Pillars of Dust

It's a funny game with some neat ideas, but the combat system is incredibly simplistic with status effects that hardly matter and a tiny pool of abilities you can only use a couple times per battle because of a low SP cap. Achievements, if you care about those, also actively discourage playing in interesting ways by requiring you to only use one side character for the entirety of one of the campaigns and to get an amount of money that's only really attainable through a huge amount of grinding or hardly ever spending money. As much as I wish I could recommend this, I'm spending half my time in combat and it's just not fun at all after three hours.

Pillars of Dust is a "modern retro" JRPG in a similar tradition to Zeboyd Games' catalogue, featuring two heroes who set out on independent yet intersecting quests, playable in any order. It's pretty standard as the "modern retro" trend goes, featuring on-map encounters, significantly reduced grinding, simplified character systems, attempts to make combat more interesting, and a generally detached and ironic tone. As far as the game system goes, the devs' efforts were kind of a mixed bag. They reduced grinding significantly by having on-map encounters and no XP, just a chance, significantly reduced after you get a few points in any chapter, of gaining a point in a stat after any battle. Likewise, there's only one equipment slot and it only applies to the main characters, not the henchmen that you can hire to fill the second slot, and items are mostly consumables. There's a decent variety of skills you can learn, putting up to four on each main character at any given time. They tried to make combat interesting by fully healing you after each combat and adding a doom timer where enemies get stronger after a certain number of ticks elapse, but I found that to be a wash. Early on, it makes encounters somewhat annoying because they all take a few rounds, but once you get attacks that hit all enemies, you'll generally be finishing most fights before the doom counter hits its second phase, making it only really matter when it comes to bosses - most of which aren't very difficult if you make sure to have someone who can cast healing and keep their AP up. Speaking of AP, unlike all the other stats, it only increases at the end of each chapter, as a reward for finding all the secret items, all the powerup orbs, and a sufficient amount of money in each chapter. This rewards rubbing your face on everything or using a guide to a somewhat obnoxious degree, because you need as much AP as you can get for boss fights, where having more turns of staying power before you need to use items is important. On the other hand, the game provides you with a checklist that will tell you how much you've found out of what total in each chapter, so you'll at least know when it's okay to stop searching and go win. The story, despite my complaint above about irony, mostly works - it's sillier than I would like, but the writers at least know when it's appropriate to make jokes, and it generally comes across as more charming than insufferable. Recommended. For all my general frustration with the kind of design I'm calling "modern retro" JRPGs here, it's a good example of that design, and never unenjoyable or a slog.

Disclosure: I received this game for free being part of the beta test group. Pillars of Dust is a fun short RPG aimed towards the speedrun crowd but the game also has lots of hidden secrets to search for the more completionist RPG fan. The game strikes a nice balance of being accessible to both groups. The game forgoes traditional experience points in favor a semi random stat level up system similar to the SaGa series. Your main character will randomly gain strength, defense, agility and special stat upgrades at the end of a battle. The chance of gaining a stat increase is based on the 'level' of the enemies you are currently fighting. If you grind in one area for a while, stat upgrades will increasingly rare preventing players from becoming too powerful too quickly. Don't worry about getting possibly screwed by RNG on stat level ups, the game is filled with orbs to find that allow the player to pick a stat to level. If a player finds their character is a little deficient in a particular stat, they have the option to use these orbs to balance the stats out. It's a fine inclusion and a good remedy to potential RNG issues. The graphics are an interesting mix of styles. The exploration graphics are typical NES style which isn't anything really special but the battles have an EGA PC shareware of the 90's look to them which I found interesting because I played a ton of those games on those 5000 shareware games CD compilations you'd find at CompUSA . You don't really see that many modern games that type an tap into that nostalgia so I give this game props for trying something a little different that strictly copying NES style graphics. The music and story were fine. I don't really have a strong opinion either way. If I'm going to knock the game on anything, it's the story not being particularly gripping but I don't really think it's bad or anything. I didn't really feel anything for Gregg or Carelton's plight but I had quite a bit of fun chopping down waves of enemies so I can look past it. The overall game length is about 8-10 hours for the first playthrough, I spent a decent amount of time searching for secrets and trying to crash the game in search of game breaking bugs. With proper routing speedrunners could maybe do this 3-4 hours. I believe they even included an in game timer to help aid speedrunners record their times. After 1 and 1/2 playthroughs I think feel comfortable giving the game a recommendation. It's not an expensive RPGs and it's a game you can potentially crush in an afternoon or two. If that's sounds good, consider giving Pillars of Dust a try

A chill classic oldschool RPG I had a lot of fun playing. Lots of enjoyable dialog and relative relaxed but not completely easy combat. I definitly fell in love with the games ability to cater to different playstyles. Magic, Buffing, Melee, Debuffs, Items and much more all seem equally valid and combined with the games ability to mix things up in chapters based on the order there is definitly room for replays. Definitly a game I can recommend. Give it a try I feel like you won't regret it and I am looking forward to what Something Classic and Retreaux Games cook up in the future. Hope everyone here will have an as great time as I had.

A fun RPG; just be aware that one of the "secrets" is mandatory and complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that you'll never find on your own. So, when you get to the Naev temple, the final piece of the stained glass is through the wall in the upper left area with pots. Besides this hiccup, this game was great.

Very fun nostalgic-style game filled with lighthearted jokes and entertaining secrets. Relaxed gameplay. Stay home, save lives, collect chicken nuggets.

Very nice classic styled RPG. :)

This game is quirky, lighthearted, and a fun time! The graphics are a lovely throwback to the NES/SNES era and the music is enjoyable. If you want to play a fun old school RPG, this might scratch your itch! I played the first bit of the game as "Gregg" so if you want to check out the video is linked below! https://youtu.be/Cyyt65Y3zzE

Wow! This game is so much fun! I really felt like a kid again playing it! I love indie games, and I love retro games! Pillars of Dust is both!!! Absolutely recommend it to anyone!!!

I just recently finished my first playthrough of this game and I gotta say this game is amazing! at first glance the artstyle is very retro and made me think I won't like it but, I was wrong in fact i ended up loving the art of the game it was super playful and they use this art to their advantage in hiding so many secrets throughout the game i missed a few (i think 4 secrets in total that i missed). the music was really catchy there were 2 of the songs that also reminded me of megaman songs that i found my self singing along with the music. the music really fit the mood of what you were currently doing and made battles feel intense which is something that gets lost on a bunch of new games. the story loves to poke fun at characters and is very self aware which just adds to the quirky-ness of the story, things like how one of the bosses has bad breath and so you can use and item during the fight to fix that which ends up beating him and allowing you to progress its so hilarious! I just loved this story it was so good granted how short the game is. the game mechanics are pretty easy to understand, and combat flows nicely its simple and yet theres so much to mess around with and i can see potential for making different builds like I ended up building gregg as a physical power house that does alot of damage and even more when he crits and i gave him an item that increase his crit rate allowing me to plow through enemies. overall this game was WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more fun that i thought it was going to be and im so taken back by it and i highly recommend if you're into RPG's to give this a try you wont be sorry!