Zoria: Age of Shattering

I didn't make it very far, because everything about this game seemed incredibly meh to me. The combat got repetitive almost immediately. There are classes, there are builds, there is gear, but it's all terribly uninspired. Nothing you haven't seen 100 times before. Tactical decision making is very light. Attacks of opportunity are random (with a low chance) so control through positioning is largely absent. Enemies just attack your weakest party member. Tougher monsters don't have interesting tactics from what I say, they just hit harder and/or more often. The game also effectively has a 'limited uses per rest' system for ALL abilities other than your basic attacks, which means you're incentivised to fight battles as much as possible only with your basic attacks. It's actually hard to imagine turn based combat more boring than that. There is a story and some world building, but it didn't grip me. I know it's a game by a smaller team and priced accordingly, but the standards of turn-based rpgs have risen quite a bit with titles like DoS2, BG3, E33, the Owlcat games and so forth. There's just no reason to play a mid game when there's plenty of really good ones out there.

Good in the beginning when all feels new but after the first map when you get you castle and base it just feels like endless grinding and battles with extremely light story which is just a timesink. The game fails to keep my interest long enough. To engage in tactical battles every 3 minutes without any context, dialgues or purpose except in very few places, is not my spare time well spent. And I bought the game when it was discounted 50%.

I was initially just going to refund this one and leave it alone. But I just cant. This game sucks ass. It is a broken, buggy, pile of steaming ♥♥♥♥. It is SO BROKEN then when I started over because I didn't like the class I picked initially, the new character, as a new class, in a new game had the same stats, gear, and skill tree of the previous character. It even had the previous characters NAME still, I named it something different! The music is terrible. Like, just turn off all sound. It will make you wish you were deaf. The story reads like a fourth grader who just learned what LotR was wrote it. Wait, no, sorry, that's mean to aspiring young writers. They probably ChatGPTed this actual trash. The animations are so stiff and awful that they may as well actually be a slide show. Combat is a joke. You just swing away and things die. No strategy involved at all. The action point system is objectively bad, because you can move OR act. There are "side attacks" but the direction they trigger from seems arbitrary, as my dude got smacked in the face and took a side attack. Also they have side attacks but no back attack. That's just lazy. What can you expect from people who love bullies on their forums though? But again. They don't even know how to handle a new character in a new game, so I shouldn't expect them to understand how to make good...anything else at all. I was really just going to refund this and move on from their fifth rate "effort" at game development. But they want to defend objective bullies on their forums. They love the negativity of somebody getting pissed and ranting about friendslop because somebody had the audacity to ask about co-op. ♥♥♥♥ this game. ♥♥♥♥ this dev team. 0/10 - literally without any merit or value at all.

I'm enjoying this game and recommend it, but with reservations that might apply to you. First, the game doesn't seem well-balanced. I'm no hardcore player, I like my thrills gentle, but I'm breezing through fights even on the "Hard" setting. There's been no challenge, even in the supposed boss fights. Maybe I somehow blind-pigged my way into a Game-Breaking Uber Party but I think that's unlikely. I've jacked it up to the "Unfair" setting and that's helped the challenge some. Second, there are no resource constraints beyond the first hour or three. At Level 20ish I now have far more gold, supplies, and other necessities than I need, and it's easy to pile on more. There's no challenge here either. Making me sweat over whether I have enough gold to spread around to all the various things needing gold to advance would improve gameplay greatly. Same with the supplies needed for resting and upgrading facilities. Again, I think the problem is not the gameplay itself--which is fun and well done--but balance. Things need to be tightened up a lot to present a challenge. Having said that, I'm enjoying the game as a sort of casual time waster.

From the first minute of the game you can feel that it is idie. Good: - interesting at the beginning while everything is still new. - nice graphic. Not the best one, but it's not ugly. - somewhat castle management. - the atmosphere, secrets Bad: - battles are extremely repetitive. At 10+ level literally no brain clicking using the same strategy even on Hard difficulty. - all battles start the same. If you have low initiative, be ready that your main character will be smashed every first turn in every battle. - grind - bad balance. I am not an expert, and I haven't even finished the game at the moment of writing this review, but the team of one tank and 3 mages can kill anything, since the damage output of wizards is insane compared to rogues and archers I'd say 6/10. Could be nice several evenings if you don't plan to play to the end of the game.

Really hate to leave a negative review for a small/indie studio, but this just doesn't click. Skill trees are tiny. Everything feels standard, uninspired, nothing memorable or new. There are a few nice gameplay mechanics, but it all feels like it's borrowed from something else, just way more limited. Couldn't get too far into this. Bummer.

A gem with a rough second half — but still a remarkable achievement The first half of Zoria: Age of Shattering genuinely surprised me. The worldbuilding is rich, the story has real depth and some genuinely compelling beats, and the tactical gameplay keeps you engaged without overstaying its welcome. I was hooked. Then the second half happened. It's not bad, but it feels noticeably rushed, like the team ran out of time, budget, or both. Some plot threads don't get the resolution they deserve, and the pacing loses the careful craft that made the first part shine. There are also bugs. Some are minor, some are annoying. Nothing game-breaking for me personally, but worth flagging. And yet, here's the thing. This is the work of a three-person development team. Steam Three people built a ~50-hour tactical RPG with a fully realized fantasy world, a story with actual narrative ambition, a working outpost system, and turn-based combat that holds up throughout. That's impressive! So yes, the second half feels like it could've used more time. Yes, the bugs are real. But when I zoom out and think about what this tiny team actually pulled off, I can't in good conscience leave anything other than a thumbs up. Recommended! especially if you're a CRPG fan who appreciates ambition over polish.

много классов, взаимосвязь разных классов, не скучный сюжет, запутанный лор, графика терпимая, музыка однообразная, на местности можно заблудится, карта неинформативна, попадаются неприятные баги, платные длс предметы которого в игре есть а героя нет, брать по скидке, оценка больше нейтральная

Zoria is a very good game, but you might need some time to appreciate it. Starting from combat, which is turn-based, there are all kinds of features: action points, skill cooldowns, mana consuming and a fatigue mechanism. And on top of that, each character has a second mana-like resource, called focus, which is consumed not only by most combat actions, but also during resting (!) and real-time adventuring and is only restored by some specific combat actions. Sounds complicated? Indeed, might feel strange at the beginning, but after some battles this unique combat style becomes a very captivating and satisfying challenge. Another thing that takes time to realize is the vast potential of the crafting system, which is one of the best I ‘ve ever seen in games. You can combine a huge number of different materials in every possible way, producing unique and powerful equipment. Talking about equipment, another amazing thing in Zoria is that there are literally hundreds of different types of equipment, each of them with its own statistics and appearance (just three people made all these?...). Items have complex statistics, however item comparisons are provided together with item descriptions, making things clearer. There is a lot of loot around and all these factors make inventory management and equipping characters a demanding job. Castle management also comes later in the game; you have to wait for it too. And with it, dozens of candidates for recruitment start pouring in. (all but three though are just generic characters). Zoria has a very interesting story with notably nice writing, tons of lore (again, just three people made all these?...) and a major twist towards the end. There is a good number of side quests also. Last but not least, character development. Zoria’s character development is much similar to games like Wartales and Battle Brothers. At level-up the player can increase some numerical values and at some levels learn a skill. Skills provide combat actions like special attacks, spells, buffs, even stunning opponents. There are 10 classes and each class has 17 unique skills to choose from. Actually, character development is the only area I would wish for more. I think character development is a core characteristic of RPGs and, even though it would be too much to ask for some gargantuan system like Pathfindrer:WotR, some more depth and options would be welcomed. On the other hand, it could be said that 170 skills in total isn’t a small number. Overall, Zoria is a very good game, recommended especially for people who like turn-based tactical story-driven open-world isometric fantasy RPGs, with much exploration and side quests and also things like advanced crafting, castle management and a wealth of equipment. A nice, well written story too. It could also be appealing to people who like strategy/RPG hybrids like Wartales or King Arthur: A knight’s tale. So, Zoria is one yet addition to the list of fine but overlooked RPGs which deserve some more attention.

I loved it. Nice graphics. Lots to do, it kept my attention to the very end.