Of Blades & Tails

So, on the one hand, this is really impressive. It's not a little tactics game, it's a full pixel art crpg. A lot of the world is procgen, in ways that hinder gameplay, but it's still a big undertaking and it runs pretty smooth. On the other, the other reviews are not wrong. It's very punishing. You need to grind a bunch of levels before you can do ANYTHING, and those levels don't help. Exp gain is also bonkers slow. You do drown in random equipment, 99% of which is vendor trash, and you can put points into talents---I'm in sword and shield, which isn't great because high level sword locks you out of using shield. But can you use shield with anything else? No. The result of all of this is a VERY flat, very hard game that's difficult to get into. And I don't know that there's much that would help it that isn't fully replanning the talents system to let you have builds rather than just monofocusing your weapon. I don't like thumbing down what is clearly a substantial project, but I think you have to have an appetite for punishing indie clunk that vastly exceeds my own to get to the diamond part of this rough. The characters, writing, and art all seem fine. And when the procgen isn't telling you to find and dig a random tile on a map full of identical looking nonsense, it's okay too. The core gameplay is just more like if Rogue was a survival horror title, and less like a fantasy adventure rpg. If it could lean into that funk, it would be more engaging. Edit: Oh, yeah, absolutely not. Sweated my way through the first couple dungeons, got all epics and legendaries in my gear slots, took one step outside the starting region to pursue the main quest, got mulched by a single random enemy. If the fights were interesting I wouldn't mind but the only thing I did wrong here was not full potioning on a two round cadence. Hard is fine if there's depth to the gameplay, but hard and boring I can't recommend.

TLDR: this is a great game that got shafted by the reviews. Buy it on sale and you won't regret it. Details below. I read a lot of reviews before buying this game for about 5 dollar on sale. Wasn't sure if I should even buy it for that much b/c the reviews were so bad. I'm writing a review now just to get it out there that this game is actually awesome. I play a lot of TRPG's and this one has the best UI/UX that I've ever seen for a game of this genre. It's great to just freely run around the map and explore, dungeon dive, go questing, and do it all in a very simple, intuitive manner. When enemies are spotted the game slows down very slightly but you can easily just click them and kill them if you are strong enough or take your time if you are worried about them. It's not like most games where endless encounters drag the game down; in this one you're just wandering through the forest and when you happen to see some bugs you blast them and move on. Bosses are a different story of course, as they should be. As for all of the haters out there, I can only say that they should try the game on easy if they're going to complain about the game being too hard. It has easy, normal, and hard difficulties like so many other games. I'm playing on normal and it seems perfectly reasonable. The only thing I can see that might throw people off is that the enemies level up with the player, so it is important to gear up. Grinding won't necessarily do any good in and of itself.

I wish I could recommend this. Unique (for me anyway) play style, dialogue, art, etc. engaging story, lots of secret passages, fun puzzles... But then I got stuck. Max level, trick equipment, everything maximized, using potions+ special ring, decoys, everything... and can't beat 2 certain bosses. Also, for some reason, experience capped out at 25 so can't level up to boost any more stats. Only 1 save slot available is also weak. It's 2026 not 1986.

"rewards a thoughtful approach" - thoughtfully, I'm not playing this. I've played plenty of difficult games. The key is that those games respect my time and intelligence. I'm not signing up to headbutt a wall for hours on end because "difficulty" is some mystic attribute that makes a game better. All the difficulty of a hardcore roguelike, none of the marketing, and with some attempt at a story stapled to the side? Pick a lane, and market your game at people that want to play *that game*. Having achievements that incentivize beating specific milestones at certain levels while also incentivizing grinding to just barely survive encounters is toxic BS. incentivizing grinding while also having a punishing level cap is... inexplicable, at best? I'm sure this game is fun for someone, probably the dev(s) that made it, but it sells disguised as something else and that's the primary reason I'm leaving a negative review.

I won this game through SteamGifts. Of Blades & Tails is one of those games I really wanted to love. The pixel art is charming, the world is surprisingly big for such a small development team, and everything runs smoothly. The characters and writing are nice enough too, so it definitely has a solid foundation. Unfortunately, the gameplay just didn't click with me. Even on the lowest difficulty, the game is brutally punishing. I played for around six hours and ragequit at least three times. It feels like you're expected to grind levels before you can make any real progress, but experience comes in so slowly that the grind doesn't even feel rewarding. On top of that, you're constantly picking up mountains of gear, but almost all of it is vendor trash. The procedural quests didn't help either. Being told to dig up one random tile in a map full of identical-looking terrain isn't exactly exciting gameplay. I don't mind difficult RPGs, but I want the challenge to come from interesting mechanics rather than endless grinding and frustration. There's definitely a good game hiding in here somewhere, and I can appreciate what such a small team accomplished. But for me, it ended up being more hard than fun, and I just couldn't bring myself to recommend it nor finish it.

After nearly 40 hours of exploring every zone, completing every quests and leaving no stone left unturned to find all the legendary items, I felt compelled to write a review. Despite hitting a few difficulty spikes which lead to a few frustrating moments, I enjoyed my overall experience with the game. I don't dabble with turn based games all that much outside of XCOM but the mechanics and world building was intriguing enough for me to see it through. I find the visuals and theme to be pleasing as well as the soundtrack, though personally I would have liked to have different battle themes depending on zone and bosses. This game wont be for everyone and the criticism of this game being too difficult are definitely valid, especially in the beginning where you lack options on how you approach the battles. However, once you start to figure out your build, how to modify equipment (which I only learned how to do 2/3 through the main quest) and finding legendary equipment with unique perks, things get a lot easier to the point where the final battles becomes trivial. Granted I went full melee build with a emphasis on criticial damage and barely ever touched the bows or magic staffs. My biggest criticism of the game is the lack of interesting abilities as well as some questionable design regarding certain talent trees such as the one-handed melee skilltree having a passive perk that increases your damage as long as you don't have a shield, which wouldn't be too bad except you are literally just giving up a equipment slot that would otherwise let you have different attributes or perks for a lousy 25% damage increase, which is not a lot with the low numbers we are talking about here. I personally didn't mind the 25 level cap because towards the end you will become strong enough one shot most enemies. I do however think the game should give the player more ability points so they can experiment more. With that all being said I had fun and would love to see a sequel of some kind in the future that adds more interesting abilities or perhaps even party members.

У игры есть свой шарм, она про милых фурри, атосфера в целом милая. Но она крайне душная. У врагов очень большой урон, прокачка медленная и бесполезная, прогресс то сохраняется после смерти то нет, в какой-то момент вообще перестал сохраняться, может я вообще себе это придумал. Я достиг максимального владения определенной профессией за 4 часа (А играть еще явно больше 4 часов), а дальше уровней нету, может я не знаю что-то и в игре добавятся неожиданно уровни которых нету. [h3] Привожу пример неприятной ситуации: [/h3] Я наношу минимальный урон в 4 единицы по врагам моего уровня, с моим общим уроном в 16, либо игра сломана, либо броня врагов слишком высока, ибо при смене посоха на более слабый но +3 к интелекту, он же урон магией, и всеровно даже так 4 превращается в 6 или 10-12 если повезет (вау броски кубиков походу, а чего тогда первые 2 часа я бил 100% урона по врагам.) [h3] Неприятное два: [/h3] По мнению разработчика его игра видимо довольно легкая или недостаточно хардкорная для пиксельного рпг с пошаговыми боями, и в какой-то момент он заставит проходить довольно большие и сложные данжи за 1 присест, то есть нужно не умереть и пройти его целиком, И ПОТОМ вернуться обратно и ОПАНЬКИ враги снова респаунятся по поти обратно. Да-да, в игре все враги ВОЗРОЖДАЮТСЯ на том же месте каждый гребанный раз. PS: Я попробую еще немного поиграть в игру (из интереса к "сюжету"), но нервов она мне уже потрепала.

I went into this game expecting it to be really grindy and difficult because of other people reviews. I was surprised how wrong they seemingly are. I've killed bosses pretty much as soon as I've seen them. No need to grind. I even killed the first boss at level 3 pretty easily which was the same level as it was. Also I'm leveling very quickly now that I'm past the beginning and feel way too strong, so the game isn't as grindy as people said seemingly. I'm destroying most enemies that aren't obviously way stronger than me. This game is like Caves of Qud Lite. It's way easier to approach than other traditional rpgs, because it doesn't have permadeath, and in terms of difficulty. Also it's a lot less complex than some of the other trad rpgs I've played. I feel like I can understand a lot of what's going on without the need for external literature. Which is kinda unusual for game like this. After finishing it. I can say I enjoyed all of it except the last dungeon/boss. It was way too much running back if you died.

It's impressive what a small team can create. But after 22 hours I have to say: the balance is Bad. The game seems to be created with love but is broken and unfinished (not only at the sudden level cap). I ragequit many times and after 22 hours I decided to not finish the game because it's just too painful. I still hope this game gets not abandoned and finished, Definetly no recommend as it is.

A good short tactical rpg, the negative reviews are overblowing it. The game -does- appear grindy in the first hour or so as you are getting a grip on its mechanics but afterwards progression is smooth. - Talk to a blacksmith about modifying equipment and rip modifiers out from other gear to slot into your own (this and upgrading said gear at shrines is essential, not getting stat buffs may be why some get stuck at the end) - Explore thoroughly - Use consumables and go to areas that are your recommended level - Breaking LoS makes the food passive effects kick in even if someone is tracking you. - There is fast travel in the game, click on locations that have a bonfire through the world map once you've discovered some. - Combat music can be disabled in options since its one track that otherwise seems to loop through the whole game.