frequency and rewards. None of these choices impact achievements. [h1] [b] Graphics (Quality/Art style/Animations/UI/Performance) – [2/10] [/b] [/h1] Unimpressive, even for pixel graphics. There is a bare minimum of animations. The UI is passable. I experienced no performance issues running this game. [h1] [b] Audio (Sound Effects/Music/Voice Acting/Ambient) – [3/10] [/b] [/h1] I cannot remember anything really specific about the music other than how repetitive it got as I wondered lost around zones. There is no voice acting, basic sound effects, and no ambient audio to speak of. [h1] [b] Replay Factor (Side quests/NG+/Player Choice) – [3/10] [/b] [/h1] There is no side quests or player choices. I will say there IS a NG+. [h1] [b] Final Verdict – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] There’s some things to like with Ephemeral Tale, but I found more things to dislike. It’s a somewhat fun game and I wouldn’t say its super flawed or anything, just super repetitive and perhaps uninspired. [h1] [b] Recommend? [Y/N] [/b] [/h1] [h1]No [/h1] For the general population, I would say no and avoid. For old school RPG nuts like me who are craving some turn-based combat, yes, but just get it on a sale or bundle like I did. You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR

Fun little loot JRPG. New game + so you can playthough over and over while retaining your skills/gear. At least for me, the metagame meant grinding for orange gear, which have infinite durability unlike the lower tiers of gear. Most of the loot drops off many different types of enemies, however some loot only drops off specific monsters, for example "Sassy's Murder Mitts" only seem to drop off the Tigeuxrs in the Bayou. The chances of getting an orange Sassy is pretty low so eventually its just grinding. There was a faint glimmer of hope delivered in the form of a witch NPC who can take 4 pieces of your unwanted gear and combine them into one piece of gear. However, there is no reliable way to use the witch to produce orange gear, and the gear she produces is also completely random, even though she hints that the fourth piece of gear you supply will somehow determine what you get. Also her dialogue for combining is WAYYYYY too long and I spent hours with her emptying my inventory and didn't get any orange. It's a good game to play for a while, but after two playthroughs and still having no way to reliably farm orange it gets tedious.

Ephemeral Tale is an exceptional non-linear RPG that features solid combat, neat vibes and an emphasis on gameplay. I really enjoyed the graphical style, the music and the entire package. I would recommend it highly A++

I played a few weeks after it was released and retook it again. The tutorial section is much better now and the game has been expanded a lot through updates. Battles are still fast and interesting, and I love the music. It's a very good game!

Awesome game with a many hours of fun to come . the dev is super on it with updates and you can tell all the love put into this game! Thanks for the fun!

Cute, non-linear and 90's cliche: Explore colourful dungeons, solve light puzzles and fight a large cast of monsters. Requires to make clever use of limited skills and consumables during pacey static combat. Scratch your brain (yes) to manage degradation of your deterministic loot using limited consumables. Recruit characters to help you on your journey and customize them like your main character. Did i mention loot? There's plenty of wild combos in there as well. Massive updates incoming!

Ephemeral Tale is a great amalgamation of a few different games and is really quite enjoyable. You play as a single protag and a revolving door of secondary support characters a la FFMQ. The sound effects and dialogue effects are very reminiscent of Golden Sun, another game I love. The combat system isn't as deep as I would have liked, but the real star of the show here is the exploration and questing. The game doesn't hold your hand though, so it helps to pay attention to what it tells you. The pixel art is well made and the music is effective at conveying the emotions of the scene. I'm happy with my purchase.