Pier Solar and the Great Architects

I wanted to like this game. Really I did. However, I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in a game than I was with Pier Solar. There is everything wrong with the game, and nearly nothing was done right. So, let's break it down. The story? One word. Convoluted. You'll go through a significant portion of the game without any real idea of your purpose, and when significant plot details do surface it is done so late into the game, that it just leaves you feeling rushed and confused, not to mention by that time you have likely long stopped caring about why you are "out here" doing any of this. Gameplay. Oh boy. Where do I start? First, let me go on a little tangent - difficulty. A game's difficulty should be based on challenging factors related to player's skill or willingness to strategize or even grind. This game however is really only difficult because it is cheap. It's a copout, the lazy way to make a game difficult. That's not to say it's impossible or I'm whining because the game is too hard. It's not. It is playable and beatable, but made annoying by the level of cheapness involved in the battles. A perfect example is player v. enemy advantages. A staple in many JRPGs, to be sure and usually designed in one of two ways: a roughly 50/50 chance to encounter either or an increased enemy advantage chance until the player levels up some predetermined stat(s) to put the chances in their favor. I believe Pier Solar was supposed to be designed in the format of the latter, but it didn't really pan out. You'll find enemies (regardless of their level and Agility compared to yours) getting significantly more advantageous encounters to you. And in a game as difficult as this, allowing the enemies to pummel you so frequently before you have a chance to retaliate is extremely frustrating and you'll eventually come to feel the game is cheating you. Design. I can describe it in one word too, labyrinthian. Good lord. Everything in this damn game is a maze. Field maps, dungeons even towns. What were they thinking? It reeks of a lazy way to artificially inflate play time and difficulty by makng players have to traverse areas longer to their utter frustrration. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the dreaded minigames. To be clear up front, I'm not a fan of minigames, but it is common to JRPGs, so their simple existence is not something I will hold against a game. However, in this game not only are they very abundant and dull, many of them are forced, tied behind story progression. Nuh-uh. That is a big no-no in any game, and I won't say it's acceptable in Pier Solar either. Minigames are meant to be fun, time-wasting diversions, or at worst a necessary evil related to sidequests, but never should be tied to story progression. Presentation. Graphics are fairly standard fair for a 16-bit era RPG that was designed specifically for the Sega Genesis. That said, the Genesis was capable of much nicer looking textures and animations than this game provides. Yes, it was made by a small indie team, but I'm not inclined to let that be used as an excuse for inferior design choices. The game isn't ugly, but it certainly ranks nowhere near the top of 16-bit inspired titles. That said, I do very much love the character portraits and cutscenes that are very much reminiscent of the Phantasy Star titles. Kudos. Now that I've got my one positive out of the way, let's talk about the HD graphical overhaul. It sucks. It looks "okay" and all, but the problem lies in the fact the game wasn't designed for an HD overhaul in mind. You'll often find the artwork and incidental foreground sprites in the HD version will obscure your ability to navigate in this game making the mazes even more of a nuisance. So if you do decide to play this game, do yourself a favor, and play in the original 16-bit option. The music isn't half bad, I will admit. There are even a few pretty good songs in there, with only a couple that will really grate on you. Also, there is the option for the FM soundtrack (basically what you would come to expect from music in a Genesis title) and the PCM music (which was released originally as an optional Sega CD add-on to the game) with higher quality music. The Steam verison allows you to choose between the two on a whim. I'm not particulary nostalgic towards the Sega Genesis, so I found the FM soundtrack to be a bit annoying at times, but if you are one of those people who enjoy the way the Genesis handled music then you'll probably love it. If not, the PCM soundtrack is very nice. Now, for what is probably the biggest cardinal sin in my book, and would have been enough to make me not recommend this game, if not for every other glaring issue... characterization. Oh my. For being a game that wants to really drive home the fact that your core group consists of three childhood friends adventuring together, the game does a pretty piss poor job of making them relatable or even seemingly all that friendly with each other. I think the designers were too busy with their utterly immature elementary humor they just throw into the game to be bothered with something as insignificant as character interaction. I could go on, but I think I've done enough ranting, and drove home my point long ago. Basically, the game is tripe. It's an insult to anyone who is a fan of classic 16-bit RPGs.

I wanted to like Pier Solar so bad. I got hyped up for all the articles coming out raving about the game being an awesome retro JRPG. I put in 11 hours to give it the benefit of the doubt but after 11 hours I found myself looking at walkthroughs and trying to figure out when I'd finally be done with this game. The game has great music....and that's about where the great things end. The combat makes no sense...how do I not get rofl'd by encounter after encounter of disadvantage. Why do my equipment and levels not make ANY difference in combat? I went in places severely overleveled (based on those walkthroughs I used to try and tell me when my personal hell would end) and was still getting stomped by disadvantage combat and NPCs who only used auto hits. The towns are boring and just have repeats of items from the previous town just more expensive. The story is lackluster and the characters are stupid. They have no depth and no make decisions I don't think any person actually would. I found myself wishing most of them would die... I applaud those who could finish this game and enjoy it..but this retro JRPG is just not for me.

[h1]Gameplay[/h1] [b][u]Klassisches Gameplay!![/u][/b] Pier Solar spielt sich im Grunde, wie die meisten generischen JRPGs aus den 90er Jahren. Man erkundet mit einer [b]Gruppe[/b] aus bis zu fünf Charakteren Ortschaften und Verliese. In letzteren trifft man alle paar Schritte auf Gegner, die einen in Form von [b]Randomencountern[/b] anspringen und in einem klassisch [b]rundenbasierten[/b] Kampfsystem für Erfahrung und Gold verdroschen werden. Drops in Form von Items gibt es keine. Wenn er genug Erfahrung gesammelt hat, steigt ein Charakter im [b]Level[/b] auf, erhält hierdurch aber einen allenfalls geringen Kraftschub. Wirklich stärker werden Charaktere primär durch Ausrüstung und neue Zauber. [b][u]Sammeln, Teilen und zuschlagen so wie anderer Taktikkram[/u][/b] Kämpfe in Pier Solar haben ein besonderes Gimmik, das [b]Sammeln[/b]. Charaktere, die eine oder mehrere Aufladungen hiervon haben, bekommen einen signifikanten Bonus auf Angriffe und Fähigkeiten. Es ist außerdem möglich, Aufladungen an andere Charaktere abzutreten. Allerdings nur alle, die man hat. Jeder Charakter kann bis zu fünf Aufladungen haben, die durch das Erleiden von Schaden verringert werden können. Aufladungen können nicht kampfübergreifend gebunkert werden. Obendrein können Charaktere beliebig auf zwei [b]Kampfreihen[/b] verteilt werden, wobei die vordere Reihe erwartungsgemäß öfter das Ziel von Angriffen wird. Zudem können Charaktere sich selbst oder andere [b]verteidigen[/b] und Schaden abwenden, indem Gegnerangriffe gekontert werden. [h1]Schwierigkeitsgrad[/h1] Der Schwierigkeitsgrad ist relativ gering, ohne ein Nobrainer zu sein. [h1]Soundtrack, Grafik, Steuerung[/h1] Im Spiel ist es möglich, aus zwei Grafikstilen zu wählen und auch der Soundtrack lässt sich zwischen dem neuen und dem alten wechseln. Für die Steuerung empfehle ich einen Controler, aber Tastatur geht auch https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3296800870 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3306241260 [h1]Zusammenfassung[/h1] [b]Pro:[/b] [list] [*] Strategisch orientierte Kämpfe [*] Gezeichnete Ingameartworks [*] Trivia zu verschiedenen Themen [*] Möglichkeit, die Randomencounter-rate zu beeinflussen[/list] [b]Kontra:[/b] [list] [*] keine Galerie für die Ingameartworks [/list] [b]Achievements[/b] [list] [*] Manche Achievements erfordern das Durchspielen [*] Manche Achievements sind an Nebenquests gebunden [*] Manche Achievements erfordern Grinding [*] Ein Achievement erfordert es, optionale Kämpfe aus zu lassen [/list] [b]Fazit:[/b] Pier Solar richtet sich in erster Linie an Liebhaber klassischer JRPGs, ohne dabei zu unerbittlich zu sein. Wirklich kniffelige Rätseleinlagen wird man im Spiel eher wenige finden und die meisten Bosse sind Papiertiger, wenn man nicht gerade ein gewisses Achievement anpeilt. Insgesamt hat mich das Spiel gut unterhalten. Der Preis ist ansich auch angemessen. Daher gebe ich eine Kaufempfehlung. [b]------------------------------------------------------------------------ [i]Wenn ihr weitere ansprechende Reviews lesen wollt, dann folgt doch der [url= https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32139821/%7D]GermanReviewGroup[/url][/i] oder [i][url= https://store.steampowered.com/curator/875292/%7D] GermanSteamCommunity[/url].[/i] Dank geht raus an den User Träumerling fürs Korrekturlesen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------[/b]

In a market saturated with wonderful games Pier Solar dares to be charming, but uninteresting. Combat is predictably random (ha), with every few steps leading to a turn-based JRPG battle system. This is the main drag on the game. The battle system asks you to either attack, defend, or essentially bide your time while gaining power without any truly clear motivation to do so. Progression is slow, and mechanics are explained minimally. This is clearly a game that relies on stronger predecessors to broach the topic of why they chose this system for this game. Narrative is 90s nostalgia, with cute exchanges that, to their credit, actually make sense. The narrative is strong in flow. Sadly, it just doesn't keep momentum. What starts out as a coming of age mystery quickly devolves into a nonsensical series of events that fail to capitalize on what could have been dynamic character growth early on. It seems dedicated to being cute through and through. World building is achieved with cultural towns that seem to exist on small islands (in the 13 hours I played at least). Each seems themed after a different ethnicity and culture, but this is never explored too deeply. It is instead handled with stereotypes and humor, which in and of itself can be a good thing if the tonality of your game is consistent, but the humor and the series bits don't flesh out well together, making this an uneven experience. I did learn a lot about watermelons, and that was cool. We are saturated with games. This one may shine as a remake to a classic westernized JRPG, but it lacks any strong motivators to inspire what I am sure will be a long adventure.

Pier Solar is a throwback JRPG that manages to embrace almost all the annoying parts of old JRPGs without much of the stuff that made them fun. I'm not going to go into super detail because I tapped out somewhat early in the game, but quite frankly I think I saw what there was to see. As a love letter to old JRPGs it embraces some of their most terrible features, which would be somewhat tolerable if it was 1996 but not tolerable anytime after 2010. Some quick bullets: 1. Annoying and terrible dungeon design that hides chests behind invisible passageways occluded by a pixel layer. Gotta go grid hunting to find the hidden invisible passage to lead to a chest that half the time contains an antidote or something similarly useless. 2. No separated item and equipment menu, making gearing your characters a huge chore and hassle. Having to hunt down the new sword you found and unintuitively equip it is a pain in the ass. 3. The battle system isn't super complex but everything takes *forever*. A typical random battle takes multiple minutes to resolve due to individual basic attacks taking tens of seconds. The auto option, which would otherwise make this more tolerable, for some reason has the characters burning consumables, which is intolerable. 4. Mysterious story flag points that don't flow together and are nonsensical. Almost at no point in my playtime did I figure out why I should care about anything that was happening. 5. Old school grind requirements that, coupled with the takes-forever-and-a-day battle system, means the total playtime of the game is horrendously padded. If I was 12 and this was all I could rent for two weeks from blockbuster, I'd probably push through it a bit more, but as it stands I just don't really have the patience to grind through a filler JRPG when there are plenty of other more interesting titles I could play.

Сделанная с любовью JRPG для давно уже мёртвой консоли. Ремастер. [h1]Abstract[/h1] Made with love JRPG for a long dead console. Remaster. Works fine on Ubuntu 16.04. [h1]JRPG от любителей жанра[/h1] Некоторые люди любят делать игры. Это тот случай. Игра создавалась для мёртвой консоли в свободное от работы время группой энтузиастов. Релиз приключился в 2010 году. Это не значит, что игра придётся по душе каждому (графон так себе, как и управление с клавиатуры), но у этой игры есть своя группа фанатов, которые оплатили ремастер через краудфандинг. Наверное в ней что-то есть. [h1]GNU/Linux[/h1] Без проблем прошёл введение. Подземелья темноваты и запутаны. Прибил какую-то нёх в среде Ubuntu 16.04 на интеловском ноутбуке. [h1]Обзор входит в список [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1103944566]Игры, Linux, Steam, обзоры.[/url][/h1]

o Jogo por si e muito bom mais a sua desenvolvedora deixa a desejar. faz as pessoas de palhaço. so pra tu ter ideia o site da empresa se encontra desativado o site do paprium se encontra desativado. 0% de suporte pros apoiadores do paprium falaram que o jogo ia sair de dezembro até hoje espero Lamentavel. Sites da empresa tudo offline WaterMelon Games - https://www.watermelon-games.com/ | http://www.magicalgamefactory.com/ Paprium - https://paprium.com/

Badly executed and sexist. Don't waste your money on this out of nostalgia for old Genesis RPGs - they were better made than this. They also didn't fill their game with ever worsening unnecessary misogynistic jokes. I tolerated it for far too long simply because it was another game I could play well despite a nerve injury in my hand and it felt nice to not be mad at my fingers for not working or be in too much pain to play for more than 15 minutes at a time for once.

This is one of those Jrpg's from a time when developers thought really annoying design choices would make their game "unique." The turn based combat system is actually fine... it's the rest of the game that's just gonna end up making some people angry. The game has a bunch of niche mini games and really obscure puzzles. You'll likely need to look at a walk through video to simply progress to the next area because somebody thought hiding stuff off the map or something of the sort was cleaver...ugh. I really couldn't continue with the game after so many annoyances.

Fantastic game until you get to the "tests" which essentially make the game impossible and there's no way to skip them. Thank you developers for allowing me to pay to waste 33 hours.