One of the really nice things about Xitter, in the before times, was that it was a great place to catch up with the indie game dev world. I found so many great titles that way and had a lot of fun playing them. One of those was “Those Who Rule”.
This is a game very much in my wheelhouse. It’s a strategy tactical game with visual novel trappings that very much reminds me of the Fire Emblem series, or especially Banner of the Maid, a little-known tactics game set during the French Revolution that came out a few years ago. All the maidens spoke Chinese. It was glorious.
I generally prefer when the plot is acted in game, a la Final Fantasy Tactics, but there’s nothing wrong with having the portraits do the talking. The comic book art style really sells the gritty plot better than the anime style common to these sorts of games, and that is another big mark in its favor.
The story jumps around the game world, but only intersects the main characters — a group of new Ranger recruits to the army of the nation of Fern — when they are pressed into service to take on a gang of pirates because the experienced soldiers are away trying to find their kidnapped general.
There’s a wide variety of classes but, significantly, no magic damage or mounted classes. The one caster is the healer, and they work in melee range so not sure that counts. They also are wicked with a sword.
The combat system has some cool innovations. Shield-wielding characters can absorb hits with their shield to a certain point, and then damage starts. This allows combos where an archer can remove the shield guard of an enemy, the tank can break their defense, and a DPS moves in behind for the kill.
Missions have main objectives and optional objectives. I’m not sure what the benefit of doing the optional objectives is. In the docks, getting to the pirate chest before they absconded was worth 1000 Denari, but having one of the kids learn how to kill an enemy didn’t have any obvious award.
The game is scheduled to go live in January, so I’ll have to wait until then to give it a full review. Couple of videos: First, the trailer that just dropped that shows a lot of scenes not… seen… in the demo. Second is my first playthrough of the final demo fight, which ended in defeat as I let someone die that couldn’t die. I replayed it and won.
