Wantless : Solace at World’s End

I have no idea how I missed this game, but I am really glad I saw a friend playing it and gave this one a spin. This game has so much of what I like in a game. Tremendous build flexibility. The idea of building your own skills is remarkable and the way they lay out the systems for you is excellent. The design of the levels and bosses is well done and the volume of different kinds of things you can run into is really impressive. It took me about 20 hours to get through the main story quest and the post-game content has just opened up for me laying out tons of new skill components and bosses to chase. The volume of content here is quite impressive. This game is a difficult game that speaks to experienced tactical RPG players (if the achievements are to be believed, less than 10% of the players have made it through the final boss). If you are a player that has a lot of experience with Tac RPGs and enjoys complex systems and options, you are going to have an excellent time here. This game feels like it is a love letter to that niche audience of players and probably isn't as generally accessible as a result of that. I can see casual players getting overwhelmed by this one very easily and only recommend it to veterans of the genre.

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This was an absolute unexpected gem. I almost didn't go for the game since when I see something like "customizable skills" I just assume it's going to be broken degenerate cheesed combos. I ended up with a game I liked in pretty much every way, including some unexpected ones. When's the last time I remember reading all the flavor text on every enemy because I think it's genuinely cool? Where to even start... 1. This is definitely a game I think is a textbook great game for experienced genre players. The way the system of "enemies get as much AP as you yourself spent" mixes things up is fantastic if you're already numb to repetitive tactical mechanics. The mix of enemies spending AP normally, doing turn-timed charge up actions, etc make for tons of unique puzzles. The idea of approaching non-boss fights in stealth where you can spent 5 AP a turn to move around, buff up, position summons or such before forced to start combines interesting with getting timed buffs after each fight. The core loop is just meaningfully unique and it's refreshing to figure out all the ways to abuse it. Even small mechanics like "the first turn you summon an ally their initiative goes at the end, while on future turns they go right after you" are perfectly tuned to make things interesting and make you think about your choices in ways unlike most games. 2. The crafting was something I borderline considered a negative when I read it. "Skill crafting" is something I read as 'unbalanced as heck' and I'm absolutely shocked at how smooth and intuitive it is and how well balanced. One of my first skills was a simple "enemy takes damage when moving + push the enemy". Another was applying the debuff "hurt this target when you spend AP" and "hurt this target when they take damage from other sources", and it got WILDLY more complex from there while always being something I hand-crafted every piece of and understand the roles. You can have 10 skills each one with 1 targeting shape, up to 5 effects, and 1 cooldown/cost property, and the effects/targeting modes are as varied as you'd hope. 3. The gradual ramp-up of complexity, from the gates in your skill tree and its powerful passives, to powerful unique gear/crafting parts, to many of the more nuanced and stronger enemies is great. Every 5 or 10 hours you'll feel like everything has escalated and you've mastered new levels of systems, and then it escalates even more, straight into the post-game. The pacing is just excellent. 4. I actually genuinely liked the story. It's a great example of how you don't need a lot of story to have good story - the setting of like "post-apocalyptic psychosurgeon who removes fears, desires or memories manifesting as monsters" is already really cool, and yet rather than some lofty globe-trotting conspiracy, the core of the main story is actually pretty personal with a clear arc and some bold high points and sick boss fights. ---- This isn't the sort of game I see many people putting 300 hours into, although I imagine you could. But the important thing is just that it genuinely stands out from a lot of other mid-tier indie tactical roguelike whatever stuff with a unique core loop and excellent content variety that's paced perfectly. The only real criticism I have is that a lot of the gear/ability crafting components you loot can be a bit busy, you don't have a way to sell/deconstruct from the post-run screen, and on the same note because it's so busy you'll focus on getting/keeping stuff relevant to your main strategy, which means you probably won't set aside a lot of stuff that might eventually be useful if you wanted to try out alternate specs. Out of myself and a couple of friends who played the game ,we all ended up sticking to a single general spec our entire playtime, which is a shame since we all played totally DIFFERENT specs and had very different experiences. I focused on DoT-applying summons and was great at grinding down bosses, for instance. But it felt like since i was focused on buying/keeping gear relevant to Afflictions and Summons it would've taken even more effort for me to figure out how to pivot my build to, I dunno, stealth sniper or melee tank or some of the weirder stuff like buffing-via-self-debuffs. But maybe you'll try out all that, the game's worth it.

Wantless is an odd indie duck. It combines turn based tactics, fully customizable combat abilities and the elaborate talent tree concept from Path of Exile. Which is great for people who like crafting insanely complex or seemingly overpowered builds, but not at all welcoming for people looking for a more casual turn based experience.

A rare gem among indie games with a ton of build possibilities and diablo-like itemization. Extremely complex 'skill' system where you can really combine anything with everything. Its hard to describe with words, you have to see for yourself. In any case, if some1 wants beautiful art, isometric, turn based rpg-s, then this definitely should be checked out. I wonder how the game didnt become more popular because the features and atmosphere, the storytelling and the conceptual idea is pretty unique, and it will certainly get you hooked for quite some time if you're a fan of the genre.

It's neat, though a bit rough around the edges. The star of the show here is the build variety. You have a big skill tree, with interconnected nodes, and the ability to build your own active abilities by combining elements that make up the shape/range, the effect, and the cost, so there's really a lot of possibilities here. Unfortunately the game is fairly repetitive and grindy, so getting deeper into your build can be a bit frustrating at times. There's also the way AP (action points) work, which I wasn't fond of - basically, the amount of AP you use in a turn is the amount of AP enemies will get when their turn comes around. It's an interesting idea, and thematically appropriate, but in practice it varies wildly between extremely abusable and really punishing, which gets frustrating. As for the story, it's rather barebone and ends abruptly. It's still a good game overall, but I don't see myself sinking much more time than I already did in it.

really good if you like turn-based isometric rpgs and a high difficulty level. once i got how the mechanics work (craft-your-own-skills) it was hard to put the game down. it's a little haunting, but i like that. :D very addictive, highly recommended!

One of the best games iv played. I love that you can fully craft your own skills together. The tutorial is a little bit long and too much at the start, but you can just skip it all.

Fun game with an interesting skill crafting system

Le jeu a été fait par des Français, mais il n'y a que la langue anglaise qui est officiellement supportée. C'est tellement typique.