Of Gods and Men: The Daybreak Empire

7/10 I have played this game to completion now and even replayed it to toy around with it a bit. Having gotten what I feel is the full experience, now is a good time to reflect on whether or not this game was a success. It is worth noting that this is a first attempt by a team of amateurs, so much of what they did must and will be analyzed from a basic, textbook-like level. Let us start by looking at they did well. 'Of Gods and Men' is a war and strategy game that follows the story of girl who conquers a fantasy world. The narrative is simple without being distasteful and is free of pretense. While not the most engaging or thought-provoking, it provides the necessity of a context for the gameplay and a satisfying sense of a beginning, middle, and end. The diversity of characters and locations are a plus to the narrative we are given. The visuals that were used to give life to the world laid before us meet essentially every requirement and are perhaps the game's strongest point...

Sadly, this is not even worth the discount price. Characters are meh and thrown into the story. Why should I care for that girl that is my main hero? Why for that other girl that suddenly joins the fight? But that isn´t the part that breaks the game. It´s the gameplay and technical aspects. First off the game does only support a VERY pixelated 4:3 aspect radio, meaning it is very staining to look at. And by that I don´t mean ugly, but that I literally had to take a break because my eyes were staining, which is something I haven´t experienced before. But I could forgive the graphics if the controls were smooth. But those are staining as well. Everything takes more clicks then necessary. To move a unit you have to click it, then click move, then click where you want it to move and after that click "wait" if you want it to stay there or "attack" to attack. Why not just click and then click where to move, with a click on the enemy starting the attack and simply right clicking making...

[b] Of Gods and Men [/b] is a tactical RPG that incorporates some strategy elements, such as building units and controlling your territory. Surprisingly, the game has a decent narrative and enjoyable cast of characters. For the most part it resembles games like [i] Shining Force [/i], largely because it has a turn based combat that takes place on a grid board. You start with 2 heros but you will eventually get about 10 of them, even though you can only hold up to 8 units in one party. The first 90 minutes of the game is essentially a tutorial on how to play it, during that phase the computer will only do scripted moves. However, after that initial training, the game starts to play as you would expect, where each faction freely fights for the map control. The game has black borders making it less enjoyable to look at, although I do like its art style and the character design. I found its user interface to be somewhat underwhelming, as the character info has a tendency to be in the mid...

It's alright. Good balance between global map strategy and local battle tactics. The combat gets a bit repetitive after a while, but your unit levelling mechanics and introduction of new unit types as the game progresses make it an interesting experience.

This game plays like a corrupt-a-wish. You want a fire-emblem-like? Okay, sure, but it's janky as hell. Wide variety of units? Right on, but unless they're heroes or shield maidens they're useless. Risk-style property-development metagame? Be prepared to be locked into long linear sequences that are simply not designed to work with the metagame at all. You control which units you create across your multiple armies? They all start at level 1 and die in one hit, even in the early game, unless you specifically invest in making them more expensive---and even then, you can only raise them to level 5 via building upgrades, whereas enemies spawn at much higher levels than that even by midgame, and to add insult to injury you can only generate one unit per turn and you have to move your armies slowly, tile by tile, across the Risk map. Even if you do generate an expensive unit that can survive more than one hit, the enemies zoom at mach 10 across the small, narrow maps, their AI priori...

After 4 hours of playing through this game, I cannot recommend it. Everything seems to shout "look, we implemented another feature just for the sake of it, balancing and polishing can be done later" while the player tries to figure out what is going on. Most units one-hit other units, so ranged units beat melee units. Horsemen do not have enough movement to catch up to archers before being one-shotted by mages. The starting unit is a horse-archer, which combines the higher movement with the ranged advantage. After meeting a dozen NPC with no backstory, one wonders "why not just add 2 or 3 NPCs and give them a proper story?" - just to be welcomed by a weird world map and economy that just feels wrong because all the units you can hire are one-shotted anyway. So you stick to the 12 heroes you find in the campaign and one-shot every enemy until the game shoves the big bad evil end boss in your face which can only be defeated by one strategy (poison + wounds) which makes it easy as cake or...

Initially my hopes for the game were set a bit high, expecting a fire-emblem style game with war game elements interwoven into the grid-based combat. I was left disappointed by how much potential the game left untapped in the campaign, but after learning that the developers are amateurs I have tempered my final reflections accordingly. Starting with the story, it has an interesting enough one, with just enough weight to justify the gameplay. The pacing at times could be a bit odd however: for example, there are several times throughout the plot where champion characters just manifested themselves out of the ether when you assault their capital, with no preamble whatsoever. Perhaps the best example of this is the dog general riding a dire wolf, whose name I forget at the moment because he was never properly introduced before storming his capital and it was around half way to late into the game before I got around to conquering him.... and also made no real effort to conquer other lands...

Fun little game. Can be completed in roughly 4-5 hours on normal. Tactical elements reminiscent of the Fire Emblem series, with a rock-paper-scissors approach to unit strengths and weaknesses. A few minor AI quirks and some small technical issues (a glaring one is enemy ranges; it can be difficult to try and see some units' attack/movement range because an info window pops up, sometimes obscuring said ranges). Some balancing issues (Longbow units, I'm looking at you) as well, but nothing preventing overall enjoyment of the game. And a strong female protagonist is always a plus. The art is quirky and fun, kind of a pixelated Adventure Time feel. If I would make one point, it would be that night time maps/battles can be difficult to see, and strain the eyes a little. Overall worth the purchase, especially if you enjoy tactical turn-based RPGs.

PRESENT UPDATE: 1.1.0 >I purchased "Of Gods and Men" (at the launch discount price of $4.79) in order to satisfy my itch for a turn-based sRPG, and if that's what you're wanting then I'd heartily recommend it. I have beaten the game, and while I don't plan on replaying it, the 6.4 hours I have gotten out was enjoyable and certainly worth it. GAMEPLAY: >If you've played Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, or any other grid-based turn-based party combat game, you're good as far as battle mechanics go. The game incorporates a timing challenge to determine the effectiveness of your units' attacks, but if you have trouble with that, or if you'd rather just roll the dice, this feature can be turned off in options under the accessability section. >Melee units can hit adjacent targets. Archers can't, but can hit targets far away. Calvary also only hits adjacent targets, but has the option to move before and/or after making an attack. These are the three basic unit categories, and as the game goes on i...

If you enjoy fire emblem style tactics games give Of Gods and Men: The Daybreak Empire a play. i was pleasently suprised at the level of difficulty/fun the game has been so far. one tip. spend your money wisely and pump out high level troops i fucked up my first play through by miss handling my funds. all in all great game!