Radix Chronicle

I'm writing this just after watching the credits of my first playthrough. I have to say: This was really cool! Never played something similar before, so it took me quite a while to settle into the game mechanics. And even after getting acquainted, every following battle would be a different challenge and fun to figure out. This game is crafted with obvious care and love in every aspect: gameplay, visuals, music, dialogue, you name it! Truly a unique experience.

Even though I don't play a lot of pixelart and/or indie games, I backed this one on Kickstarter because of the dev team. And I absolutely don't regret it! It's the first project by a new studio and they absolutely nailed it in my opinion. I've played Fire Emblem on the GB Advance when I was younger but since then I haven't played this style of game a lot. But it completely hooked me nonetheless. I played through the first seven stages in one go and loved it! The game has a lot of charm, nice music, cute visuals and most importantly some very interesting gameplay mechanics like terrain modification and replacing RNG with timing based attacks. I particularly like the timing mechanic, it makes the combat a lot more engaging. I'm not 100% convinced by the writing and story yet, but I haven''t finished the game and there seems to be a lot more that I haven't discovered yet. If you like these kind of tactical 2D games at all, give it a try. You won't regret it!

This a wonderful little game that has obviously had a lot of effort put into it! My hat goes off to the small team who made it! To summarise, Radix Chronicle is a hybrid turn-based tactics/puzzler that slowly and carefully introduces new strategies to the player, easing in those less familiar with the genre into, by the end, pulling off wild combos and synergies to obliterate the battlefield. The battles are short and sweet, and thanks to the Ring Trial system, devoid of frustrating RNG and 5% miss chance ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Now you can only blame yourself if you miss that essential attack! The real fun comes in once you start going for the optional objectives, and even secret ones! Doing these earns you more loot for more unique plays, but thankfully aren't 100% necessary to make it to the end if its too much of a grind for you. While simple graphically, it oozes 16-bit charm and some catchy music I find myself humming sometimes. It thrusts a conflicted cast of characters thrust into a plot that slowly reveals itself even beyond the first playthrough! My only gripe is that there is not enough of it! What it feels like: A mash-up of FF Tactics and Disgaea, crossbred with a Puzzle game. QoL Recommendations: - Would be nice to mouseover terrain and see what effects it has. Same with status ailments. Getting to the manual is a pain while in game. - Being able to see your stage score on previous attempts would be nice. Overall: Strongly Recommend if you enjoy Turn-based Strategy games.

Me and Radix got off to a rocky start due to combination of external circumstances, me not being familiar with console lineage of tactic games, and it being a true grassroots indie in a world where some indie developers "made it", and have budgets and experience, that give them ability to "do more", while still retaining that indie spark of love. I genuinely believe Luna Flora will grow to be one of those in the future. While it lacks polish in places, it is a GEM of a game, and in this review I'd like to help you decide if you're missing out by judging it too fast. In one sentence: this game is RNG-less tactics, with timing trials where damage rolls would normally happen. Think Expedition 33, which I haven't played/seen, but as I understand, has a similar mechanic. Before getting into review proper, a bit of context on me. I came to this game from RNG-less tactical masterpieces of Into the Breach and Invisible Inc., while at the same time never having playing FFT or Shadow Hearts, by which this game was inspired. RNG-less tactics is my little niche though, and thanks to Radix I now have 3 games of that genre that I can lose myself in. [h3]NEGATIVES[/h3] (that you might not care about): [list] [*]No way to pan the camera or easily zoom it out. Mostly irrelevant since 4:3 patch. Just remember to click "Info" button whenever you do want to zoom out. [*]Status checking. It takes more clicks than I'd like to find some information. You can't simply click on a unit to see it's stats/status. You have to click on "Info" button, then the unit, and then toggle "Info" back off to do normal actions. Thankfully, as you learn the game, situations in which you'd want to do that get sparser. [*]Menu accessibility. It's only available when it's your turn to pick an action. That means no pause if you need to afk while actions are rolling, and no level retry until it's your turn. Oh and it's hard to even notice, but there IS a Retry button! It's in the top right corner when you access the menu, while everything else in the menu is centre of the screen. Don't waste your time going through Tile since that has some unskippable stuff as well... [/list] [h3]NEGATIVES[/h3] (that might be POSITIVE for you): [list] [*]Game speed. And it's not even that the game is slow in general. When it flows it flows well. It just has sort of a jagged pace to it at times. Especially in encounters with lots of enemies I sometimes caught myself thinking "can it be my turn to play now?". It's not an issue for most levels, and in fact is crucial when learning the game for you to observe what's happening. And it's not exactly like you can space out while it's happening, because at any time you can get hit with a trial. After getting enough practice, you can sort of see when trials are coming for the most part, so it's less of an issue. After you beat the game once, you unlock Speedrun Mode, which gets rid of that "problem". Sadly it gets rid of some elements that I like as well, like post level score/retry screen, and most animations. ("most" because speedrunners are still gonna want to murder slimes as soon as they see them:D). There's also a rather long, unskippable Level Up screen, that even Speedrun Mode doesn't get rid of. I heard people talk about Speedrun Mode as having "no time to take breaks", so even though it doesn't compute for me, I acknowledge I might be the weird one here. For me the "regular mode" is the tiring one. [*]Backseating... Yeah, the game characters will backseat you on some levels if you fail or retry them. I think it's great for players who don't like the "game not holding your hand" aspects, but I found it annoying. Thankfully there isn't a whole lot of these scenes, and you can ignore them. Sadly the actual "skip" option for them is disabled (I think because people who needed them ended up skipping them out of ignorance:D). I'd love to have a "No tutorials" mode! Game already has a "No story" mode, so maybe that'd be doable? (More on tutorials in second POSITIVES section) [*]Score/XP. You get additional score for doing fancy stuff. I think that's a cool system if it was just for score. Here it's tied to XP, which makes my obsessiveness kick in, and instead of enjoying my initial playthrough fully I was at times worried about not getting enough XP. Let me tell you - the difference in terms of XP is really insignificant, so best you can do is not worry about it unless you DO want to get a High Score. [/list] [h3]POSITIVES[/h3] (that might be NEGATIVE for you): [list] [*]Blend of tactics and action. While you can still play the game without pushing your reflexes too much, it is a big part of the experience. Puzzle element is still there, but you now also need to pull it off! [*]No "perfect information". Readiness bar especially, requires you to get a feel for how fast units get a turn and attacks get executed. This again only really matters if you want to push what you can do, and want to pull off some advanced tactics. To me, that uncertainty of "will I pull this off before I get hit" is invigorating, especially if you add the possibility of failing a trail while going for a perfect! [*]True RNGlessness! No random shops. No random loot. No random level generation. The only thing I can think of that's RNG is initial "initiative roll" at the start of each battle. Hand crafted campaign means you never get a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ build that ruins your game. It also means you don't ever get a lucky OP item that wins the run for you. Game was originally intended to have a "Procgen Mode" alongside it's campaign, but they didn't get enough money on KS to fund it. I low key hope that if the game sells well enough, they'll still add it at some point. And if not, I might finally find motivation to get into game modding:D [*]Story fragmentation. Main storyline is always there, but a lot of nuance and details are sort of a puzzle. Depending on some XP related factors you get different scenes between levels that eventually give you a fuller picture. [*]Story vibe. It's a mix of depressing and cheerful, with some lude humour sprinkled in. It's honestly something I didn't know I wanted from a game. [*]Music. It doesn't have that "high pitch" vibe to it, that a some retro-style games go for. Every single stage has unique music. Other than that It's a question of taste, so let's move on:) [*]Sprites. Given how low res they are, it's amazing how much character they have, and how much motion is conveyed in story scenes with them! [/list] [h3]POSITIVES[/h3] (that you might not care about) [list] [*]Tutorialization. Might be the most innovative thing in this game that I've seen. The game has plenty of tutorials, that I wouldn't even know exist if I haven't seen other people play it. That's because you only get to see some of them if you have trouble with basic mechanics. It's presented as funny character dialogues too! [*]Build and tactics variety. Despite not having randomized loot, the items you do get have great variety to them, all with their upsides and downsides. Besides my playthrough, I've seen 2 people stream it, and we all have quite different approaches to itemization. Especially: [*]Weapons variety. That doesn't only vary in stats (strength, range/AoE, status effects), and unlock different "spell slots" (different spells for all characters), but most importantly go with different trials, so each one feels different to use! [*]Secrets! Starting with some secret optional challenges, that I wouldn't worry about on your first playthrough, through hidden mechanics, to hidden story scenes. There's room to dig after you're done with your first playthrough [*]Had to cut some positives, since apparently Steam has a character limit for reviews... [/list] BUY IT, PLAY IT, REVIEW IT! It's not the title that puts a soul into a game <3

Love the game and love the Developers! Cool environmental effects and tactics!

The game will absolutely kick your ass on some stages, but imo it's good to have some harder setups to deal with and see what strategies work best (or, alternatively: make a stage that initially seems insurmoutable perfectly doable... as long as you don't miss your weapon-specific attack and defend QTEs like I do). My favorite has been the bunny, but the level with 'King Sting' had me pikachu facing at a certain turn of events. Really cool mechanics and secrets in a lot of places. At this point I must be about 40% through my first playthrough and hope that I can finish it at least once! ✨(Disclaimer: I accidentally overwrote the game before a secondary save slot was implemented in a patch sooo technically speaking I'm about 10 hours in.) Edit: I was apparently 90% through my first playthrough! Got the bad ending but I wasn't that spectacularly off with my... let's say performance. 🤐 ... OK now let me get back at it and kill everything I can lay my hands on! Gotta score so Hana can score!!! 🤩

A streamlined tactics game that feels great to play.

I bought this and PalWorld over, and enjoyed this alot more. Its whimsical atmosphere, its beautiful scenes, tje fun little surprises that pop up, and the gameplay is just fun and satisfying. My only complaint, is that the small text is sometimes hard to read.

This is a really neat tactical RPG that does a lot of subtle things right. The first time I saw what the mechanics were going for as I moved out of the way of an enemies spell for the first time and had it do collateral damage to their allies, I genuinely smiled. The game is designed to be played multiple times to see everything. Multiple endings are one example but as you try new things you can trigger unique dialogue between characters. Each stage has definitive goal and either an optional mission or a secret mission, these add difficulty and replayability while also rewarding you with new gear, items, and spells that open up new tools for you to use. The story is not in your face and multiple playthroughs being in the design philosophy is a part of that in triggering new scenes for additional context or to get the true ending. I was not lost on a first run however, so if that's something that bothers you, don't worry. I would liken the stages to a puzzle almost, but a shifting one. There isn't one solution to each stage but you wont be slugging it out with the enemies for long, or at least not successfully. You need to use your tools to debuff enemies, change the terrain, and then use the terrain to your advantage. The subtle things I mentioned earlier are little touches like the scenery changing and moving in the background of the stages in diegetic ways or the developers cutting the soundtrack in the post battle screens to match the mood of the story event that just transpired. I spent about 10 hours on my first playthrough, with a chunk of that at the end being me choosing to retry levels to clear them with more points or trying to figure out a secret mission. Things I think that could be improved: -Weapon stats in the menu rather than having to equip/unequip to compare. -Perhaps showing what spells each weapon unlocks for the characters so I don't have to remember. -Being able to retry a battle without waiting for it to be your unit's turn (If I missed this, sorry). A situation that sold me on the mechanics: I had lost two of my characters trying to achieve an optional objective, one of the last things those characters did was clear some grassy terrain, and then replace the whole field with water tiles which slows unit speed. My last unit had an ice spell and 8 health remaining, with a fast melee weapon (impacts characters agility). The frost spell froze the field (causes unit movement to slide until they hit something that stops movement) and I was able to kite using the terrain and my superior speed to whittle down the remaining foes and pull out the win. There is another stage, Stage 14 that I would love to talk about but I don't want to spoil it. It's a beautiful example of building on a games mechanics and applying an additional twist. I hope you give it a shot!

Radix is a great labor of love; lovely 2D hand-drawn sprites and fun core mechanics make this game a worthy experience. This game is highly recommended for fans of tactical RPGs, but in many ways, it does more than one would expect of a typical title in this genre. By adding real-time mechanics, it eliminates most of the frustrating randomness; performance isn't tied to luck or the roll of a die, but to reflexes and precision. Highly recommended. Its original vertical presentation works great on MS Surface laptops, on which it was exclusively played, but it supports horizontal screens too.