Septerra Core

I could not get this game to run on my computer. I tried multiple suggestions from the forums and multiple launchers, but alas, reliving the early days was not to be.

The first game I ever played on my first PC back in the day. It still keeps up as one of the most unique RPGs when in comes to story, pacing, characters and world overall. You can use a few mods to bring it a bit more up to modern standards resolution wise and a few QoL changes and it's still an amazing game today. Easy recommendation for all RPG lovers.

Levers and backtracking the game Not sure how I feel about this one. Battles are a slog. Backtracking and getting lost sometimes took hours to get out of certain areas like the catacombs. One area having 4 different zones with the same layout was super annoying. All I can say is thankfully there's a cheat to auto win combat or I never would have finished the game with how slow and boring everything was. The FMV's don't work so you'll have to catch them on Youtube... The good: Graphics are pretty good for 1999. I like the puzzles and the use of mixing items to figure things out. Could have taken a lot more hours to find everything without a guide. The story is pretty good. The cast of characters is also pretty good. Overall I'm not sure I can recommend this one but if you like RPG's and don't mind old school ones give it a try.

I first played when it came out and then again now in 2026. It plays similar to Final Fantasy Tactics and has a charm that has me wondering why no one ever picked up this IP. Shame. It's really worth a play if you don't mind that the graphics are dated. I used lossless scaling the app on steam to play through and a few mods for bug fixing on my second playthrough. I just wish that the ending would not have been quite like it was.

At first I thought I can't recommend this version because it is broken on modern day computers and I would recommend this game if you can find version that works immediately or you find fixes for this version. But I'm not sure about it because what kind of progress this game or roadblocks to progress it. The game works, but the broken part is that pre-rendered cutscenes doesn't play. It seems it relies on completely different software to play cutscenes. It's quicktime player which might not come with modern day computers. Sure something quicktime install file comes with the game but it didn't get launched by steam first time launch popup. In-game cutscenes works fine. And the combat system is interesting. I guess it's semi-active battle. I don't know how to explain it, but every party member have their own bar, which you need to wait to be filled. You don't need wait for full bar to get filled, but then you can't used powerful attacks. Only with full bar you can use powerful attacks. And basically what is a mana system it is shared by every party members. And it can be used by character specific attacks or actions or using cards. Cards can be used by every character. Encounters are roaming encounters, but I guess you start battle with enemies when they notice you. So you can avoid them if enemies don't notice you. However I have some problems with the progression for this game. Not with leveling system (which maybe is slow, but for this game it's fine), but with what is needed to done. For example when I tried playing this game for first time I couldn't find where to go at the start of the game. Turns out the place where I needed to go was on world map, but needing go through a dungeon. But that's not all. Puzzles basically are finding where the key item is and/or needing to have right party member in party to complete the puzzle. Plus some key items are buyable from shops. For some puzzles there are hints said but for others are very vague hints or not doesn't have any hint. About needing right party member, if you don't have them then you need to backtrack where you can switch around party members and guess right party member for the puzzle. Basically there's little to none direction to progress the game and is very tedious process and seems it is to bloat the playtime up. Maybe also you need to have right equipment to progress the game, but maybe only vague hints are given about it. Also you can combine key items to get a different key item. If the game would give better directions (but not as much as hand holding, which walkthrough maybe is doing but outside of the game) then I would play it at least to the story end.

septerra core is a unique setting.‍