Heroes of Spyria

Wasn't sure what to expect. But I was overly delighted with the character designs and interactions. The final boss took me two try's to beat, you'll find out why. I do wish there were a few more love moments in this or more doubt from the female lead, but it is what it is. The first thing I felt was Lunar, might of been a nice touch to have the characters follow behind you. Also wish I could switch main lead (never figured it out). I was happily disappointed in some outcomes and the ending scenes had a very much Suikoden feel to them. Though I did like Hiro, his face panel looked like he was on crack most of the time. At first Davos was my favorite but didn't hit 50 for those ending skills, (grinding is not friendly in this game) so around 33 Winter became my bread winner in 98% of fights. Sidequests where very enjoyable and I liked how they played out in the game throughout. The only thing I was bummed about was no sword weapon ever made Hiro feel powerful and his buffs felt like they little to nothing as well as debuffs. Honestly the females carried this game in both healing and dps. I think my only drawback to this game- RPG maker is a dime a dozen. I fell like devs try very hard to make an overly used graphic engine feel unique and enjoyable, in which I know using higher end engines like unity take effort, it would be nice to see a lot of these rpg maker games remade into higher quality. Honestly if someone could make an RPG with an art design like Lunar or even ff6, I would buy it in a heart beat. Which some have and I gladly own them. In the end, 8/10 mainly because i'm tired of chibi rpg maker.

A surprisingly well made game. I started playing this game looking for some light game to play after a long campaign from another game. Who would know that I end up clocking over 40 hrs of gameplay, getting immerse in a well crafted story and a balanced mechanics that made this game neither easy, nor too difficult. I believe this is one of the strongest qualities of this game after its rich story, beautiful maps, and character designs. Usually, in games like this, you end up having to grind in order to finish the game, but in the case of Heroes of Spyria, the characters grow at a good pace without needing to spend any time grinding. The battles are well balance, mostloy at the end, when you need to use a combination of your party skills in order to succeed. This game puts to shame many AAA games that I played, and at the same time, is on par with many other AAA games I've played and loved. Yes, some graphics are silly, some graphics don't match the setting, and some dialogues are funny, but all this gave this game a unique charm. I love how the random battles are made of enemies that made sense for the area and level you're exploring. Overall, a wonderful game, in which you can see how much love and dedication the developers has poured into. If you are a fan of Final Fantasy I, Octopath Traveller, I am Setsuna among others classic, you will love this game. Highly recommended!

Easily the best RPGMaker game I've played. Heroes of Spyria is better than jRPGs that cost upwards of 10x as much, like the Octopath Traveler games. Yes the graphics are... well, RPGMaker graphics, but they are nicely complemented with beautiful artwork (including 19 bromides), competent music and sound effects, and a lot of heart. The game is most obviously a labor of love where the writing is concerned; the characters, their personality, their dialogue and expressions and banter and drama... it oozes personality. It's not a perfect game. There are minor issues here and there, like how one of the game's companions called Rex has his voice lines recorded under poor-quality conditions, and it shows- though fortunately he doesn't stay for long. There are some typos, like "principal" when it should say "principle"- maybe 10 throughout the whole game; It's not too bad but it's noticeable when it happens. There are a few plot resolutions which aren't as satisfying as I'd hoped, and the TP System for weapon skills in combat doesn't feel well realized. Still, these feel like minor flaws in an otherwise excellent game. If you like good writing in videogames, there are parts where this one will tug at your heartstrings and won't let go- Heroes of Spyria is the kind of game that reminds you that videogames are an art form. It doesn't pull its punches, and delivers some harrowing and moving moments that will stay with you long after you've beaten the game.

Disclaimer: The stats say I've only played it for a little over an hour because most of my playthrough has been offline and it just recorded my online playing time, which seems to be a thing on Steam. Now, on to the actual review. I did finish the whole game. Never heard of this game until I found it in my recommendations and since it had good reviews and was on sale for like three bucks I figured what the hell. So glad I did. It's a solid and fun JRPG that kept me entertained with an engaging story and a familiar feel reminiscent of games I'd played as a kid. This past year I played great retro games like Octopath Traveler II and Chained Echoes and, though this one doesn't have the same production values and is much more modest in presentation, I still had roughly as much fun as with those two, which was much more than I expected from an unknown game that cost me the same as a nice beer. My only gripes are that apparently at some point the character portraits were redesigned to look better but a few side characters here and there retained the original portraits and it clashes with the rest because the art style is a bit different, and I also saw a couple of typos or spelling errors in the dialogue. But since I'm from the generation that had to use our imagination to tell that the pixels you were controlling onscreen were supposed to be a spaceship or whatever and later played a ton of NES games with "all your bases are belong to us" level translations, I can live with those minor complaints. I played it on my Steam Deck and it ran with zero issues and without needing any extra configurations except some minor tweaking of the game pad in the Options menu.

Heroes of Spyria is very rare gem in the world of jrpgs, and has one of the best storylines of games I've played along with character development. You actually get invested in the storyline and the choices you get to make in the game are quite fun. Yes, this is a game where grinding is rewarded! (I'm a bit of a rarity in jrpgs in that area nowadays it seems.) I personally did not think the mobs were too much and I had a lot of fun getting my characters up to par to meet the challenges that the game presented in terms of enemies. And I loved that in addition to store bought items, there were higher level items that you could find in treasure chests. The voice acting for the characters was a special touch, I haven't had that in a jrpg before. In short, I loved this game. If you like character development, great and at times quite touching storylines, with rewarding grinding sprees, this is the game for you.

An interesting take on the old classic rpg styles. I liked it and only real complaint is the unbalance of the multiple fights with final boss. those fights are completely unbalanced compared to the rest of the game and the lack of a heath bar for him makes it worse.

Really fun old school style rpg with a good story.

Great game. Worth the price for sure.

A really really good game. It clearly had effort put into it. The story and characters are great. The writing is unique. There were points where I thought I knew what a character's backstory was or what would happen to them only to be blindsided with something I didn't expect and that elevated the character's story above and beyond. There are times where the game gets tedious and the encounters become annoying but it is so worth it when you reach the ending of the game. The story was really engaging and heartfelt, it made me feel sad for these characters and happy for them too, by the end of the story I couldn't help but have a smile on my face. I look forward to whatever this developer makes in the future, it will probably be a day one buy for me.

fantastic