Songs of Skydale

I enjoyed what I've seen of this game so far. It's by no means perfect, but the art is appealing, reminds me of games I played when I was younger. The controls are easy to get used to. (Remember that the keyboard typically has two ctrl keys, use the one by the arrow keys xD. It also doesn't matter which arrow key you press to attack, the direction you're facing counts. Also took me a while to notice that.) My biggest issues so far: - Blocking feels unreliable. The combat system seems to encourage you to rely heavily on blocking, while there is a meter that indicates your... I guess blocking energy? I don't really understand how that system works. - Once you enter dungeons (also houses with monsters and things) you can't leave. Why? It's fine with small places, but when you get to a large one it becomes a death trap. You have no map, there are traps and monsters and no way to heal after using up your potions. Also the exit has an invisible wall for no reason. I don't get why that's a thing and it's a little frustrating to be honest.

This is an almost abandoned, stuck in development hell early access 2D top down retro pixel/MS Paint brawler/RPG lite story based adventure game. One one hand, this isn't a cookie cutter 2D retro pixel platformer/asset flip like most indie "devs" shovel onto Steam. It seems like a genuine effort to make a video game. In this case, that's a very terrible video game they made. Let's break it down: Retro pixel graphics. It's 2019, not 1989. Bad quality graphics are not an excuse for lack of talent here. "Retro" is not a cop-out for being unable to produce graphics of an acceptable quality. Hell, there were 3D games in the 1980s, we all played Mechwarrior and Battlezone. Crap gameplay. No real excuse here, it's just crap gameplay. Technical: These guys never used a PC made this millennia. No 3D graphics. They want a stupid $9 for this retro pixel MS paint crap. You can play 3D games with 4K resolution for free. What's their game plan here exactly? [quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote] The developers make an accusation that the information in my review is false, but only cite one very debatable bit of information. I will amend the review to clarify the state of the "game" as rather than fully abandoned, to read "almost abandoned, stuck in development hell", which is slightly more accurate. The remainder of the information in my review is correct and remains appropriately unchallenged.

Songs of Skydale is an open world RPG/adventure game with retro style graphics. The game is located in quite generic fantasy world called Kingdom of Skydale filled with people who need your help. The story of the main quest is fairly typical. It involves mostly war and politics as themes. Nothing too brilliant here but the story of the main quest is good enough. Side quests are quite simple: speak with NPCs, do something (e.g. kill some enemies) and get a reward. Rewards are mostly money, but sometimes the player will get also items. Instead of having classes or skill trees, the game has various skills that can be opened with skill points. Most of the skills are passive. There are lots of options for different builds (melee, range, critical hit etc.). Some builds are clearly better than other ones so it’s better to think where to put skill points. The item system is somewhat similar with many MOBA games. The player has 9 active slots where the items can be assigned. There are no restrictions so if the player wants, there can be nine same swords in nine active slots. This is not the most realistic way to handle items but it is working well with the skills because it gives the player even more possibilities to make builds. The combat is my favorite part of the game. Compared to other pixel art action-RPGs, it’s very fast. The player can run and attack at the same time and so can enemies. When the player learns how the combat works and how to use skills, the fighting will become very satisfying. However, first fights against enemies can be quite difficult, especially if you earlier just randomly picked some skills. I have had lots of fun with Songs of Skydale and for the price, the game has fair amount of content. There are still some bugs but the devs are fixing them regularly. I can recommend Songs of Skydale for the people who like retro style adventure games and especially for those who prefer little bit more challenge.

The music and artstyle is charming. Gameplay is fun and interesting. At the time of this review (2019-12-26) I can't say there's too much to do in the story. There's A main quest which ends in "to be continued, come back after next patch" which made me loose interest and i got to this in about 5 hours. There are some side quests but most of them are short one mission quests. Hopefully the developer will continue updating the story. If you like RPG games you might find it quite enjoyable for a couple of hours. Try to pick it up on sale.

Pretty straight forward RPG, lots to do, as of this review it's still being developed.

Though this game i indeed early access, I feel it it already worth the price they are asking for. I was enthralled with the various environments and characters. I was very much entertained and even challenged with the combat; sometimes even making my room mates laugh as I scream in shock or frustration. I personally can't wait for more content to come out, but I whole-heartedly endorse the current content for the current price.

This is a cute little Zelda knockoff, reminds me very much of Dink Smallwood (also a great game). If you want to walk around a cute fantasy world and kill monsters for a bit, it's fun. I got it as part of JingleJam 2019 and I'm happy to have it. Requested Improvements: * A "Game has been Saved Notification" * Some way to see what items I can pick up?

Bad

decent game for this price. the only thing i didn't like is the amount of walking you have to do... fast travel should have been better from each point of the map (except of the dangerous parts)

The game doesn't have quite enough polish for the scale of game I feel it wants to become. I imagine you could probably get lost in some of the lore of this game, but the rest of the game feels a bit lack lustre. The battle mechanics are essentially spamming the attack button in the early runnings. There's no controller support. The visuals are a bit of a miss for me, there's clearly been a lot of work put i nto them, but I'd like to have seen a bit more. If you had a small library and this was in it, I could see it becoming an underrated gem. In the day and age where thousands of games are at my disposal though I can't justify continuing given my impressions and the general middling rating the game has received.