The Captives: Plot of the Demiurge

[h1] In A Nutshell [/h1] 🔵 [b] Pros [/b] + Plenty of alternative game modes and custom modifiers. + Decent storyline coated with humor. + Good character progression system with interesting mechanics. + Some challenging boss fights and encounters. 🔴 [b] Cons [/b] - Unbalanced, bizarre stamina management system. - Multiple weapon balance issues derived from the problem above. - Inability to change weapons once a level is started. - Several mechanics are not used at their full potential. The Captives is essentially top-down a dungeon crawler featuring ten different characters for the same amount of stages. Each of these characters can be customized in attributes, weapons, appearance, and once the stage is completed, you may meet that character again in future ones as a companion. This mechanic is however used only in a few levels and just seems a large waste of potential. Combat is promoted as "souls-like", but the only similarities with the Souls series are the dodge mechanic, back-stabs and perfect parrying. Enemies do not give any experience, as leveling up is done via several "crates" found around each level, giving one Attribute Point each time to spend; Six are present in each level, often behind hidden places or additional dangerous areas. Checkpoints do not offer any function besides re-spawn point, and there are no different weapons or pieces of gear ti drop from defeated enemies. Level design gets pretty intricate in the last few levels, while being normal or simple in the other stages. There are unlock-able shortcuts to access later stage areas more easily, secret levers and keys to find to open secondary areas probably containing Attribute Chests. Besides this, there isn't much left in levels, the occasional NPCs with some lines of dialogue may shed some light on the lore and storyline, while rarely some of your former characters may join you as companions. Overall, The Captives is a decent top-down hack and slash, but some of its mechanics and design choices result to be detrimental and hold it back from being a truly good game. [quote]Liked this review, and want to see more of the same quality? Check out [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/39323490]Tamaster's Review Archive[/url] to see all my Reviews in a single, convenient location.[/quote] [h1] In-depth Feature Analysis [/h1] 🎮 [b] Gameplay [/b] The gameplay of The Captives is divided mainly into Preparation, Exploration and Combat. The character preparation screen features a complete appearance editor, where you can choose face, clothes and details of your hero. Armors and such are only cosmetic and have no impact in gameplay. This part will also allow choosing from different weapons ranging from nimble daggers to massive halberds, of course each having different damage values, attack speed, patterns, and stagger values. Lastly, you will be able to put six attribute points into one of the four available ones: Health, Stamina, Focus and Speed to best suit your character build. Accurate descriptions of what each attribute does and what special effects it delivers are present. Exploration of dungeons will feature various rooms, each of them being a stand-alone fight featuring one or more enemies, when a room is cleared, your Health is completely restored, this is the only form of healing in the game aside from Checkpoints, who also reset all enemies like in souls-like games. Additional areas can often be unlocked with levers or keys found while exploring, and often lead to Attribute Crates, giving one Point to spend in any statistic you want to improve the character. Always six of them are present in each stage and this is the only "leveling-up" available. No other items are present to loot or discover aside from Keys and Crates. 📖 [b] Story [/b] The story of The Captives starts of seeming pretty serious, but soon become coated with humor, with an alternation of serious and funny moments. Do not expect a very serious and accurate depiction of characters, as each of them will be likely oriented to be comedic and funny rather than serious. It's not bad by any means even if it's a bit of a cliche and just does not shine a lot for originality or complexity. 👊 [b] Combat System [/b] Combat takes a lot of inspiration from the famous Souls series, but is not, by a long shot, as difficult or complex as that, think of it as a quite watered down version. It is based mostly on dodging at the right times, understanding enemy attack patterns, circle around foes to backstab, and eventually also parry at the right time to counter attack. The biggest issue of an otherwise good system is how Stamina is managed: every light attack of any weapon costs one stamina while heavy costs two. This means a greatsword inflicting great damage and a dagger have the same stamina cost, and also make no effect on the player's move speed. This makes heavier weapons completely overpowered while penalizing a lot lighter ones, effectively making only Halberds and Greatswords good weapons. Also, the time window for a perfect parry is insanely small, much smaller than any Dark Souls game even, making it almost impossible to perform a perfect parry and stun the enemy. 💰 [b] Content & Pricing [/b] Base price tag is 14€, offering about 9-12 hours of content for the main campaign, depending a lot on difficulty and skill level. Additional challenge modes can alter considerably the gameplay, offering some form of replay-ability to the most dedicated players, but don't expect a whole new gameplay from any of them. I'd say the game is worth it at this price for what it offers, even with the described issues. 🔗 [b] Balance & Challenge [/b] Balance of weapons is way offset because of how stamina is managed, favoring heavier weapons a lot. Lighter weapons may be quicker but the damage output of heavier ones just is so much better. Enemies are mostly balanced except for two bosses I found to be very unbalanced and unfair, but not impossible. [h1] Technical Analysis [/h1] 🎥 [b] Graphics [/b] Graphics are pleasant but still pretty basic. Dynamic shadows are a good touch. Animations are fluid and well made, while effects are very basic. Model quality is pretty good. Texture quality is average for this type of game. 🔊 [b] Sound [/b] Sound effects are pretty average, while soundtracks impressed me positively on some occasions. 🔩 [b] Performance & Stability [/b] GPU usage is pretty on the heavy side because of Unity engine having optimization issues, a common problem with Unity games nowadays. Game otherwise runs well and has a complete set of options to tweak performance. [GTX1080, i7 4820K, 16GB RAM] 💻 [b] Artificial Intelligence [/b] Enemy Ai, as expected, has a pattern based attack motion, but is also smart enough to avoid traps or bait you into more of their allies when alone. Pretty good. 🏠 [b] Quality of Life [/b] One critical issue is present: it is not possible to change weapons once a level is started, while the autosave-only function prevents reloading. This means if you choose the wrong weapon for some situation or level, you will have a very very hard time, possibly making the run impossible. I personally was forced to restart the game because of this, as my weapon was just too bad and could not change it. 🐛 [b] Bugs & Issues [/b] Sometimes heavier weapons will clip inside enemies when attacking and just not register the hit, if the enemy is doing as well an attack animation. This is rare but can happen. [h1] Conclusion [/h1] The Captives is quite a decent game and could be outright good if not for the few but serious design problems with STamina and Weapon Changing, which can botch entire runs and make the experience much less enjoyable. Still, it's a pretty good indie title you should check out. This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers.

This game is different and aweseome. A whole other way to tell a story. You create and play a new character/class with each chapter and you old characters stay relevant in you story and sometimes tag along! I normally don't write reviews but I want to assure you that this is a good investment of your time and money!

The Captives is an interesting dungeon crawler with souls-like sword-play that comes with new ideas and a lot of story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuTIi-PI8gY&t=1s Room for improvement: - camera - gameplay a bit faster - UI looks a bit too early access Recommended for fans of the genre.

[code][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33025671-Missi-the-Achievement-Huntress/] Please see my curator page for more games that are worth your time [/url][/code] Info Game: This is a hack & slash adventure game. You start every level with a new prisoner with who you can choose new stats. Those stats you'll improve during a dungeon, in each level are 6 chest hidden which let you choose to upgrade a stat. The story is a bit thin but fun and with a lot of humor. The gameplay feels a bit clucky, your char moves kind of slow and the fighting has already a high difficulty level on the "normal" dificulty. With practice you'll get better at the fightning system but for me it still was a challenge. The most annoying this is that when you use a save inside a dungeon all mobs will respawn, so sometimes it is better to not save yet. Info achievements: This game will be a real challenge to complete, because you need to complete it on the highest difficulty. there are 5 difficulty levels and the first one is already a challenge, I don't want to know how hard the last one is. If you're up for a challenge this is the game for you! Other achievements are for beat the different levels, use different weapons and beat levels with maxing a stat and not using a stat. Pros & Cons: + A game with humor + Challenging but fun gameplay - When saving in a dungeon all monsters respawn.

First a heads up - a friend of a friend was involved in the game, so I picked it up to support them. And honestly, I was not expecting much, because I am cynical and terrible. However, what I found was a thoroughly enjoyable game! This is an isometric, fantasy-based adventure game, split across multiple levels and playable characters. Combined with a selection of different weapons that drastically change your tactics, enemies that vary in weapon equipment and AI (some of them try kiting you toward their friends! So cheeky!), and clever changes in level design, the 15-16 hours I spent on the game felt fresh all the way through. Combat is the main crux of the game, and it borrows heavily from Dark Souls, with deliberately slow animations, a stamina system and parrying. This has clearly been carefully tweaked, as the combat has that Souls-like requirement for patience and tactical awareness - you can't just wade in and hammer buttons. It is more forgiving than Souls games though - health restoration is achieved by clearing a room, and the difficulty curve is much more gentle. That is not to say I found it easy. I still died a couple of hundred times. The art style obviously does not have the polish of a big budget game but it is bright and bold, much like the playable characters themselves. All of them are amusing and charming, adding a huge slice of enjoyability to the game. As they make their way through an otherwise quite straightforward fantasy plot, they speak with a satire that is pointed but not overly so, and for me at least that lifts the writing above more po-faced or more unsubtly comedic games. There is also a twist at the end that caught me off guard and made me smile, although I suspect other people may well work it out ahead of time. If I have any complaints, they will probably be aimed at some of the boss battles. Although some of them definitely are challenging, there are a couple that I waltzed through with relative ease. Sometimes they were much easier than rooms I had dealt with earlier in the level. Oh, and sometimes the music would go silent for long periods of time. And changing the gender of a character occasionally meant some of the dialogue used the wrong pronouns. Overall, it was a very entertaining game, and fully endorsed by me, an internet rando. Recommended for: people that found Dark Souls too ugly, depressing or difficult; people that liked Dark Souls and want a fun variation on it; people that enjoy light comedic deconstructions of fantasy tropes; people that like building ensembles of customised characters and naming them after friends and family, so you can spin them around in your twisted little web.

Played the Game, loved the Game, on Release. it has new spin on leveling up and add some flavor to the gamer's expirence with a diverse character customization section to really make the player the chacter. it has a good use of humor in the script to keep us interested and have a few giggles along the way. All in all for lovers of castle crawler type games this is a must. dive in head first for some thing different and fresh

This indie game is a playful, whimsical take on the third-person action RPG genre. For a game of this magnitude, it has a surprising number of player customizations. You take on a dungeons to prove your innocence from a rather unusual base, a prison, with the Warden being your quest giver. I rather enjoyed the twist of circumstances. Unlike recent string of dungeon crawlers with arcadey controls, the combat is more reaction based requiring a careful selection of player actions, especially if you are low on stamina. It's closer to Assassin's Creed but with what appears to be backstabbing bonus. I do wish that the combat controls are more responsive and the rooms are bigger to make it easier for me to manuever and avoid the walls that obscure my view. However, the nice environmental storytelling more than makes up for these minor issues. Personally, I think the clever humor and plenty of dialog is the differentiator for this game. If you are someone who skips dialogs, you will end up losing a lot of value. However, if you enjoy funny dialog that plays on the tropes of the genre itself set to some delightful music, then you should pick up a copy of The Captives. I give it 8.5/10

Great dialogue, engaging combat, and versatile build options. What's not to love?

Absolutely amazing game! Loving every minute. A must buy for anyone ever!

Um ótimo jogo, 11/10. Prós: - Relembra a época do 64bits. - Gameplay e mecânicas simples e profunda, diverte casuais e veteranos. - "Classes" diferentes pra se jogar (cada arma tem suas características, e tem uma boa variedade). - Boa história (quem entender as referências, vai rir legal no jogo). - Inovação na Gameplay, a ideia de reencontrar os personagens foi bem aplicada, realizando missões com seus personagens anteriores. - Customização de personagem (roupa, cabelo, detalhes, rosto, etc). - Possibilidade de buildar o personagem (juntando com as "classes", tem muito estilo de jogo). - Desafiador, de começo você vai estranhar a velocidade do jogo, mas depois vai ver qu ela é perfeita pro jogo, jogue por um tempo que perceber claramente. No começo vai parecer fácil, e vai sentir a lentidão, mas mais pra frente, o jogo fica realmente empolgante e fica tudo perfeito. E se ainda ficar incomodado com isso, habilite o MOD que aumenta a velocidade do jogo. - MODs que facilitam ou dificultam o jogo, podendo customizar a gameplay pra ficar mais interessante. - Esse jogo me lembrou o que é um Chefe. Tipo, um Chefe mesmo, aquele cara que no final da fase tem uma música mais densa e realmente te mata sem dó se vacilar. Só vai entender quem lutar contra um Chefe, e acha graça daqueles gigantes com vida enorme e são mais fáceis que os inimigos das fases, além de ter pena de te matar (o que acontece em muito jogo por aí). Contras: - Esse jogo pede claramente um multiplayer; tem a dificuldade ideal pra isso, e mecânicas que encaixam bem. Torcendo pra que numa continuação atendam isso. - Algumas pessoas dirão que a falta de mapa incomoda, mas faz sentido você se perder se não se lembrar de um caminho que está vendo em terceira pessoa. - A velocidade do giro da câmera incomodou muito, mas a opção de alterar a sensibilidade resolveu isso, e com o sistema de mirar e mudar de alvo, tornou o jogo mais desafiador mais pra frente. - A morte não é tão punitiva, você volta umas poucas salas em alguns segundos. Encaixa bem com a gameplay, considerando a mecânica de vida e combate, agiliza o jogo. Você tenta uma estratégia, se falhar, morre na lata, revive no checkpoint, tenta outra estratégia, morre, revive, tenta outra, passa, e segue o jogo. Dá impressão que as salas em sí são as fases jogo, e tem umas que realmente vão te desafiar e pedir reflexos. Enfim, um jogo completo e coeso, mas pra perceber isso, terá que dar realmente uma chance pra ele, ainda mais os jogadores que preferem os estilos de jogos mais antigos com um toque moderno. Agora, quem prefere algo mais nutella, habilite os MODs que tornam o jogo fácil e você também vai se divertir. E os masoquistas, habilitem os MODs que tornam o jogo mais difícil, e boa sorte pra dominar a gameplay, a sensação de ganhar as lutas é muito boa.