Tales of Lyfael

If you never played a(n) (RPG Maker MV) JRPG before, "Tales of Lyfael" isn't entirely a wrong choice for your first time. It features a decent playtime and a lot of Steam achievements, and it's practically devoid of bugs. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this game to the general public or JRPG veterans. Here are the most prominent reasons why: - The story is almost non-existent at first, then tries to mix everything towards the end without achieving anything. Such an amateurish, incoherent mess of a story is barely acceptable when it comes to commercial games. At least there are 4 different, lackluster endings - 2 of which, I assume, are permanently missable if you don't find 2 specific items before the point of no return. - The party members and all other characters are soulless templates, dialogues are comprised of the worst versions of all jokes that the developer stole from other entertainment products. Every single joke in this game was executed way better elsewhere before. - Unfortunately, the game features an abundance of sample maps. Sample maps are part of the software (RPG Maker MV), so it's not against the law to use them, but using them without significant edits - or at all - is the epitome of laziness, especially when nearly all of the game's maps are based on sample maps. Granted, they are modified, but most of the times, they are changed for the worse, e.g. by cutting areas of interest (buildings in towns etc.) or by obscuring the player's vision (which is annoying even if you know your way around these sample maps). If you like original mapping, this game will surely disappoint you. - Until the game's final part, it isn't possible to save anywhere (only at save crystals). I hate it. - What I hate even more: There isn't an always-run-option. It's possible to sprint, but the sprint meter depletes fast and takes a lot of time to recharge. Managing the sprint meter is important in the game's final part and in one particular optional area, but it's not enough to justify the sprint meter's implementation. I can't believe I would ever say this, but it would have been less annoying if it hadn't been possible to dash at all. - The battle system is boring as hell. Either you one-shot the enemy, or the enemy one-shots you - there's no middle ground. You have a wide variety of skills and spells at your disposal, and you can even level them up through usage (only to level 3, though), thus reducing their costs and cooldowns, but unless you can take advantage of elemental weaknesses, you will use the same few skills over and over again, because it's the smart thing to do. Fortunately, when I had to choose one of three classes at the beginning, I chose the wizard, who can deal with almost everything on his own towards the end. While you can choose between 13 (give or take) members for your active 4-members-party - provided you recruited or bought them -, and most of them fulfill clearly defined roles (magic attacker, physical attacker, healer and so on), some are clearly better at dealing with enemies than others. I could do without all these silent extras and would have preferred a fleshed-out 4-(wo)men-party instead, but I acknowledge the fact that the developer needed something to brag about on the game's store page. - The level cap for all party members is 15. I didn't forget to add a 0, and the 9 on my keyboard works fine (in case you were wondering). Leveling up is fun (I'm the proud inventor of the saying "I can't get it up without level-up.", by the way), so I will never understand why developers take that fun away. These 14 level-ups make one hell of a difference, though, evolving your party members from ants to demi-gods. Since this game is a low-stats-game, the stat boosts provided through the level-ups are simply indispensable. So yeah, at least some work went into the balancing, but fighting battles in this game still isn't much fun. - The game features a crafting system, but it's the very definition of half-baked, focussing too much on elemental weaknesses. What's even worse: The crafting system's statistics are off, which makes it impossible to reach a crafting completion rate of 100% per se, and if that wasn't already bad enough, the game provides an insufficient (finite) number of one particular crafting resource, thus preventing the player from crafting all weapons once. Since the annoying 100-item-limits for weapons and armor make it hard to craft everything for everyone, maybe it's better to do without crafting. Store-bought gear and what you discover along the way is really all you need, anyway. - The game's final part is a mere (but lengthy) anti-climactic, annoying stealth section, in which you need to avoid enemies while picking up MacGuffins. I'm sure this is what you play JRPGs with turn-based combat for. In conclusion, "Tales of Lyfael" is a rather half-baked game that is full of subpar design choices, but depending on your experiences and expectations, it can serve as a sufficiently entertaining "bridge game" until you find something better to play. I can assure you, though, that there are plenty of better (RPG Maker MV) JRPGs around, so you can in good conscience skip this game.

I decided to buy Tales of Lyfael after I initially tried the demo, which I liked and the story of the game intrigued me. I'm writing this review after about 2-3 hours of playing and I don't regret my decision to buy the game! I will try to summarize my experience and feelings so far. At the beginning, the player chooses one of the characters as their "avatar", which is announced by the narrator, and after choosing a character and a name, the player is thrown into the world of Lyfael, where their first companion awaits them. The tutorial walks you through the basic and more advanced mechanics of the game. It is necessary to read carefully (as with almost every game) to know what to do. As long as you have no problem following the instructions, the game will be a smooth experience for you. One of the first things that left me in awe was the music. In addition to the undistracting and very pleasant background music, you can expect dynamic and orchestral music in the fights, with several bosses having their own theme. (Sometimes I felt a dark souls vibe, other times the sounds of adventure) The maps, enemies and overall graphics are very nice, you can see a lot of original parallax mapping and creativity. The balance of the game is good. As long as you progress in the story, start fights prepared, update your equipment regularly and actually do what the tutorial recommended, you won't have a problem with the fights. The game also offers interesting mechanics (like permafrost, earplugs or gargoyle puzzles) and many ways to progress in combat. Characters are created with their own personality (the pessimists, the "simpler individuals", the battle junkies, and they tend to jokingly tease each other in dialogues). The comedy in the dialogues so far is unforced and sometimes makes me laugh out loud at some of the references from the movies/other games or at the characters themselves. Considering that this game seems to have been developed by a small studio/one developer, I'm extremely satisfied and can't wait to see what other surprises the world of Lyfael will bring to my face! Personally I highly recommend the game, the developer has done justice to the Maker engine.

Fun, adventure and the diversity of multi-worlds in a single game. What makes the game unique is its seamless ability to connect different worlds and dimensions - heaven, hell, pirates, mummies, the genie of the lamp, the circus and so much more. All of these are linked by action and require you to think and use tactics. I like that it doesn't stick to one scheme, but constantly challenges you to adapt and react to new dynamic situations, which makes the game immensely engaging. And speaking of engaging and entertaining - witty dialogue and amusing character catchphrases are the order of the day here. Whether it's a nonsensical comment from one of your companions that makes you laugh at the most thrilling moment, or a great turn of phrase during an unexpected situation - humor is everywhere. At times I was laughing so hard and at other times I felt like strangling some of the characters (right, Litsia?! :DDD) Personally, the game made me want to play on and on thanks to the specific humour of the characters, and I wanted to know what absurd and funny moments were yet to come.

This single-player RPG game has been recommended to me by one of my friends. I played early access, so I had the opportunity to try it out and I decided to buy the game on release and share my thoughts with you. It is one of the first games I played in this genre and i don't regret purchasing the game. Almost 15 hours of playtime (I tried to do every side-quest, experimented with different heroes and tried to find every secret easter-egg/interacted with enviroment. I am posting this review after finishing the game achieving 1 of the 4 endings that you could get inside the game and playing the story once. At the start of the game you can pick your starting hero: Knight, Hunter or Wizard. Game gives you a quick tutorial and teaches you basic mechanics and overall how not to suck. If you ignore/skip the dialog(which is not replayable), besides HELP function in Options, you can't expect to get far (there should be no excuses that the game is unbalanced or bad). The devs expect you to have some sort of basic human intelligence, so you can get through some of the harder battles and puzzles to progress the storyline. Luckily, the devs are generous with save slots and places where you can save/load your progress. Personally the in-game AutoSave function was never useful to me, but only because I saved often (I dislike replaying same section twice) and it only saves at crucial Main story points. After you beat the tutorial and get access to your Home and Town, you can start your adventure to save Lyfael. The story is okay, but why I even tried this game at all is because of combat. Game does a good job explaining everything important so I'll just focus here on what the game does best or could improve on in my opinion. There are many skills and classes with interesting and funny animations, effects and overall design is satisfying and pleasant to look at. As you level up your heroes they increase the stats and get new skills that you can use in battle OR outside of it aswell, this applies to items, too. For example if you don't want to waste potions or have the need to go to sleep in your home's bed, you can instead go to skills -> healer -> Use heal with mana. You can use buffs(skills), items outside of combat if you think it will be necessary or will make fight much easier to handle. By using skills enough times you can level them up. This will reduce their CD or mana to use them up to LVL 3. Help function inside the game is useful and not long. It contains everything that tutorial mentioned and some extra tips, that could significantly improve your chances at success. Personally I didn't have problems with battles. I had only handfull of deaths in my entire playthrough. The battles for prepared party of heroes were easy to handle. Basically if you don't underestimate your enemies you will have no problem in beating the toughest of enemies. Tip: Pay attention to dialog, it will significantly improve your chance of not being sent back to Main menu after inevitable Game over screen. The music was suprisingly very good. It suprised me upon hearing them for their quality for both world and battles (bosses have individual unique EPIC themes). The dialog between your party and NPCs is pleasant and fun to read. Nothing that made me laugh out loud, but enough to put smile on my face/chuckle. It has many references and likes to make fun of stereotypes and classic tropes that are found in other games/movies. Example: Path being blocked by a single broken log? *Hero proceeds to throw it and fling it with sound-breaking speed*. Party laughs and are happy that they can continue with their adventure. I did not encounter any game-breaking bugs. Things i did not like weren't serious. 3 examples I can think of are heroes that you can hire/recruit (which will be available after progressing Main Story) were all lower level than my current heroes, which made me not wanna waste my gold/exp that I already invested on other characters and try them all out. 2nd thing is quest reward. Unless you check what reward you will get in side-quest menu before handing in quest item to NPC for example, you have to check what you got as a reward (nothing visual happens on completion), but you can check what you got in sub-menu of the quests). Side quest is automatically transferred to completed and exp/rewards are simply added to your inventory. Also I would recommend manually equipping heroes with items as Auto-equip often offered and equiped less optimal gear and did not touch accessories at all. Conclusion: I would recommend this game for others. I think it was worth the money and got what I hoped I would get, but overall I'm satisfied and glad I tried this game out. Just remember pay attention to dialog, craft items, explore and save regularly for the best experience.

I played the game in early access and then as a demo and decided to buy the full version. I like the music, the combat, the funny dialogues and the story itself. I got immersed in the story a few times during early access, I'll gladly play it again as a different class in the full version. The only thing I wasn't a complete fan of (as with other games) is the stealth, but there isn't much of that, so I'm satisfied.

A must-play for fans of classic RPGs! Tales of Lyfael completely surprised me in the best way possible. It feels just like playing an old-school GBA RPG—think Final Fantasy, Golden Sun, or Fire Emblem vibes. The pixel art is charming, the turn-based combat with front/back formations adds real strategy, and the soundtrack is spot-on nostalgic. The humor, the story, and the exploration (so many maps!) kept me hooked from start to finish. With 17 classes and tons of spells to play around with, I was constantly experimenting with builds. It’s clear this was made with love and passion. If you grew up on handheld RPGs, this is absolutely worth your time. I was extremely satisfied with the experience. 👍 Highly recommended!

This RPG is an absolute gem — a perfect blend of storytelling, character development, and meaningful choices that shape the world around you. From the very beginning, the game pulls you into its rich, beautifully crafted universe. Every location feels alive, every NPC has a purpose, and the attention to detail is nothing short of incredible.

I don’t usually play a lot of pixel-style games like this, but I’m really glad I had the opportunity to playtest it. The bosses were definitely a challenge, but never felt overwhelming—once you figured out their counter or leveled up enough. The ending completely caught me off guard in the best possible way, and I love when a game surprises me like that. On top of that, the soundtrack was absolutely beautiful and really added to the atmosphere. With the variety of builds you can experiment with and the multiple endings to discover, there’s a ton of replayability here. Plus, I really appreciated the devs’ sense of humor—it matched mine perfectly. The little jokes and hidden references sprinkled throughout the story were a great touch. Overall, this was an awesome experience and I thank the dev for the opportunity once again!

I'm new to RPG games (and games in general), but Tales of Lyfael was an easy start - intuitive and fast, everything was smooth and mainly, from the beginning, FUN. This game became such an obsession, I wanted to continue the story, fight and find out more. And even though I didn't play games like this, it had nostalgia. And humor! Probably not for someone who is accustomed to more..."high up games", but if you want to relax and have fun, this one is for you (and me, I'm going to play more for sure!).

Game is decent, worth buying to support the developers. If only the monsters design had the same color scheme as the heroes, that would make it a lot better. The monster artwork/design doesn't match with the heroes. Some negative issues I have with the game is my attacks have like a 50-60% chance or higher of missing. I died a few times due to this during clutch moments.