Phobos

Hi! Reviews aren't realy my forte, but I believe Phobos deserves a fair one. It's a full MMORPG, old style, with quite a few things that remind you of Tibia. Engine is 100% proprietary, so it's not an OT server. It's also a passion project, with a long development history prior to the steam release. I haven't played that much, but from what I've seen, development is slow but always active. The main theme of the game is exploration. You HAVE to explore. It's the strongest point of the game, and it feels very rewarding. In a few areas, it can be overly convoluted, and I'd consider some sort of teleport, at least a daily one, to get out of spots where you can't find your way back. I'm looking at you, Trordrin! It was a major pain, for instance. Not mandatory, but I came back three times to the starting zone before finding him, and I lost countless hours. Still, exploring is generally great, and you end up creating your own map while you clear fog from the default one, so it really does feel like you are getting to know the world. It's got a lot of "character", dialogues are well written and meaningful. Quests are hard. Since you have to actually write to NPC, I'd steal a bit more from tibia, either the highlighted text to click, or the brand new system, which I like. I like the classes, the movement, and the graphics aren't too bad. Feature-wise, it's got the main ones in, including guilds and housing, elites and bosses, beast tracking... But it's missing some important ones: - sound. To me it's important, but I get why it's not in game. Having a good OST is a massive undertakement, in addition to all of the other sounds, so while it's a big feature missing, I get why it's missing. - crafting. I like crafting. While there is some basic potion making, in my opinion it's not enough, and gathering would pair really well with the exploration focus. At the very least, expanding the potion variety would be a start - no steam cloud. Having the map exploration not synced is a big issue for me. Had to set up syncthing to get around it, still, it's an issue. Especially since it's great on the steam deck. I've come back to Phobos four times so far, and it's greatly deserved the monthly fee (low and fair) each time. If you like niche, lightweight games, that favour immersion, you should definitely play this one.