Scarmonde

game rips and the soundtrack goes insanely hard

A true gem of a dungeon crawling RPG that calls to mind [i]Final Fantasy[/i] (3 and 5 in particular), [i]SaGa[/i], and [i]Wizardry[/i] while still having its own identity. Like most games in the genre, the plot is secondary to gameplay, but I was pleasantly surprised at the unexpected turns the story takes as the game progresses; it's minimalist but well-executed. I particularly enjoyed the progression mechanics. While you have the typical leveling up via experience points accumulated from defeating enemies, the meat of progression comes from three levels of magic orbs that you mostly accrue via exploration and defeating bosses. These magic orbs allow you to unlock both class-specific abilities and general passive bonuses for your party members. This, coupled with sub-classes that you can unlock in the latter half of the game, provides good amount of variety in potential character builds, which will be fun to explore more on replays. If I had to make one critique, it's that the battl...

I spent time with both the demo, itch.io and the full game, so while it might not look like I’ve clocked hours but I have. This game is... weird, in a good way. Kudos to the devs for building an RPG Maker game that doesn't feel like one. Genuinely didn’t realize it was made in RPG Maker until 4+ hours in — that’s an accomplishment on its own. The aesthetic hits hard: 8-bit chiptunes, minimalist but effective spritework, and an atmosphere that feels like someone took Final Fantasy 1, polished it with modern hindsight, and sent it back through a time machine. It doesn’t just imitate NES-era RPGs — it improves on them in meaningful ways. Scarmonde is a turn-based dungeon crawler with real meat on the bone. It’s one of those games that’s “one foot wide, but 100 feet deep.” And in a landscape full of shallow, bloated open-world games, this is refreshing as hell. The class system is smartly designed, the orb upgrade system adds actual strategy, and there’s an obvio...

A really well made 8-bit dungeon crawler in the style of early final fantasy games. Fixes many of the flaws of those games (too easy to get lost forever, boring combat/class system) while retaining the charm of letting you figure stuff out. My only gripe is that there is no way to speed up battle animations. The random encounters can get a bit tiresome and some way to speed up a battle that you have already figured out would be nice. A carefully refined and lovingly made experience from beginning to end.