The Scarlet Chaos

RPG with no grinding and limited resources. Update: the game-breaking bugs mentioned at the end of the review have been squashed in the latest patch. Despite the appearance of a conventional RPG game, combat is mixed with detective work and investigation. There is a lot more emphasis on the story and slightly linear progression. Although you must complete a major goal in order to progress to the next chapter, you can also complete a few side quests that will gain you valuable resources. The world is full with interesting stuff, so it's a good idea to interact with everything that piques your attention. Unlike most similar games, where objects are hidden only in chests, you can view them immediately away on a counter, table, or similar. Of course, there are still chests. Key items required for progress are highlighted with a visual clue so you never miss them. The menu is identical to those found in other role-playing games. You may view your items and skills, equip new gear, and keep track of your current tasks. Saving can be done at any moment, and there is an autosave feature to avoid unexpected situations. Because your primary character is a detective, he will improve three skills by interacting with the environment. There is cognition that allows you to persuade others, elder sight for investigating strange signs and events, and perception to observe things in the world. Although the message "something has gained experience" appears frequently, it is not adequately explained. It turns out that gaining one point in a stat requires numerous experience gains. Once you leave town and begin exploring the wilderness, you will discover that the world is much more interesting. Instead of boring landscapes filled with random enemy encounters, you'll come across houses, people roaming around, and a more "believable" setting in general. You can also make shortcuts, start fires in dark caves, and use lockpicks to break down specific doors. There are still enemies, but you can see them moving about. Although they can be ignored, killing them makes life easier for you. Because combat is not the game's major focus, defeated enemies remain dead indefinitely and do not respawn when you rest or change screens. Except for quest fights, fighting isn't that useful since you get nothing meaningful. Health is not an issue because there is a character in town who can heal you for free. This can be a bit boring because you need to walk to the town after each fight, but there’s at least one fast-travel point in each chapter to make this less painful. Combat is turn-based. Characters collect TP points when they receive and deal damage, which allows them to perform skills. However, their availability is determined by the type of weapon you are armed with. You can use either swords or guns. However, since firearms require ammunition to function, it is recommended to stay with cold weapons. Characters receive experience and level up, but it is not how they learn new talents. To do that, you need to buy skill books from a shop or vendors. Once opened, the book allows you to teach a skill to any character. Unfortunately, money is hard to come by because battles do not provide any. The only way to make money is to either explore every corner of the world or complete as many missions as possible. However, the best option is to sell stuff you don't need, such as healing gems. Sadly, the game has bugs. Some are harmless and fixable, such as when you use the fast-travel and break the game because you’re supposed to come through the main entrance. There are also some assets in the world you’re not supposed to walk through. And there are also game-breaking bugs that completely destroy progress. One of those happens towards the end of the first chapter. You’re supposed to search a drawer for a note, but the trigger never goes away and you can repeat it. You always get the same animation, but the story mission doesn’t jump to the next objective.

Pretty cool so far, no grinding, challenging battles, interesting story full of cthulhu mythos references. The lockpicking is annoying even when it isn't glitching out, so save before you have to do it, because resources are very scarce and enemies don't respawn. Also there are occasional spelling or grammar mistakes, but not so many that they drag you out of the game (and I am pretty pedantic about that.) Overall I thoroughly recommend it!