The wheel turns

Seeking freedom, Fortuna makes a dangerous pact with a forbidden creature—the mysterious and ancient Abramar—who grants her the ability to craft magic-infused tarot cards.

You can create a custom tarot deck that is completely unique to you, and the arcane elements you incorporate into your designs will give each card different characteristics and abilities to help you to determine the fate of the characters you encounter.

Using your deck you’ll dive into a complex narrative that spans decades and explores themes of identity, community, and personal responsibility. Is your coven doomed or can you save it?

Devolver Digital press release

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood will cast its spell on PC and Nintendo Switch some time later this year.

The post Trailer: With a mystic tarot and arcane magics, here’s The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood appeared first on BrutalGamer.

Yaga Begins

You play as Yaga, a 16-year-old girl accused of witchcraft and expelled from her medieval settlement following the mysterious disappearance of her twin sister and life-long protector Zora. When living memories of your past return as foul, walking spirits, you are left with no other option than to hunt them down in hopes of unraveling your own mystery. Track them down with your trusty bow, crafting arrows and potions while gathering materials to survive in the ominous woods. Engage in thrilling fights against mighty bosses as you unearth hidden treasures and collect lost recipes to improve your abilities and shape your play style.

Focus Entertainment press release

Blacktail features a mix of combat and magic-casting, with a heavy-emphasis on story. A big part of that is the choice between good and evil. The game’s morality system will allow players to be either the heroic protector of the woods, or the wicked witch that Yaga is often portrayed as in folklore.

Make the choice when Blacktail arrives on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC this month, on December 15th.

The post Trailer: Mystical first-person action title Blacktail landing on December 15th appeared first on BrutalGamer.

As in Baba

Experience the retelling of Baba Yaga’s myth and hunt down the elusive images of your past in an enchanted forest. As you learn to master your bow and unleash spells, the moral choices you make will guide you down the path to become a good or evil witch.

Gather resources to craft potions and arrows, use your bow, broom and gauntlet to engage in gripping boss fights, and encounter a variety of bizarre, talkative creatures on your adventures. Lift the veil on your past, decide the fate of the land, and witness the impact of each decision on your skills!

Focus Entertainment press release

Blacktail features a heavy emphasis on choice, allowing players to be a good or evil witch. And from Polish studio The Parasight, it’s as steeped in Slavic myths and legends as any other game you’ll find. It arrives this December the 15th, for the Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC.

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Magic and/or lead missile

Okay so apparently “flintlock” is a genre, and not just the name of this new actin title from A44 and Kepler Interactive. Live and learn I guess. While it’s new to me, it’s actually kind of cool too, and marries magical abilities and gunplay.

While we’ve seen Flintlock (the game) in action before, this new look at it delivers a chance to get a little deeper with that title combat system.

With heavy, impactful combat, players must think carefully about their every strike. The soldiers of the Gods’ undead army are devastatingly strong, and their dark magic can turn the tides of battle with just a few strikes. To defeat some of the most powerful beings in existence, players must utilize their full arsenal of tools – using black powder to its fullest extent and combining Nor’s agility with Enki’s most powerful magic to render enemies vulnerable and pick them apart one by one. 

A44 Games press release

While Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is looking solid already, it’s still a little ways off. The game isn’t expected to arrive for Xbox and PlayStation platforms, and the PC till some time in early 2023.

The post Magic and guns go great together in this new look at Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn appeared first on BrutalGamer.

That “Dungeons and Dragons” take is one that generally fills me with dread when I hear it. Not because I hate DnD or anything, but this generally means a gameplay style that tries to blend tactics and randomness, which don’t mix well.

Proudly situated in the same stable as Divinity 2 and Baldur’s Gate, Solasta suffers from a lack of refinement and substance. This review feels more like an impression however, since the game is currently in Early Access.

It is also one of the only early access games I’ve played that I’m interested to see finished. Mostly.

Premise

Around a thousand years before the current day, an ancient empire known as Manacalon existed. This empire was ruled by elves and eventually destroyed when a rift opened that brough humans into the world of Solasta. This disaster not only destroyed a magically advanced civilization, but also corrupted the environment around it, turning it into the Badlands.

You take control of a party of adventures, composed of either premade characters or player made ones, that join forces to make some cash working for a council representing most countries in the world. This leads you to discovering a magical crown that may hold secrets to what really happened at Manacalon all those years ago.

Tactical Adventures

Experiencing Solasta’s story left me with mixed feelings. It isn’t bad or anything, it’s just generic. A magical item, a lost civilization affecting the present, a council of countries, these are all things I’ve seen before and Solasta does little to really expand upon them. Pretty much all the worldbuilding takes place in expository dialogue cutscenes that would quickly drift out of my mind as soon as they were over.

A story becomes compelling through three methods: The delivery of the main plot, world-building, and character interaction. Character interaction tends to be one of the more important methods, because it makes the game immersive when characters interact as though they were real people. In Solasta unfortunately, the only characters that interact well are the player made ones.

When you make a character in this game, you get to choose their four personality traits based on their backgrounds and alignment. I highly recommend this option. I started Solasta by making one unique character and picking three premade ones to fill out my party. After a few hours, I simply couldn’t stand the premade characters anymore and restarted.

I strongly suspect that the premade characters had similar personality traits assigned to them, as they would often sound the same. It really pulls you out of the experience when every single person in your party is cynical. Even after making my own characters, however, I only enjoyed a handful of their chats, since most of them amounted to exposition and audience surrogacy.

Basically, what I’m saying is that Solasta’s story is a decent if generic fantasy tale, but the people we experience it through are not in the least bit compelling. There are interesting bits, like the hilariously titled Bone Castle level, but that only takes place around 10-15 hours in. It’s a slow burn, and I’m struggling to remember more than a few moments of it.

Gameplay

Solasta is a somewhat isometric roleplaying game with turn-based combat. For the most part, it is perfectly functional. The randomness of dice rolls, determining if an attack hits or misses, do add an edge of excitement to each fight, but they also bring frustration when a well-planned attack fails because you weren’t lucky enough.

It almost lulls you into a false sense of security by throwing a few crazy easy bandit fights at you early on, only to drop you into a cave a few hours later with super strong lizards. This pattern repeats itself frequently, to the point that I would end up replaying the same fights something like five times until the dice rolls co-operated with me.

Another tip for enjoying yourself more in Solasta, turn off tutorials immediately. EVERYTHING is tutorialised in this game, from the start menu to fights two hours in, which wouldn’t normally be a problem if the tutorials weren’t in the form of text windows that pop up and pause the action. In an already frightfully slow experience, this pace killer can become a deal breaker.

Solasta is a game that gives with one hand and takes with the other. For instance, most of the travel in the game takes place on a giant map, connecting the linear levels to the main hub city. That takes away the slog of traveling from one place to another for an hour at a time, but also takes away the feeling of epicness the world is supposed to inspire.

Keeping items simple, i.e. most longswords are the same, takes away the boredom of having to swap out your items every five minutes. However, it also means that there isn’t a lot you can do to get an edge in fights. Even my favourite feature, picking a character’s personality, means that the game will jumble the dialogue order to compensate for it.

I must call attention to the bugs. Hitboxes would shrink, meaning I had to click on a creature’s right foot with perfect precision to make sure I didn’t attack the thing to its left. Interactable objects would forget they were interactable. I almost gave up on the game when winning a fight in the final level triggered a dialogue that I couldn’t interact with.

To give you a peak behind the curtains here at Brutal Gamer, I have about four pages of notes on Solasta, most of which I couldn’t find space to mention, like the camera getting stuck on things, or the bare bones character creator. All in all, it is a functional, but unrefined experience that doesn’t measure up to its competitors.

Presentation

Solasta’s art style grows on you. I feel that needs saying, before I compare the characters to PlayStation 2 era claymation dolls, looks and animation-wise. Character’s mouths would stop moving occasionally, making them look like smug telepaths. Their hair looked painted on, and even when it worked, their lips moved in vague relation to their words at best.

That being said, the particle effects on magic were nice to look at. However, the game is not incredibly colourful, and I seriously considered restarting again and making all my characters wizards just to bring some colour to the levels. Some of the environments are pretty, like the underground library, but most are drab mountain landscape or underground caverns.

The sound design is also a bit uninspired, mostly generic fantasy music and fight sounds, but then comes the voice acting. The voice acting is pretty alright for the main characters, and everyone else sounds bored or like they’re in a children’s production of The Witcher. I swear, one of the council members had a different voice every time he spoke to me.    

What I’d like to see

I’ve given Solasta a bit of a hammering in this article, but there is method to this madness. I began this review saying I would be interested in seeing Solasta completed, because there is genuine potential here. So, in lieu of a conclusion, I’ve decided to write a “what I’d like to see” section for the eventual full version.

First off, more character personalities. Building a character’s personality before a game begins is always really nice, but a few more options would help freshen up interactions, as well as giving the game replayability.

Secondly, let’s have a few more classes. An unfortunate failing of Solasta’s dialogue heavy system is that there is little reason to invest in charisma, since it doesn’t help anywhere else.

Having social classes, like the bard, that use charisma even in fights would make ridiculously high charisma checks valid. A cursory glance at the Solasta website showed me the potential for a sorcerer class, which does inspire hope. Finally, some more interactivity in the world. Let me talk to more people, give me more side quests to different places. You built a world that I’d like to see, so please let me see it!

Overall, Solasta is a game with potential, that falls short due to a lack of refinement. As it stands, however, it is a generic fantasy RPG. The story isn’t told well, the gameplay is hampered by bugs and randomness, the visuals and audio are nothing special. It brings nothing new to the table. There are quite a few other games that try what Solasta is attempting, and do it far more competently.

I can’t recommend this game. If you are interested, keep an eye on its updates and check it out when it’s finished, but right now it isn’t worth the price.

SOLASTA Crown of the Magister
Release Date: October 20, 2020 (Early Access)
Platforms: PC|Steam (reviewed)
Publisher: Tactical Adventures
Developer: Tactical Adventures
MSRP: $34.99 USD

The post SOLASTA Crown of the Magister (Early Access PC) Review appeared first on BrutalGamer.

The Premise Of Greedfall

Greedfall is set in a world similar to the late 17th century colonization era. There are two factions caught in the middle of an virus outbreak in Serene. The Merchant Congregation and Bridge Alliance are in tense partnership that could end at any moment as the people of Serene search for a cure from the deadly disease, Malichor.

The task for find a cure has been given to the main protagonist, De Sardet. After a deep character customization screen, it is up to De Sardet to get ready set sail across the sea for New Serene. A wild rumor is running rampart that there is a cure for Malichor that can be found in the magical island of Teer Fradee.

The land of Teer Fradee is much more than De Sardet could have ever expected. The natives are a group of magical people. They can control the plants and animals found throughout Teer Fradee. De Sardet learns quickly that the natives may indeed have a cure for Malichor, but is De Sardet willing to make the necessary sacrifices?

Greedfall is about choices and the repercussions of those choices. Choices made in the beginning of the game will have reverberations throughout the rest of the story. Throughout the game, players will have decisions to make that could effect future relationships with population of Teer Fradee. A companion of De Sardet may ask for assistance in finding out where they came from. However, doing so may cause more trouble for De Sardet’s relationship with that faction.

Spider has done a fantastic job of laying the groundwork for the lore of Greedfall. While it is not quite as big as The Witcher 3, there is a lot to experience across the different lands of Teer Fradee. During Spider’s first outing with Technomancer, the combat was lacking polish. This is not the case with Greedfall and Spider has done amazing job with the gameplay of Greedfall.

The Gameplay Of Greedfall

The gameplay of Greedfall is full of action. Players can choose from a plethora of game styles to combat the baddies of Teer Fradee. Players can be a trap-setting gunslinger, or take a more traditional route and fight monsters with swords and axes. A third path can have players experimenting with magic. However, players are not locked into one general path.

The extensive skills layout allows for any number of combination. Players can be a swash buckling, sword swinging solider, or they can be a science-based explosives expert. There are a number of one-handed and two-handed weapons available to slay monsters. Players can make a build and then coordinate with their companions accordingly so that the team will kick ass.

The Combat Of Greedfall

The combat of Greedfall is a blast to play. There are simple combos to learn and gaining more skills will provide extra moves. Some characters will block and evade, while some have the ability to perform counter moves. On top of that, players can assign actions to certain keys during a battle pause, but must quickly regain form or suffer the consequences. Overall, Spider has made significant strides in combat from their early game, Technomancer.

The Presentation Of Greedfall

The world of Greedfall is a beautiful space. There has been a lot of love character that has gone into building out this game. From the designs of the main character and monsters, to the designs of the world. You can tell a lot of time and effort was spent building island of Teer Fradee. One little quip has to do with the voice acting. While the acting itself is not bad, it is how the characters are modeled during the cut scenes. I think most RPGs suffer from these boring not-action orientated cut scenes. While not every cut scene should be full of action, something has to be done about watching three people standing around without any movement.

Final Thoughts On Greedfall

Spider and Focus Home Interactive have struck gold with Greedfall. This is an incredibly deep RPG. There are a number of exciting side stories that are worth exploring while the main story is full of mystery and intrigue. The branching story lines based on in-game decisions can warrant another playthrough to reach all the endings. Yep, that is right, I said multiple endings.

While it is hard to effectively capture this game, it is most like The Witcher 3. This is a big name to live up to, but Greedfall has done a good job of carving out a little niche in the RPG world. This game is not to be missed and anyone looking for that deep immersive itch should definitely give Greedfall a playthrough.


A review copy of Greedfall was provided by the publisher.

The post Greedfall (Xbox One) Review appeared first on BrutalGamer.

Scourge of Chaos

The first aRPG title to feature the high-fantasy Warhammer license, Chaosbane is looking mighty good. The game features a story that pits the Olde World against the Chaos gods. Of course, that means it promises plenty of hacking and slashing.

To that end, we first got introduced to Konrad Vollen, a human soldier of the Imperial army. Today’s reveal though, is a warrior of a different sort. Meet Elontir, high elf and mage.

Elontir, a High Elf mage, is a veteran who has already fought the forces of Chaos at Praag, earning a certain renown amongst his peers during the siege of Kislev. This ranged damage specialist’s mastery of the Winds of Magic allows him to cast numerous spells, while his dexterity allows him to quickly put distance between himself and a foe attacking him in melee.
 
Like each of the game’s characters, Elontir has a unique ability: he can precisely control the area-of-effect’s position for his spells using the controller’s right joystick or holding the space bar. With this capacity Elontir can, for example, slow time down on the enemy’s path to help his allies decimate the Chaos hordes. This effect can also be used to accurately push a group of enemies towards his allies who specialize in close combat, in perfect complementary cooperation.  

Chaosbane press release

Warhammer: Chaosbane lands on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC in 2019.

The post Meet the mage Elontir in Warhammer: Chaosbane appeared first on BrutalGamer.

Strange… Doctor Strange that is

There’s nothing strange about DK publishing releasing another all-inclusive book about a comic book character. They have a ton and a half of them in their stable, including books chronicling the likes of Captain America, Batman, and Spider-Man. While many of those books have gotten updates over the years, there’s never even been one for Doctor Strange.

There’ve been plenty of them for characters that have yet to make feature film debuts too. So, in other words, there’s really no reason that Doc Strange never had volume to himself. I mean, he’s a pretty legendary character. Well, consider that little fact remedied.

With their latest release, DK has not only seen to release a book about Strange, but one that’s stunningly complete. If you don’t know anything about the sorcerer supreme yet, you will after you thumb though this baby. One thing to note though, is that this isn’t a book about the movie Strange.

Nope, this one’s all about the original Marvel Universe Strange.

The all-seeing Eye of Agamotto

A total of seven chapters make up this book, which spans 171 pages total. They have cool titles like ‘Enemy Mine’, ‘Mystic Realms’ and more; all cool little details. And that’s something that coats this book – detail.

Loaded up with artwork from throughout the history of the character, The Mysterious World of Doctor Strange isn’t short of ‘pretty’ in any sense. If you’re a comic fan, then there’s plenty to gawk at in this one. That includes some interesting twists on classic illustrations too.

Just ‘for instance’, chapter 3 opens with a drawing of Mordo and a splash of Strange flanked by several of his allies and enemies. this piece isn’t just re-printed though, as it’s cast in crimson red. No, it’s not staggering by any means, but it’s cool. And if you’re familiar with the original work, it’s a cool variation. Not that anything in this volume needs that.

The art on display here is, frankly, amazingly cool. Again, it spans the history of Marvel Comics since we’re talking about a hero that was born of the minds of Steve Ditko and Stan Lee. So, you know, he’s been around for a while. And if you’re aware of all that that means, then you already know that you’re in for a visual treat here.

By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!

Let’s get back to the chapters themselves though, since they’re the stars of the show. Authors Billy Wrecks and Danny Graydon have put together a wonderfully complete book… to a degree. I’ll clarify that in a second, after we get to what’s between these covers.

All seven chapters are preceded by a forward from Roger Stern and followed by a glossary and index. If you don’t know who Stern is, he’s written tons of your favorite comic heroes in his career, including Spider-Man, Green Lantern, and yes, Doctor Strange. S, bottom line, he knows from what he speaks. It’s only a page, but Stern lays down a cool little history-in-a-nutshell for the good Doctor. It’s cool, but short.

Each chapter however, is fairly in depth. They all delve into a different facet of Strange’s world, and do a decent job of detailing each one. Strange Magic starts things off, and details the man himself, and the magics that power him. It’s pretty far-reaching too as it stretches all the way from his origin to the recently concluded Empirikul arc.

Past that, we get to see the allies of Strange (in Side by Side) as well as his enemies (Enemy Mine). Not stopping there though, we also are treated to the greatest cosmic forces in the Marvel U (The All Powerful), the Mystic Realms, Strange’s greatest spells (Spellbound), and his Objects of Enchantment.

So, there’s a lot here. As I said, it’s all laid out pretty well, with a few exceptions.

The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak

Now, I feel like I have to reiterate that almost everything here is done well. I like the book, I really do. I have one issue though and that’s that not everything is bound into a chapter. I’m used to getting dedicated chapters in books like this. I like that. And for the most part, we get that here too in The Mysterious World of Doctor Strange.

Where we don’t though, is in instances like the ‘Deal with the Devil’ storyline. It’s a famous arc at this point, where Spider-Man makes a deal with Mephisto, and it shook up the Spider-books in a big way. It was somewhat controversial too, but we’ll leave that alone for now.

I have no problem with that particular arc being included here. But I have an issue where it was placed. It’s in the Enemy Mine chapter, and comes right after the entry for Mephisto himself. See what I mean? Instead of having a separate section for famous stories, we get the wedged into other chapters.

True, this only happens a few times, and all the entries are just as well done as everything else, but I would have liked a different chapter for it all. So it’s not book-breaking or anything, but just something that annoyed me a tad. Other than that though…

The Mysterious World of Doctor Strange
Release Date: October 4th
Publisher: DK
Author: Billy Wrecks

The post The Mysterious World of Doctor Strange (Book) Review appeared first on BrutalGamer.

Obvious plotlines:

Kingsway treads somewhat obvious plotlines. This doesn’t need to be a bad thing, and in the case here, it really isn’t. Warring factions are at odds and there is an apparently transcendent love interest. Everything the reader learns in the book is thrown out by one of the last lines. This seems to me to be common practice in comics, but I am content to see it occur here as well. The world itself is intriguing enough that I don’t mind the familiar plot and writing structures.

That all being said, I am happy about where the story begins. Taking place over a number of points in the main character’s life, his back story is told organically on the pages in front of the reader. To top this organic storytelling off, there is plenty of potential for the plot in Kingsway to evolve over time. Though it seems somewhat contrived now (and honestly, in the begining of a new series, how could it not?), I am optimistic that it will pick up in the next issues.

Consistent writing makes for a believable world:

Throughout the pages of the first Kingsway, the world takes on a very apparent tone. The tone gets stronger as the reader experiences more characters and more situations. As time goes on, the reader will begin to realize that the language and tone of the writing matches the art work and communications of the characters.

The language and communication is consistent throughout the first issue. This allows the reader to become comfortable in the language. The fact that the characters continue to speak and act in the same manner, makes the book feel more authentic. The plot may not be realistic, but as long as the writing is consistent and fair, the readers can become engrossed in the world and suspend the disbelief of the plot in order to make sense of the new world they find themselves in.

Art is Kingsway‘s biggest fault:

Now, I don’t mean that the artwork in Kingsway is bad. The art is fantastic, but actions are not always clear. There were three or four occasions in the first few pages alone where I needed to carefully examine the artwork to try to make sense of what was going on. I wasn’t always able to figure it out.

This should not take away from when the art works, however. When it works, it really works. The artwork is brutal and fantastical to match the tone of the plot, and it really shows through. The characters are distinctive (for the most part. There were two characters that I was unable to tell the difference of), and the artwork really brings them to life.

In the future, I hope the artwork portrays action more clearly. I don’t want better artwork, just clearer artwork.

The post Kingsway West #1 (Comic) Review appeared first on BrutalGamer.

Now that’s a handy trick, no? It’s also just as awesomely gory and blood-soaked as fans of the grim and somber work that The Witcher inhabits could hope for. Entitled ‘Rage and Steel’ the video above is a short look at some of the insanely cool stuff that you can do in Wild Hunt, from swordplay to magic. And the monsters and human enemies, well they’re looking pretty awesome as well.

CD Projekt’s newest might be the last in the line for the now legendary Witcher series of action/RPGs, but it certainly looks like Geralt is going out with a bang. And after multiple delays (which certainly look to have paid off), the game is almost here.

Expect to see The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt hitting the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on May 19th (a little over a week!).

The post The newest The Witcher 3 trailer is loaded with monsters and decapitations appeared first on BrutalGamer.