Hellenica

At the time I'm writing this review, the overall score of this game is "mixed". That being said, I'm glad that I bought it before the reviews came up, since I'd probably have skipped it if I had seen the "mixed" rating. People who are leaving negative reviews are judging this game for something it is not; they are basically downvoting because this is not final fantasy tactics or tactics ogre. I am also a fan of those games, but i recognize that not all Strategy RPGS must follow their formula. So, I am going to talk about HELLENICA, judging it by it's own merits. Hellenica sets up to do things differently and does a great job. It's world is very well develop and it's a joy to see how historical and mithological characters and places were reimagined in this fictional universe. It provides a creative background for an adventure and you can clearly see that a lot of love and research was put behind it by the developers. The game does not have a class/job system, but you can see that ...

Not a big fan. Was psyched for a tactics game in ancient greece, but it can't save the game itself. Writing is incredibly generic and for some reason all of the characters look like anime characters. Your first party member literally walks up to you in a forest out of nowhere and says "hi you look cool i'm joining you on an adventure." She's got no personality and just gives up / explains her entire life to a random stranger. "Hello, i am Partymember1.exe and this is my background and i am joining you now." No subtlety or personality at all. All combat orders are Que'd up and then executed when you finish your turn. Animations are really awkward and bad. When an archer fires an arrow, it's literally a flat arrow that archs up and hits you with the shaft rather than the tip because the arrow doesn't bend or change facing after the archer fires it. The actual pixel art of the characters is pretty good, but the interface is annoying and blocks half of the fucking screen when...

Pretty damned good already! If you're a SRPG fan I'd already recommend it for the price. We need so many more of these types of games. Combat is fun and intuitive. Story is a nice steampunk spin on history. The art is well done and the music a-ok for this kind of game. This is the rest of my day. =D Update: So there's no tutorial, if you're kind of new to this genre you may struggle a little bit. There is collision damage when you shove a unit into a solid object, or vice-versa. Drop dmg can also affect a unit hit or an object. There is also bounce damage, pay close attention to attacks when pathed and wording, whatever it lands on takes a lot of dmg, the heavier the item 'bounced' the more dmg. Pay attention to the camera angles when bouncing/pushing/etc, it can sometimes be deceptive and you can dmg you own units by having something bounce on them. Units attack in the order in which you plan them in; you can heal first and THEN move the other unit. You can branch off to any stor...

I had big expectations for this game so that's why I am so dissapointed. The key to tactical RPG is the battle system. It is just to simple for me. There no levels, no equipment. Characters have several skills witch you can chose before the battle. It gives a little bit variaty but not much. Push/toss technique is pretty fun because you can use environment, but when it is the only fun thing it gets boring really fast. Story and characters are not interesting, too general. I can recommend only to hardcore SRPG.

In this SRPG, you play as a woman cursed to be a bear for three turns out of five who must hurl, toss, and shove an endless array of generic greek themed enemies off of cliffs. [b] Pros: [/b] * You're a bear that knocks people off cliffs * Very little competition from other SRPGs on PC * You collect a coed harem of lithe and chiseled greeks to assist you in throwing enemies off cliffs * Some levels have boats instead of cliffs [b]Cons:[/b] * No introduction to core game mechanic of cliff shoving * Some members of your harem are unable to defenestrate * Initially promising setting of steampunk greece manages to become generic animeland fairly quickly * Could've used more bear puns

Okay so I am giving this SRPG a thumbs up..... However, if you are looking for a deep stat heavy strategy game you are not going to find it here. This is really more of a casual game and there is little in the way of challenge for a veteran of the genre. It fits the style of many of the great SRPG's of yore and there are some cool concepts wrapped around a unique setting here so I give these guys a hand for being original. The story is so-so and the characters have personalities that are not overly endearing but give you enough to keep you awake through the cutscenes. However, I can't recall any other steampunk greek settings and I found exploring this world to be enjoyable. My biggest gripe here is that there isn't much depth to the combat system. It's not terrible combat system in that there is value in placing your units correctly and making use of attacks and abilities to push and pull other units around the map makes for some decent combos and interesting choices. What this gam...

I so want to be more positive, I love the PSX era aesthetic, and wish I got to see more of it rather than city screens being generic anime. I wish too it wasn't a branching narrative, because the story has to be able to go in a million directions, threads get picked up and dropped immediately and nothing in the story end up meaning anything. It's just anime tropes all over. As for the combat, good ideas around pushing enemies, and tiny constricted maps that make it hard to pull off. I also would have liked a more traditional XP system, not everything needs re-inventing and with even the medium XP objectives sometimes difficult to complete if you just want to fight your own way, new skills come achingly slow. Currently clicking through story as fast as I can to enjoy the great looking combat bits.

This game reminded me of Tactics Ogre, which is why I got it. It is not that game, nor a clone of that game unfortunately. I went in hoping for a game like that, or like Final Fantasy Tactics, but the gameplay is really dumbed down in my opinion. There are no items, or a class system, only skills, and this really detracts from what I loved about those tactical rpg's so many years ago. It is not overly expensive, which is good, but probably should be $10, not $15. All that being said, I couldn't in good conscience, recommend this game to anyone. Some people will enjoy it I am sure, but from my perspective, it is a pale comparison to the old tactical games of yore that lit up my childhood. Edit: I want to stress one thing here, that I do not believe this is a BAD game. I went in hoping for something, that the devs did not deliver, NOR did they promise to deliver that. I got my hopes up for something that would have been awesome in my opinion. Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre were...

it PAINS me to give this game a negative review, I LOVE the setting, I think the graphics are a great fit for its genre (they remind me of old Disgaea or FFT games) and the gameplay was fun, but I cannot recommend this game with a clear conscience. This is a weird mix between a puzzle game and an srpg, but it ends up having way too many flaws: The deterministic nature of puzzles make the combat lack in mechanic depth and character progression (VERY few skills per character, most caracters restricted to certain maps), to the point the game even gives you ONE skill point AT MOST per battle, not 1 sp per character, ONE skill point to give ONE CHARACTER. On the other hand the srpg side makes the puzzles not so well designed in later stages (since balancing it must have been a nightmare considering that a single skill can drastically influence how to aproach a level). Also, the story is awful, the dialogue just goes on and on and on and rarely says something truly interesting and the ch...

I love this game, reminds me of Fire Emblem! I really enjoyed the gameplay, art style and story. I hope for a sequel or for more of this type of games to be released on Steam!