Realms of Antiquity: The Shattered Crown

Edit: I finally beat this, after having several months off it to cure my respawn induced burnout. Here is my final review - A wonderful tribute to the ultra-old western RPG classics like Ultima 5 (closest comparison I think), that evokes a sense of adventure and exploration that is rarely encountered in today's games. This game is very nearly one of the greats, and probably would be except... It WAS deeply marred by a monster respawn system that bombards the player with trash monster encounters in Dungeon areas every minute or so, hampering exploration and causing, in me at least, great fatigue at the thought of having to engage in 'yet another fight'. This has been toned back, and that was a good move by the Developer. I'd tone it back even further but I'm happy to see it addressed in any form :). It also has a problem with frankly torturous dungeon design, particularly in the second to last Dungeon. In that one, you basically have to explore every square looking for secret doors, while under continuous attack. The inventory system is also pretty clunky, but that is less of a problem. All of that said, this is a very good game, and a rare gem if you like old-school world building and lots of atmosphere. It is also a technical marvel given it was built for an ancient early 80s era TI-99 computer (!!!) and still plays better than some games built for modern powerhouses! Also the Developer is very approachable and helpful and listens to feedback (see his comment below). Protip - bring or recruit a Rogue and leave them selected as your point person. It helps a lot with exploration (there is a spell that replicates the ability I refer to, but the rogue's always-on passive is way more convenient)

This game is probably not for everyone, but if you have ever played any of the older Ultima/Gold Box/Avernum games, you should give it a try. The sprawling world, with lots of little (and big) secrets to be found really evokes a sense of adventure, the combat is simple but pretty fun, and the writing is expressive given how little text there is. The only negative points I can think of are that it's pretty slow paced (though luckily you can increase the emulator speed) and there are too many monsters wandering about, so I found myself fleeing from most battles towards the end of the game.

This is a wonderful game! A technical marvel, despite being a new, modern game made in 2020, it's written entirely in assembly language for a computer made way back in 1981. It's also incredibly well designed, cramming many modern tactical CRPG features you'd expect today into a retro-gaming wrapper you'd expect from the hardware this game was made for. The graphics are beautifully detailed for pixel art, and the game map has many surprising and delightful features to stumble across, and alongside the concise, well written dialogue, builds a living, breathing world in the mind of the player. If this game had released on the TIS-99/4A back when it had it's heyday. I fully expect it'd have been heralded as a marvel of its time. Sure, we've had 40 years of games design experience to build on here, but nonetheless, Realms of Antiquity feels like a game from 1983, and a game from 2023, all at once. My only misgivings are that I wish I'd found this sooner.

Bro have you ever played Ultima? Have you ever wanted it to be 1985? I wasn't even alive in 1985 and honestly am glad it's not 1985 anymore because Reagan is dead now and there was a lot of misogyny back in those days and the hair styles were bad but this game is pretty much 1985 all over again in the best way possible dude even programmed this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on an APPLE II. That's the kind of dedication and absurd commitment to historical fidelity that I can get behind so you should buy this game because it is pretty much like those old Ultima games but made to not be quite as embarrassing because we've moved on as a society in the past 40 years which this game mostly gets. And don't be put off by my time played I've mostly played offline while working undercover for the San Francisco PD busting the Russian Mafia while they were smuggling in illegal reefers which I then sold to the devs on the DL via the dark web which is how I got this game for free.

Old school look, new school mechanics.

This is a very good retro game with modern refinements and an impressive scale. I often get the impression that many RPGs from the era this is inspired by tend to be too obtuse, expecting the player to conjure arcane knowledge just to be able to proceed, as not always everything is nicely explained in the manual. However, this wasn't a problem for Realms of Antiquity, save for few exceptions, as the game is mostly very intuitive. Here's the stuff that I liked: - Each location feels unique, having it's own story, enemies, dungeons and secrets. - The game plays a little bit with different genres, but everything still feels coherent at the end of the day. - Some quests have a number of different solutions that can impact the game world. - Combat is well-balanced with each having a well defined role that sometimes also extends to the exploration of the world. Here's some stuff I'm neutral on: - For most of the game you'll have too much money at your disposal without anything really expensive to spend it on, however in the late game there will be enough opportunity for you to spend your wealth on some useful things. - I would say the game is on the easier side. So, if you want difficulty, you might have to actively avoid optimizing your build too much. Here's some stuff that I didn't quite like: - This game can sometimes feel a little bit too slow, so I highly recommend people who play it to configure the emulator it runs on to go faster. - A few quests lack the proper build up for their conclusions. I would easily recommend this for anyone that has an interest in RPGs from the 80s, even if they don't have much experience with them, as it feels like an ideal entry point.

Biggest problem: you can't run the game in fullscreen or borderless fullscreen. Readme tells you to download an emulator for more options, but I don't know what those are and I'm not downloading an emulator to run a Steam game. That's what Steam is for. Second issue: the instruction manual is useless. You can't search for anything, and there's no actual information in it. It doesn't actually tell you what stats do, it doesn't tell you anything useful about any class, it doesn't tell you how much fatigue is used for spells... it doesn't tell you anything. Why was it even written? And why does the game hide so much information from me? I grew up playing Ultima IV and similar games, so this should be a good fit for me. But if you're making a game inspired by those classics in this day and age, we're going to need some more effort put into it. Editing to say that while I appreciate the reply I got from the dev on the forums about questions I had, basically all I was told was to "go to Discord". I should not need emulators and Discord and all this crap to play a game. Just confirms that refunding is the right move and I would advise anyone to stay away even if you think you'd like it. Also, my Warlock and Wizard literally missed with their starter zap spells 8 times in a row. What good is magic if it always misses? Can most spells miss? I'd love to look up that info, but... THERE'S NO INFORMATION ABOUT ANYTHING ANYWHERE. I'm willing to put some effort in to better understand the game, but it's fighting me at every turn. Editing to say that the manual doesn't provide "basic information necessary" as you claim. If it did, I wouldn't have 15 questions about the starter zap spell and how/why it's missing. I'd have some idea of what spells are in what color schools beyond a vague description. And I'd actually be able to make informed decisions about group creation that might actually give me a chance of creating a group without needing to restart. I don't need everything to start the game, but I need more than what you gave. Why not have a section in the manual that gives new players some tips that might actually help them? Like "some spells like Zap can miss and the miss chance is dependent on this attribute" or "Wizards differ from Warlocks in these ways..." or whatever. It doesn't need to spoil everything to be useful.

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one of the best CRPGs ever crafted. also wild in scope.

This is one of the most engaging RPGs I've played. The combat is interesting, the classes and characters feel different and the magic system is unique. It's a relatively new game that operates within the limits of an older system (The TI-99/4a and yes, it runs on original hardware if you choose). This does not, however, limit the game at all. In fact, in my opinion, it distils it into a well-crafted open world experience. There's a lot to discover here, quests, characters, plots, a world to explore; constrained only by your party's strength and preparedness. There are some things to get used to. The magic system is colour-based, using books of a certain colour to allow the characters to cast associated spells. This lends into the need to prepare correctly as inventory space is limited. It may be a negative depending on your outlook but I think it contributes to the game. There's a quick reference guide and a manual, which can be ignored, but I recommend you read it; it's a very useful guide to things like magic and also gives a good overview of all aspects in the game, there's also a hints section which gives some non-spoiler hints on areas you may be stuck on. I genuinely love this game. The world is interesting, the mechanics are satisfying, the stories are compelling and there's various outcomes to actions. This, coupled with the character types and various party make-ups, make it very replayable and enjoyable to discover.