The Logomancer

I got this game in a bundle. So, for me, it was definitely worth the $0.50-$1.00 to pick this up. It's a quite unique turn-based JRPG with some neat gimmics that set it apart from your standard RPGmaker fare. The dialogue is witty and intelligent, at least from what I've seen so far. The combat system goes in the same vein, using a system of "Pathos, Ethos, and Logos" to use logic and reasoning to beat your opponents instead of violence. You attack their willpower instead of their "HP." It's a neat way to ease up on the monotony of many JRPGs. In the end, though, you're still hitting enemies for number amounts of "damage," the only difference being in the form of what you call the damage (e.g., willpower damage via argumentation). So it may be worth picking up for you. I haven't got very far in it, obviously, but I wanted to give this game some love due to the fact that it had no reviews before this one. Worth $10? That's up to you. Probably worth it on sale and definitely in a bundle. 6.3/10?

Taking bog-standard JRPG combat system and dressing it up in new names does not count as innovation. The player still get stuck with one of the most boring variations of combat mechanics that remain unchanged for far too long. Otherwise, this game suffers from things that plague most JRPGs, especially cheap indie ones: bad controls, a lot of unnecessary walking (this time, without a chance of random encounter even), boring equipment, lack of dialogue trees, I expected this to be more like "Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher" - which is the game you should try instead, if you're looking for really interesting "word-based" battles. As it is, I cannot recommend this game, even though dialogues and story are somewhat above-level for a genre cursed with endless stories about magical schoolboys/girls.

The graphics are are a bit jarring at first, but I like the characters and it has some good tunes, especially the rockin' tunes you'll hear later in the game. The writing is fun and humorous, and the battle system uses a three color element system that has you making the enemy vulnerable to a type of "verbal argument" before taking them out. The haunted mansion's a cool part of the game, and the few puzzles you'll run into are a challenge of their own. I finished it in around 25 hours after doing most of everything and spending time on the puzzles, so there's a good amount to do, along with the few ending you can get depending on what you've completed at the time. HATCHET THE EQUINOX!

I can not say enough good things about this game. I can say a few bad ones. Some of the puzzles might be a bit much, and a lot of the character protraits are flat-out ugly. The story is fascinating, though. Excellent worldbuilding. Frequent hilarity in characters being snarky to one another. Buy this game. Ignore bad reviews.

I honestly can't recommend this highly enough. Between the original premise, non-stock art assets and music, creative puzzles, better-than-average writing, competent dungeon design, and a decent chunk of optional content . . . this game is good. Really, really good. The basic premise is that you finalize contracts for a company with people who can make permanent structures in the shared dreamscape that the people of this world visit in their sleep. Most things people create while sleeping vanish, but logomancers can create things that last, and other people can experience those things in their sleep, etc. So it's a skill in high demand. Anyway, you can do the bare minimum -- meet the local logomancer, "test out" his latest dreamscape creation, get him to sign the contract, and then leave town. 2 or 3 hours, ending triggered, game over. Or . . . you could visit the other townspeople, assist them with a number of side quests, visit other areas of the local dreamscape. As you do so, you'll occasionally come across various bits of weirdness that hint at a greater mystery. Needless to say, most of the optional content(to get the "true ending") ties into this mystery, which you can in fact solve. And once you've done that, there's even a little bit of post-game content that gives you just a bit more information if you can beat its super bosses. The game took me about 23 hours to finish in its entirety(minus 1 super boss), so I'd guess there's at least 15 to 20 hours of content for most people. As far as I can tell, no stock assets were used in this game. From the tiles to the sprites to the music, it's all unique. I'm not going to lie -- body proportions are weird, the colors can be very vivid and jarring, but . . . you can tell it was all done by the same person, so there's a consistency. Love it or hate it, you have to admire that someone went through the trouble of making their own stuff instead of using the RPG Maker stock art. And personally, I thought it all worked together really well once I got used to the style. The battle system has some neat things going for it. Under the surface, it's pretty much what we're used to. Elemental and non-elemental attacks/defenses, health, magic points, various status effects, and the such. However, it's the trappings that make it so special! Instead of regular battles, you have conversations or debates. Your opponents in the waking world are other people, and in the dreamscape the foes take the form of abstract concepts, logical errors, grammatical errors, and the such. The 3 basic elements are ethos(ethical thinking), logos(rational thinking), and pathos(angry/emotional thinking), and manipulating and taking advantage of those states in order to do the most "damage" makes up the basic layer of combat, and you gain access to a number of skills as you level up(or learn from books) that mix this up. I love that this game lets me drop ethical opponents with a Modus Ponens argument. That's just a bit of magic right there. Not going to lie. There are some flaws. Getting some of the items necessary for the "true ending" and the post-game content can be kind of maddening. Even if you pay careful attention to everything that's said or every note you read, stumbling across some of it seems to be just dumb luck. There are a couple walls you can walk through that I'm not sure how you're expected to find them; I got lucky and just stumbled on them, but I read that other people had a lot of trouble with them. And one of the superbosses is hiding in plain sight with nothing to indicate that you're about to fight something huge; nothing tips you off that it's not a normal enemy fight until it's too late, and you have to beat it and get its item drop in order to do the post-game content. And the water spine cave puzzle is just horrible -- I Googled the solution, and even seeing the explanations(it's a base-5 counting thing) didn't help; the picture you're supposed to decode to get the solution still makes no sense to me. Also, another interesting thing just to illustrate how much work went into this -- you can't really sequence break. For example, there's a "find the journal" side quest at one point. You can talk to A, then B, then go to X, read D, then go to Y and solve puzzle Z to find the journal. Or . . . you can go straight to the puzzle, get the journal, and return it to A without breaking anything at all. And that's just one example. This game really encourages you to explore, and it doesn't punish you(except perhaps by you running into enemies you're not strong enough for yet) for doing so. Go ahead. Do some things out of the normal order. The game can take it. Sometimes doing things in the "wrong" order gets you slightly different dialogue, too. For another example, there is a little time at the beginning of the game when you only have 2 party members. The 3rd joins you very soon if you follow the main story path, but you can wander around and do a number of things before getting her to join you, and the dialogue will be a little different than if you'd had her in your party while doing those same things. All things considered, I give it a solid 8 out of 10. It could have been darn near perfect, but a couple non-game-breaking bugs and the obtuseness of certain things I mentioned above take their toll. Still, all in all, a highly recommended experience.

It might be cheating a bit for me to review this game on Steam, because I've reviewed it before on the RPGMaker Network, and my review is already linked from the game page. But since I've already gotten the long-winded talking about the game out of the way, I can cut straight to the question of whether you should actually buy it. You probably shouldn't buy this game if: -You don't like RPGs. Steam sorts lots of games by the RPG tag which really aren't. The Logomancer is definitely an RPG, and by mechanical function if not writing convention, it's a JRPG. If you don't like those things, don't get it. -The art scares you. The screenshots accurately reflect what the game looks like, so if you don't get it if you don't want to get what you see. -You hate puzzles. There are no pointless block pushing puzzles or thoughtless drudge work dressed up as puzzles in this game, but if you don't like puzzles at all, this is not the game for you. -You cannot get enough of teenagers saving the world from an ancient evil which has broken free of its seal, and aren't interested in an RPG about anything else. You should consider buying this game if: -You appreciate clever, well-written dialogue. -You're looking for an RPG with an original and interesting setting and plot. -You want a game which goes beyond mechanical challenges and gets you intellectually and emotionally invested in the narrative. If you think there's any chance this game is for you, check it out, it might just be one of the best games you haven't heard of.

I love rpg makers games but all my past expierence playing them didn't prepare me for this. Logomancer is very well spoken with great world lore and character development. The puzzles were way too high level for me but I used a guide made by the developer to get through the really tough ones (the creepy basement was my favorite part of the game and I didn't need a guide to solve it woot). If you're a fan of rpgmaker, tough puzzles, turned based combat, and great atmosphere then this is the game for you. P.S: I highly suggest getting the "true ending". It's very well written, mind blowing ending!!

RPG Maker strikes again! This is another low effort retro-pixel JRPG ripoff spamming the Steam catalog, made with the RPG Maker video game construction kit... in their own words, "Our easy to use tools are simple enough for a child." This isn't even a good RPG Maker game. They replaced a lot of the RPG Maker assets with excruciatingly, painfully bad hand drawn high schooler art that makes Napoleon Dynamite look like DaVinci. Gamers who want a good retro gaming experience would be better off playing the original Final Fantasy games or one of the better RPG Maker games.

Tags: Topdown - RPGMaker & Party RPG Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library TLDR: MSPaint Philosophy battle RPGMaker game with odd setting. Not worth the learning curve or the time investment.

Bad