The Legion of Maelstrom

Has a nostalgic old-school NES-like rpg appearance but the battle system is actually rather different from the usual. Lacks random encounters and the battles are against bosses you can challenge and re-challenge, the way power progression works seems aimed at a particular sort of 'Grind' player. Worth checking out for the low price.

Great so far! The story is interesting and the music is bangin'. Can't wait to finish it :)

Wow, what a criminally underrated gem! Super unique, super creative. No random encounters, purely optional grinding for gear, a bunch of classes, levelling up different classes boost each other, lending to unique synergies, all abilities tightly balanced. A nice treat, from start to finish. My only complaint would be that sometimes you're working away at the boss's hp and it feels like you're whacking a statue because you have no idea how much HP they have left. You can get an item later in the game that can scan their HP. Once you've beat a boss once you roughly know their HP if you were keeping count in your head, but but before that I was just keeping track in my head how much damage I've dealt. Also I wish SPEED was a more important to other classes and bosses asides from just the Ninja. These are extremely minor nitpicks in an otherwise flawless game though. Great music, great visuals, great gameplay. A complete treat from start to finish!

Some really interesting ideas about how to strip a classic 8-bit RPG down to only the essential elements and get rid of the parts that are just filler. Enjoyed it for sure. Thumbs up.

This is a retro-style RPG with grinding baked into its very nature. 8-bit style graphics, and very well-done chiptune music and sound effects. I was instantly engaged by this because I am a gaming dinosaur. The story is a light twist on your whole "nobody becomes hero, saves the world" trope, as you're not the hero - at first. You follow in the shadow of a party of renowned heroes, and the leader makes it clear that you're in their way. You start to make a name for yourself, by becoming a one-man army, combining the strengths of all classes into one, in a very tactical (and for most of my early-to-mid-game experience, very defensive) turn-based combat system in which the only enemies are bosses. There are no random trash encounters. You defeat bosses to level up whatever class you kill them as (two levels per class per boss). Each class gets stronger as they level, but they also share benefits across classes, such as extra stat gains and sharing certain abilities from their toolkits. Think something akin to the Jobs system in various Final Fantasy titles. This is not only neat, but mandatory to get anywhere with the fights. If you're not combining abilities, you're going to have a bad time. For those curious, since I've mentioned them a dozen times so far, the classes are: -Citizen: your default and starter class. Fists only. Starts weak, begins to feel like a badass monk as you progress. -Soldier: Uses swords. Heavy focus on Attack and Defense stats. Straightforward bruiser. -Priest: Uses tomes. Has the only healing spell, and can hold his own in damage. -Ninja: Uses claws. Relies on Speed stat for his heavy-hitting ability. The "Boost" ability is amazing for MP regeneration. -Wizard: Uses staves. Big damage, and the only Defense-boosting ability in the game (which is basically mandatory to ward off many bosses' big-hitting attacks). It's a game for a certain kind of broken individual. You're gonna be killing each and every boss at least 10 times for full class level-ups, and probably a lot more to farm their loot pools, which expand as your Luck stat increases. Unless I misread the developer's intention, it lends itself heavily to save-scumming to make sure you get the exact loot you want from your boss kills. They get a little stronger each time you kill and revive them. Money is tight for the beginning of your adventure, but it gets better later on. Two NPCs will prevent you from getting stuck due to money. If you are out of money, you can get help by talking to: -Logan in the starter town will give you healing potions if you're out and can't afford more. -Sturgis in the second town will give you a Life-Rock (the item needed to revive bosses) if you're out and can't afford more. You'll find yourself somewhat reliant on potions until you can Heal and Boost, then potions seem basically unneeded. [Full disclosure: I've been playing RPGs since the early '90s and have always found items to be a crutch that I go out of my way to avoid leaning on] I'm 25 hours in, and not yet through with the main story, as I am an obsessive grinder. A straightforward playthrough without all of the reloading and repeating I've been doing could probably have fully beaten the game and gotten all achievements at this point. But for me, there are still things I haven't seen, bosses I haven't fought. I'll get there just as soon as I get the last couple drops I need for my collection from the early bosses. The Legion of Maelstrom is a strong blend of modern and retro, in a package that's both easy to walk away from, and easy to spend hours getting lost in, just trying for that one drop (I'm looking at you, Predator Claw). If your tastes combine Dragon Warrior/Quest with soul-crushing repetition, pick it up. ---------------------------- Follow-up: Beat the game, got all the achievements. Definitely worth the time, and I would be excited to see more games like this from the developer!

보기보다 스케일 큼. 보기보다 노가다가 필요함. 시시한 개그가 취향에 맞으면 웃으며 즐길수 있음

This is such a fun and unique little game, I can't help but recommend it just for the uniqueness alone. Essentially, you play as a solo character, like in the first Dragon Quest. There are no random encounters in this game, only boss fights, which is fun. You play as one of five classes, but can swap between them at any time. The game is built around you doing so, as you gain small bonuses for all classes each time you level a class up. I wish some of the later bosses were a little more interesting mechanically, and perhaps a little less bulky, but all around I think the game is a fun time and well worth the asking price!

The premise of this game is that instead of being about a party of 3-5 characters who journey the world together and who have individual strengths that complement each other, this is about 1 (silent, nameable) character who can act as each of 5 classes by changing outfits outside of combat. There are Fighter, Priest, Wizard, Ninja and the comparatively lame Civilian. Each time you level up as a specific class, it upgrades a certain stat across the board. The contrast between these approaches is a topic of discussion in the story: there's a party of 4 characters that seem to be the definitive Adventurers Of The Realm that go on adventures parallel to your character. Shortly after meeting them, the Elder of the starter town gives them an admonishment for being too dependent on each other with a spiel that, e.g. if everyone could heal themselves to some degree then there would be a lighter load on the Priest. I'm not entirely sure I agree that self-reliance is inherently better than relying on others but it's an uncommon theme to base a game around and not a bad one. It’s good when a game works with it’s core mechanic as a story element, it helps the story and gameplay feel like both part of one experience rather than disconnected. The main problem with the game (and why I dropped it) is that despite the good ideas, what the core gameplay boils down to isn't very interesting. Each of the 4 main (non-Civilian) classes have a total of 3 special moves each, most of which you cannot use at the start due to MP restrictions. The options you end up having are using your standard attack on the enemy repeatedly or meditating (read: defending) for 1-2 turns to build up enough MP that you can use a stronger attack that does 2-3 times more damage. The latter strategy is slightly better because it means you're defending for a few turns and enemies with higher Defence take more damage from 1 big hit than 2-3 smaller ones. This leads to a gameplay loop that just isn't very fun to play and the lack of different moves afforded by different classes at the start ends up selling the core mechanic of “changing class” short since all 5 play the same. You just rest, rest again and attack (and chug potions when your HP gets low) over and over until the enemy dies instead of you. It gets more tedious because you're encouraged, almost required, to fight previous enemies to level up and improve your abilities. There are no mooks in this game so when you grind, it's against a boss you've already beaten that you revive using a Life Stone. Not far out of the starting gates, you're directly told by an NPC to go back and fight the previous enemy 4 more times so that you can level up in each class to stand a chance against the next boss. This is a lot of repetition, especially for early on. I had a few smaller issues with this game: [list] [*]the "go home" shell didn't work. There's a consumable item that resembles a shell that teleports you back to your hometown of [Island-Town] when used but I couldn't get it to work. It says in the inventory description that it cannot be used in combat, which is understandable but I also tried using it in: The Ice Castle, Ore Town, the overworld near Ore town, and the overworld on the island that [Island-Town] is and it still didn't work. [*]boss HP is not visible. This is something that comes as default with RPGmaker and it's certainly not the only game to not have this, but in this case it means that the player can't tell if they lost by a large margin (so probably need to level up one of their classes) or just by a bit (so they don't, and just need to up their strategy) which is a pain [*]number of remaining potions in the inventory is not visible in combat. This isn't something that is default for RPGmaker so I don't really know why it wasn't included. Maybe they forgot in the transition to the new battle interface, but it’s a pain for similar reasons as above. It really feels like you should be able to keep track of this, especially when money isn't abundant. These 2 reasons make it really hard to see when your or your enemies death is imminent, yours by running out of potions and then getting killed in 3 turns, theirs by running out of HP [/list] The story premise and setting isn't going to win any awards for uniqueness but I'd say that it has enough charm and good presentation to it to make it work. The art style is very good (though the main character's Peace Sign animation was a little odd) and the sound design is great. The interface in battle functions the same as standard menus, but makes it just feel better than a bunch of menu boxes. I think the battle interface demonstrates my feeling towards this game: great presentation, functions little different to normal, but when it comes down to it, somewhat repetitive. It's a shame that this spoils it for me, but maybe other experiences are different, some people might not mind this repetition, I unfortunately do. TL;DR: This game is charming, the presentation is good but the gameplay itself is rather repetitive. If you just came to read the TL;DR and not the rest of my review, this game probably isn't for you.

This is such a creative take on the genre and I'm glad I played it. Highly recommend to any rpg fans!

PT BR Esse jogo chamou minha atenção por ter elementos de gacha e singleplayer ao mesmo tempo o que eu achei que fosse curtir, mas a minha experiência se tornou um pouco tediosa. andar pelo mapa é lento ja que a opção de correr desaparece depois do tutorial, morrer num boss vira uma tarefa chata ja que voce tem que andar o mapa todo. Não tem um teleporte que corte caminho ou nada do tipo. Batalhas estão ok, quando voce chega a certos niveis pode usar algumas hbailidades de outras classes que torna as lutas mais estrategicas e longas. A parte do Gacha não é ruim, mas é colocada pra baixo por esses fatores. Visual é bom, músicas são ok e Historia é boa o suficiente, EN This game caught my attention for having gacha and singleplayer elements at the same time which I thought I would enjoy, but my experience became a bit tedious. walking around the map is slow since the option to run disappears after the tutorial, dying on a boss becomes a boring task since you have to walk the whole map. It doesn't have a teleport that cuts the path or anything like that. Battles are ok, when you reach certain levels you can use some skills from other classes that make fights more strategic and longer. The Gacha part isn't bad, but it's put down by these factors. Visuals are good, songs are ok and Story is good enough, Leaving a negative review so dev can remember to always improve, they got something here that could be much better that comes with experience, but as steam only knows good and bad, i'd say this game is a medium