Dark Deity is an interesting game. Playing it I often thought about Sea of Stars. It's obviously a passion project by developers who love Fire Emblem as much as you, like Sea of Stars is to Chrono Trigger. Is it Fire Emblem quality? No, but what an insane standard to hold it to. To be fair, it's not Sea of Stars quality either, but I can't help but be impressed by what a small team and a kickstarter campaign has done here.
What I like about Dark Deity I like a lot. The class-promotion system is super cool, allowing players to freely hybridize between 4 level 10 and 4 level 30 classes. This creates a depth of customization that bolsters replay value significantly. Replaying on Hard with knowledge about this system I was rewarded greatly compared to my first playthrough on Normal where I was figuring it out as I went. Each class stage offers not only different skills but also stat growth patterns, which lends different approaches to different characters who all have unique skills and stat distributions of their own. There aren't really any "bad" units, and weaker units can be supplemented with adequate game knowledge turning them into destroyers. My off-meta units on my second playthrough were stronger than my meta units on my first.
On the topic of units, at first glance I thought the social "Bond" system in this game was going to be tedious. Between levels it might offer up to 10 unique dialogues between 30 units all with unique stories. At first I found these dialogues a bit cliche, but as they advance from stage 1/3 to 3/3 they become more interesting, specific, and nuanced as the characters develop relationships with each-other. By the end of the game I found myself cherishing my bond dialogues and lamenting levels where I had maxed them all out between my team of 14. This drove me to choose a completely different team on my second play-through to learn about the characters I had benched on my first, another testament to the game's replayability. I love games with hefty character rosters, and Dark Deity features a colourful cast some of whom I know I will think about in the future. The story writing mirrors the writing of the bond system; at first, it seems pedestrian, but it grows from typical beginnings to an interesting conclusion that I didn't predict with some really cool boss designs along the way.
The most common gripe I've seen with this game is the gameplay. I will make no illusions about the negative elements: It's kind of buggy and the game lacks polish in general. I'd personally have changed some of the UI controls like target selection and input confirmation (special commands take the place of the attack button leading to some extremely frustrating misclicks). If this is a dealbreaker for you then I understand, but I believe in giving grace to indie developers—Dark Deity is still more polished than some AAA games and I know that here it's not for lack of care. The learning curve is artificially inflated because the tutorialization is insubstantial. If you play this game you should know that there is a battlesave feature, which itself is buggy but can be used to savescum bugs. The lack of terrain tiles makes gameplay a matter of choke point control and matchup knowledge. This is exacerbated by the matchup chart being very hard to get a handle on, with the game offering differing interactions between 3 types of armour, 4 types of magic damage, 4 styles of weapon or spell, and 5 physical types of physical damage, and on difficulties below hard these differences don't feel significant or worth knowing (damage variance of -10%-40%). I myself choose to view this as a positive—let us not punish indie developers for being overly ambitious in experimenting with a classic formula. In fact, for all its flaws I think that Dark Deity shines in its innovations on the Fire Emblem formula.
The overly ambitious matchup chart may seem daunting, but once one learns how it works it rewards proper team building. I think this is a meaningful departure from the Fire Emblem approach, which is robust in its simplicity. I’ve never been one to condemn games for using similar mechanics and systems to others. This is a meaningful difference between videogames and other media. One would not decry Salem’s Lot as a Dracula clone, for a quick example, and yet a game like Dark Deity is written of as a Fire Emblem clone, life sims like Sun Haven are written off as Stardew Valley clones, platformer metroidvanias are called Hollow Knight clones and is that not itself a Castlevania clone? All of these games including Dark Deity are engaging with the form of games they’re in the tradition of, and I for one hold that it’s more interesting to see how they expand on and experiment with that established form and one’s expectations thereof. The best example from Dark Deity is its boss fights. In Rekka no Ken the most mechanically advanced boss is one who you can only counterattack safely. Dark Deity offers raid style bosses that use AoE attacks, apply effects outside of regular combat, require specific engagement with units other than themselves, and generally require a different style of play from ordinary levels;I found this experimentation on the Fire Emblem form extremely impressive and engaging. Beyond this are smaller QoL changes that I appreciate: tradable items that customize unit stats and effects when equipped, no weapon degradation, and perhaps controversially no permadeath. I’m a player who resets Fire Emblem levels when a unit dies—I want to bring everyone with me! Dark Deity’s injury system lets players weigh a permanent stat loss against the time they’ve spent in the level. This choice is not insignificant, and while I have eaten a late stat loss I found myself resetting more often than not. You might hate this system, but I love it!
Dark Deity can be a Fire Emblem clone if that’s all one chooses to see in it, but I think it’s much more. It’s fun, the world is beautiful, the characters are memorable both in their visual design and writing, the story is good and is affected by every one of its 30 unique characters, and it expands meaningfully upon the Fire Emblem formula. I’m not going to sugar coat the bugs; they can be extremely frustrating. After one Windows related crash upon stage clear I switched to playing exclusively on Steam Deck and had a great experience for the rest of my time with the game. I quite enjoyed and recommend Dark Deity to fans of Fire Emblem. That said, if your interest is piqued but the flaws seem too insurmountable, know that Dark Deity 2 is set to release in 2024 and the devs have engaged with player feedback and seem to have created a game that expands even more radically on its original formula; beyond QoL improvements they claim to have added terrain tiles, players will have access to more radical tools that affect the battle outside of traditional combat, and the costume design for female characters seems a bit more realistic too. One can never truly recommend a game before it releases, but my time with Dark Deity has guaranteed that I will purchase Dark Deity 2, and I think that’s as strong a recommendation as I can give for both.
What I like about Dark Deity I like a lot. The class-promotion system is super cool, allowing players to freely hybridize between 4 level 10 and 4 level 30 classes. This creates a depth of customization that bolsters replay value significantly. Replaying on Hard with knowledge about this system I was rewarded greatly compared to my first playthrough on Normal where I was figuring it out as I went. Each class stage offers not only different skills but also stat growth patterns, which lends different approaches to different characters who all have unique skills and stat distributions of their own. There aren't really any "bad" units, and weaker units can be supplemented with adequate game knowledge turning them into destroyers. My off-meta units on my second playthrough were stronger than my meta units on my first.
On the topic of units, at first glance I thought the social "Bond" system in this game was going to be tedious. Between levels it might offer up to 10 unique dialogues between 30 units all with unique stories. At first I found these dialogues a bit cliche, but as they advance from stage 1/3 to 3/3 they become more interesting, specific, and nuanced as the characters develop relationships with each-other. By the end of the game I found myself cherishing my bond dialogues and lamenting levels where I had maxed them all out between my team of 14. This drove me to choose a completely different team on my second play-through to learn about the characters I had benched on my first, another testament to the game's replayability. I love games with hefty character rosters, and Dark Deity features a colourful cast some of whom I know I will think about in the future. The story writing mirrors the writing of the bond system; at first, it seems pedestrian, but it grows from typical beginnings to an interesting conclusion that I didn't predict with some really cool boss designs along the way.
The most common gripe I've seen with this game is the gameplay. I will make no illusions about the negative elements: It's kind of buggy and the game lacks polish in general. I'd personally have changed some of the UI controls like target selection and input confirmation (special commands take the place of the attack button leading to some extremely frustrating misclicks). If this is a dealbreaker for you then I understand, but I believe in giving grace to indie developers—Dark Deity is still more polished than some AAA games and I know that here it's not for lack of care. The learning curve is artificially inflated because the tutorialization is insubstantial. If you play this game you should know that there is a battlesave feature, which itself is buggy but can be used to savescum bugs. The lack of terrain tiles makes gameplay a matter of choke point control and matchup knowledge. This is exacerbated by the matchup chart being very hard to get a handle on, with the game offering differing interactions between 3 types of armour, 4 types of magic damage, 4 styles of weapon or spell, and 5 physical types of physical damage, and on difficulties below hard these differences don't feel significant or worth knowing (damage variance of -10%-40%). I myself choose to view this as a positive—let us not punish indie developers for being overly ambitious in experimenting with a classic formula. In fact, for all its flaws I think that Dark Deity shines in its innovations on the Fire Emblem formula.
The overly ambitious matchup chart may seem daunting, but once one learns how it works it rewards proper team building. I think this is a meaningful departure from the Fire Emblem approach, which is robust in its simplicity. I’ve never been one to condemn games for using similar mechanics and systems to others. This is a meaningful difference between videogames and other media. One would not decry Salem’s Lot as a Dracula clone, for a quick example, and yet a game like Dark Deity is written of as a Fire Emblem clone, life sims like Sun Haven are written off as Stardew Valley clones, platformer metroidvanias are called Hollow Knight clones and is that not itself a Castlevania clone? All of these games including Dark Deity are engaging with the form of games they’re in the tradition of, and I for one hold that it’s more interesting to see how they expand on and experiment with that established form and one’s expectations thereof. The best example from Dark Deity is its boss fights. In Rekka no Ken the most mechanically advanced boss is one who you can only counterattack safely. Dark Deity offers raid style bosses that use AoE attacks, apply effects outside of regular combat, require specific engagement with units other than themselves, and generally require a different style of play from ordinary levels;I found this experimentation on the Fire Emblem form extremely impressive and engaging. Beyond this are smaller QoL changes that I appreciate: tradable items that customize unit stats and effects when equipped, no weapon degradation, and perhaps controversially no permadeath. I’m a player who resets Fire Emblem levels when a unit dies—I want to bring everyone with me! Dark Deity’s injury system lets players weigh a permanent stat loss against the time they’ve spent in the level. This choice is not insignificant, and while I have eaten a late stat loss I found myself resetting more often than not. You might hate this system, but I love it!
Dark Deity can be a Fire Emblem clone if that’s all one chooses to see in it, but I think it’s much more. It’s fun, the world is beautiful, the characters are memorable both in their visual design and writing, the story is good and is affected by every one of its 30 unique characters, and it expands meaningfully upon the Fire Emblem formula. I’m not going to sugar coat the bugs; they can be extremely frustrating. After one Windows related crash upon stage clear I switched to playing exclusively on Steam Deck and had a great experience for the rest of my time with the game. I quite enjoyed and recommend Dark Deity to fans of Fire Emblem. That said, if your interest is piqued but the flaws seem too insurmountable, know that Dark Deity 2 is set to release in 2024 and the devs have engaged with player feedback and seem to have created a game that expands even more radically on its original formula; beyond QoL improvements they claim to have added terrain tiles, players will have access to more radical tools that affect the battle outside of traditional combat, and the costume design for female characters seems a bit more realistic too. One can never truly recommend a game before it releases, but my time with Dark Deity has guaranteed that I will purchase Dark Deity 2, and I think that’s as strong a recommendation as I can give for both.
Gidin Fire Emblem oynayın
Cons: For a game so heavily inspired by Fire Emblem, they really missed the mark on what makes that gameplay accessible. Armor alone made damage calculations way more complicated than they had to be and that made me run out of steam real quickly.
Pros: dodgetank gyaru
Pros: dodgetank gyaru
ripoff awakening with the worst map design of any srpg ever made (bar maybe fire emblem fates)
This game is a meh, it does well to replicate Fire Emblem but it has struggles that could be fixed for example the units themselves are very weak and struggles to take out an enemy that they should easily take out except for the mages, mages are always op, but any new unit you get throughout the story feels underleveled for when you get them in the story and grinding in this game is tough. If you like Fire Emblem try this out you may like it more than me.
Pretty neat TRPG like the GBA Fire Emblem games with nice music and stages.
Los sprites son bonitos y agradezco que tenga muchas clases pero absolutamente todo lo demás es horrendo. Ni los niveles están bien diseñados, ni los personajes son interesantes, ni la historia es buena.
Tiene muchas ideas pero casi ninguna entra bien.
Ya veremos la secuela.
Tiene muchas ideas pero casi ninguna entra bien.
Ya veremos la secuela.
i'm usually someone who much preferes a good story over fun gameplay, but with this game, i didn't seem to mind things being the other way around. the story is one that you've probably heared before and the game doesn't reinvent anything, but the gameplay is tons of fun!
most things about this game are rather average. the soundtrack is nice, but sometimes i found myself putting on my own playlist and muting the game. the characters are nice, but there are a bit too many to spend time with all of them. i never once used caius, felton, rose or a few of the others, because i didn't have the time to try out new characters, knowing i would get new ones in the very next level. many characters may work for a game with permadeath, but a few of the later characters felt a little unnecessary. the support conversations were alright. some were really fun and some i didn't pay much attention to.
overall, the game didn't stood out to me in any particular way, but i still had tons of fun with it. if you don't care much about the story, you can get a lot of enjoyment out of the gameplay!
most things about this game are rather average. the soundtrack is nice, but sometimes i found myself putting on my own playlist and muting the game. the characters are nice, but there are a bit too many to spend time with all of them. i never once used caius, felton, rose or a few of the others, because i didn't have the time to try out new characters, knowing i would get new ones in the very next level. many characters may work for a game with permadeath, but a few of the later characters felt a little unnecessary. the support conversations were alright. some were really fun and some i didn't pay much attention to.
overall, the game didn't stood out to me in any particular way, but i still had tons of fun with it. if you don't care much about the story, you can get a lot of enjoyment out of the gameplay!
As much shit as modern Fire Emblem games get at least my 3DS/Switch didn't kill itself trying to run it. What was there was alright so maybe I'll pick it up on Switch
maybe the real dark deity are the friends we made along the way
I have a great admiration for these developers taking the clear inspiration from Fire Emblem and making slight tweaks to make this experience different. That being said, halfway through this game, I find myself tired because I felt I was under leveled. You need to be constantly upgrading, which I feel that should have been done through leveling up instead of using resources. The maps are way too big. The soundtrack is forgettable. It was a nice thing to hold me over while waiting for the next FE game at least.
Getting this out of the way, this game does not run well, it isn't just my PC this time, the steam release is just not good. Abysmal load times, rare game freezes/crashes, some glitches (not any too gameplay ruining from my experience).
Had to play with animations off as a critical cut in froze my computer. So knocking off some points for issues with the PC version that will hopefully be better in the switch version. Now on to actual game related topics.
Gameplay wise; it was pretty fun. An overall good tactical rpg, it differentiates from its' inspiration in a few interesting ways. The weapon system was interesting in how each class had set weapons they could use, each with differing accuracies, damages, weights, etc. And you could upgrade each of the do weapon slots essentially, and said upgrades carry over when you change classes. Classes were also pretty fun, as a certified class cuatomization enjoyer I liked the class options. It was cool how they weren't split promotions and were also three tiered promotions, so if you didn't like the style of one path on tier 2, you weren't locked into that. And it lets you mix and match skills pretty well. I felt this game definitely suffers from unit power creep, where a new unit who joins will just be strictly better than your current unit of the same class most of the time, save for some differing skills, but I never felt I needed to use stronger units, just used the ones I wanted. Map design was overall good, mostly standard gameplay wise, some having "gimmicky" elements that I didn't mind as they were not over bearing like in other games (fates). The only map I disliked was one that was just a giant empty rectangle. Actual art design of them was pretty good at times too. Especially the treehouse themed mansion map. That was cool. I felt it was kinda odd that one map uses a "fight giant monster" mechanic but that doesn't happen again.
Story wise, it's not bad, but definitely not super interesting either. Your standard bad magic guy and evil king do bad stuff with plot magic, items and creatures. Though the character moments spread throughout are great. Irving is a great main character, I remember enjoying a lot of his scenes in the main story. Never goes too "edgy" or too "goodie two shoes" strikes a nice balance and bounced off the cast well. Sloane and Maeve I also felt had interesting moments in the main story.
Support wise, nothing particularly amazing, but I didn't hate any support. Just mostly fun enjoyable stuff. Alden, Benji, Sloane and Sophia all have great supports from what I saw. There seems to be a ton more supports I didn't get as I couldn't use every single character, so maybe there are some more intense or impressive ones out there. But I liked all of what I saw.
Character design wise, I want to say it's good, but it just didn't do it overall for me. There are a few I really like, and I don't personally subscribe to the "character has big boobs and shows them = bad character design mentality" it was almost too much. I think the clothing designs could have been more consistent in terms of displaying the different cultures, races, countries, jobs etc. But like I said, there are some I really liked, namely Alden, Lincoln, Sloane, Rose, Sophia, Fenton, Maeve and a few non-recruitables were especially great sadly. Overall just could have used some more refinement to really get there for me.
I'd say Dark Deity is a good experience if you're a Tactical RPG fan, it has a good voice cast and OST, it is similar enough to other games to be comfortable to switch to but different enough to be its' own game. The sprite work and animations are really good. Writing is good, and it has characters that are easy to like and play off each other well. It could use a fair amount of improvement in all categories, but it doesn't fail in any of them. Hopefully the switch version fixes all the glitches and performance issues at least. I would absolutely recommend playing that version over this if it does so. It's a good game.
Had to play with animations off as a critical cut in froze my computer. So knocking off some points for issues with the PC version that will hopefully be better in the switch version. Now on to actual game related topics.
Gameplay wise; it was pretty fun. An overall good tactical rpg, it differentiates from its' inspiration in a few interesting ways. The weapon system was interesting in how each class had set weapons they could use, each with differing accuracies, damages, weights, etc. And you could upgrade each of the do weapon slots essentially, and said upgrades carry over when you change classes. Classes were also pretty fun, as a certified class cuatomization enjoyer I liked the class options. It was cool how they weren't split promotions and were also three tiered promotions, so if you didn't like the style of one path on tier 2, you weren't locked into that. And it lets you mix and match skills pretty well. I felt this game definitely suffers from unit power creep, where a new unit who joins will just be strictly better than your current unit of the same class most of the time, save for some differing skills, but I never felt I needed to use stronger units, just used the ones I wanted. Map design was overall good, mostly standard gameplay wise, some having "gimmicky" elements that I didn't mind as they were not over bearing like in other games (fates). The only map I disliked was one that was just a giant empty rectangle. Actual art design of them was pretty good at times too. Especially the treehouse themed mansion map. That was cool. I felt it was kinda odd that one map uses a "fight giant monster" mechanic but that doesn't happen again.
Story wise, it's not bad, but definitely not super interesting either. Your standard bad magic guy and evil king do bad stuff with plot magic, items and creatures. Though the character moments spread throughout are great. Irving is a great main character, I remember enjoying a lot of his scenes in the main story. Never goes too "edgy" or too "goodie two shoes" strikes a nice balance and bounced off the cast well. Sloane and Maeve I also felt had interesting moments in the main story.
Support wise, nothing particularly amazing, but I didn't hate any support. Just mostly fun enjoyable stuff. Alden, Benji, Sloane and Sophia all have great supports from what I saw. There seems to be a ton more supports I didn't get as I couldn't use every single character, so maybe there are some more intense or impressive ones out there. But I liked all of what I saw.
Character design wise, I want to say it's good, but it just didn't do it overall for me. There are a few I really like, and I don't personally subscribe to the "character has big boobs and shows them = bad character design mentality" it was almost too much. I think the clothing designs could have been more consistent in terms of displaying the different cultures, races, countries, jobs etc. But like I said, there are some I really liked, namely Alden, Lincoln, Sloane, Rose, Sophia, Fenton, Maeve and a few non-recruitables were especially great sadly. Overall just could have used some more refinement to really get there for me.
I'd say Dark Deity is a good experience if you're a Tactical RPG fan, it has a good voice cast and OST, it is similar enough to other games to be comfortable to switch to but different enough to be its' own game. The sprite work and animations are really good. Writing is good, and it has characters that are easy to like and play off each other well. It could use a fair amount of improvement in all categories, but it doesn't fail in any of them. Hopefully the switch version fixes all the glitches and performance issues at least. I would absolutely recommend playing that version over this if it does so. It's a good game.
Sloane best girl tho.
This game is essentially Fire Emblem: Slightly Different but Mostly Worse. The game never really feels like its own thing and most of the core changes to the Fire Emblem experience don't really pan out well at all. Probably the best changes here are no forced deployment for the main characters, most support conversations reference and play off of story beats and the 2000 health raid bosses are actually fun.
My favourite level is absolutely the level that tries to do the Ike and the Black Knight gimmick from Radiant Dawn. Because of the aforementioned no forced deployment gimmick, you don't have to deploy Ike! If you don't deploy the main character, you can still complete the level by defeating enemies with your other units, as defeating an enemy does damage to the boss or something. Can't actually verify that's how it works but after like 9 turns I won the level for no reason so that was funny. Dumb game.
My favourite level is absolutely the level that tries to do the Ike and the Black Knight gimmick from Radiant Dawn. Because of the aforementioned no forced deployment gimmick, you don't have to deploy Ike! If you don't deploy the main character, you can still complete the level by defeating enemies with your other units, as defeating an enemy does damage to the boss or something. Can't actually verify that's how it works but after like 9 turns I won the level for no reason so that was funny. Dumb game.
Fairly serious yet bright TRPG that lacks technical polish but does well in many other areas.
+ intricate class system allowing most units to excel through different combinations
+ solidly written character conversations with looser requirements than similar games
+ diverse and manageably-sized cast that largely stays relevant
+ very clean if somewhat inconsistent pixel art style featuring excellent animations
+ adjustable difficulties even including the option to eliminate chance in stat upgrades
+ enjoyable war story without much nonsense
+ accessible tooltips
- forgettable soundtrack
- generally poor UI (cumbersome inventory management, unintuitive button mappings, concealed information)
- predictably static enemy AI
- dodge chance as a crucial stat makes a lot of fights either trivial or luck-dependent
- various graphical glitches that actually obstruct gameplay
- needlessly long maps without any opportunities to save
+ intricate class system allowing most units to excel through different combinations
+ solidly written character conversations with looser requirements than similar games
+ diverse and manageably-sized cast that largely stays relevant
+ very clean if somewhat inconsistent pixel art style featuring excellent animations
+ adjustable difficulties even including the option to eliminate chance in stat upgrades
+ enjoyable war story without much nonsense
+ accessible tooltips
- forgettable soundtrack
- generally poor UI (cumbersome inventory management, unintuitive button mappings, concealed information)
- predictably static enemy AI
- dodge chance as a crucial stat makes a lot of fights either trivial or luck-dependent
- various graphical glitches that actually obstruct gameplay
- needlessly long maps without any opportunities to save
too inspired by fire emblem to a point where id rather just play fire emblem
2/5 I recommend.
its not bad but the gameplay felt samey after a while and the balance is highly questionable
A genuinely very great Fire Emblem-inspired game that specifically carries the vibes of the GBA era in its excellent and lively sprites, which are just as fun to watch in motion after putting in 70 hours as they are in the first ten. The game also has an excellent variety of chapter objectives.
Unfortunately, Dark Deity also suffers, even after numerous patches, from major issues, such as units sometimes being in two tiles at the same time, visually appearing to be in one tile when they are actually in another tile that they are not visible in, and some funky issues with the battle forecast in which certain classes (the Crusader in particular always seems to deal less damage in a given hit than they should). The story itself is serviceable on the whole, having its occasional moments, while the writing of the individual characters (especially in their "Supports", or rather their Bonds as the game calls them) is pretty good.
The class and skill system - where each character promotes into one of 4 classes based on their base class at level 10, each one having their own set of 2 class skills, and can then pick from another set of 4 classes (again, based on the original base class) with their own sets of 2 class skills - is genuinely very fun. Mixing and matching these with each character's personal skills and the Eternal Aspects (further skills, of which only one can be equipped at a time for each character) creates a fun and interesting character building system, without being too overwhelming. There are times where certain skills will display an old, outdated effect description on one screen despite having been changed later on in patches, which can be frustrating in causing misunderstandings about how a unit might work.
Overall though, the game is very good for what it is, despite its foibles, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys the gameplay of Fire Emblem and especially the battle sprites of the GBA era games.
Unfortunately, Dark Deity also suffers, even after numerous patches, from major issues, such as units sometimes being in two tiles at the same time, visually appearing to be in one tile when they are actually in another tile that they are not visible in, and some funky issues with the battle forecast in which certain classes (the Crusader in particular always seems to deal less damage in a given hit than they should). The story itself is serviceable on the whole, having its occasional moments, while the writing of the individual characters (especially in their "Supports", or rather their Bonds as the game calls them) is pretty good.
The class and skill system - where each character promotes into one of 4 classes based on their base class at level 10, each one having their own set of 2 class skills, and can then pick from another set of 4 classes (again, based on the original base class) with their own sets of 2 class skills - is genuinely very fun. Mixing and matching these with each character's personal skills and the Eternal Aspects (further skills, of which only one can be equipped at a time for each character) creates a fun and interesting character building system, without being too overwhelming. There are times where certain skills will display an old, outdated effect description on one screen despite having been changed later on in patches, which can be frustrating in causing misunderstandings about how a unit might work.
Overall though, the game is very good for what it is, despite its foibles, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys the gameplay of Fire Emblem and especially the battle sprites of the GBA era games.
Dark Deity is a game that's been getting pushed around a bit by negative reviews even though it's perfectly capable of throwing its own weight around. I would dare to even say the game is overhated. This is the curse of being heavily inspired by a beloved franchise that had decades of games to refine the formula with a triple A budget and then being compared to it blow for blow by the hardcore fans of the genre looking to scratch the itch. It's only unfortunate that I would have to agree with many criticisms; this game really doesn't flawlessly execute a lot of its ideas and concepts. The story is relatively standard, the characters are charming but nothing terribly standout, and most offensively to me the armor triangle - one of the game's unique ideas - is all but terribly communicated and nearly useless to learn considering I was able to beat the game on its hardest difficulty fine without bothering to memorize it.
Yet the game comes from a place of passion that you just can't help but root for. It's far from perfect, but it's also far from bad by any means. The art is incredible and the high points of the game can really live up to its contemporary and shine, even if the low points are as low as they may be. I regrettably can't give it a higher score than I am due to technical issues and mediocre balancing, but while it's a flawed experience it was also a greatly fun one. I really did enjoy my fifty-five hours to grab 100% achievements. A game can still be enjoyable even while acknowledging its failings. Of course, the game really does break apart even at the highest difficulty when you have a bit of experience under your belt and understand which characters and class combinations can steamroll the game (looking at Trickster Cia in particular).
I would say you can't really go wrong getting this game if you like these kinds of games. It does scratch the Fire Emblem itch. I'm seriously looking forward to seeing what they do with Dark Deity 2 and how they expand and improve upon the failings of this title - as I don't think any of the foundation here is irredeemable, simply imbalanced - and I have some serious faith that they can achieve what they're hoping to accomplish with this series because of the clear love they have for this genre.
Yet the game comes from a place of passion that you just can't help but root for. It's far from perfect, but it's also far from bad by any means. The art is incredible and the high points of the game can really live up to its contemporary and shine, even if the low points are as low as they may be. I regrettably can't give it a higher score than I am due to technical issues and mediocre balancing, but while it's a flawed experience it was also a greatly fun one. I really did enjoy my fifty-five hours to grab 100% achievements. A game can still be enjoyable even while acknowledging its failings. Of course, the game really does break apart even at the highest difficulty when you have a bit of experience under your belt and understand which characters and class combinations can steamroll the game (looking at Trickster Cia in particular).
I would say you can't really go wrong getting this game if you like these kinds of games. It does scratch the Fire Emblem itch. I'm seriously looking forward to seeing what they do with Dark Deity 2 and how they expand and improve upon the failings of this title - as I don't think any of the foundation here is irredeemable, simply imbalanced - and I have some serious faith that they can achieve what they're hoping to accomplish with this series because of the clear love they have for this genre.
Favorite Part: The animations are phenomenal. Clearly so much love and care was put into making them look as good as they do, especially the spell animations.
Least favorite: THE JANK. DEAR GOD THE JANK. PLEASE PATCH THIS GAME. FIX IT.
Least favorite: THE JANK. DEAR GOD THE JANK. PLEASE PATCH THIS GAME. FIX IT.
pretty cool gameplay
story meh
story meh
I'm not particularly big on SRPG games, but I liked this one well enough. One thing I enjoyed was a lack of permadeath (that being the sole reason I haven't given Fire Emblem so much as a passing glance despite this game being obviously influenced by the series)
The only character in this game who's memorable in the slightest is the character whose primary personality trait is quoting unfunny memes while being voiced by an equally unfunny YouTuber and I sadly couldn't be bothered to get to the point where he joins
I'm surprised people ranked this game so low, but from what I can tell it's had quite a long update history....
In any case, as a not-Fire Emblem it's pretty alright and on the nose with all the pros and cons of Fire Emblem: A boring plot with characters that shine better in supports, and an alright Strategy game that can become a steamroll really fast. Some characters like Bridget and Cia early game, Alden midgame, and Elias and Meave late game can effectively run the show by themselves, while funny enough MC Irving is never good. Unlike Fire Emblem though you can actually tell the MC to bug off to the Bench, which after FE6 feels really nice.
Where this game is unique is its take on death, which is neat on paper but flawed in execution: When a unit dies, they will be gone for a map but permanently lose a percentage of a stat. This sounds nice until you see your Berserker lost 0 magic meaning nothing, or your Tank lost 8 HP which is a real death sentence. The inconsequential punishment for death reduces the amount of strategy I need, especially with the aforementioned wrecking balls. The worst of death gets cancelled out lategame where you'll have so much money stockpiled that you can just buy stat increasers that cancel out what was lost on death and be on your merry way.
The voice acting is alright. The presentation is fantastic as is the sprite-art and GBA FE animations are pretty nice, but I do wish unit balance was better and glitches were eradicated. I've straight up lost some turns with units that got stuck or had their movement glitched. Meanwhile treasure chests that contain weapon upgrades can be opened infinitely, meaning the balance of the weapon upgraded system is thrown out the window once you find a good chapter to get as many as you want on.
So all in all, it's a great idea with solid execution, varied mission objectives, a few ideas to call its own that don't always pan out, and a professional presentation only slightly soured by a few gameplay glitches. If you've played Fire Emblem and somehow still need a fix, I think Dark Deity is worth checking out.
In any case, as a not-Fire Emblem it's pretty alright and on the nose with all the pros and cons of Fire Emblem: A boring plot with characters that shine better in supports, and an alright Strategy game that can become a steamroll really fast. Some characters like Bridget and Cia early game, Alden midgame, and Elias and Meave late game can effectively run the show by themselves, while funny enough MC Irving is never good. Unlike Fire Emblem though you can actually tell the MC to bug off to the Bench, which after FE6 feels really nice.
Where this game is unique is its take on death, which is neat on paper but flawed in execution: When a unit dies, they will be gone for a map but permanently lose a percentage of a stat. This sounds nice until you see your Berserker lost 0 magic meaning nothing, or your Tank lost 8 HP which is a real death sentence. The inconsequential punishment for death reduces the amount of strategy I need, especially with the aforementioned wrecking balls. The worst of death gets cancelled out lategame where you'll have so much money stockpiled that you can just buy stat increasers that cancel out what was lost on death and be on your merry way.
The voice acting is alright. The presentation is fantastic as is the sprite-art and GBA FE animations are pretty nice, but I do wish unit balance was better and glitches were eradicated. I've straight up lost some turns with units that got stuck or had their movement glitched. Meanwhile treasure chests that contain weapon upgrades can be opened infinitely, meaning the balance of the weapon upgraded system is thrown out the window once you find a good chapter to get as many as you want on.
So all in all, it's a great idea with solid execution, varied mission objectives, a few ideas to call its own that don't always pan out, and a professional presentation only slightly soured by a few gameplay glitches. If you've played Fire Emblem and somehow still need a fix, I think Dark Deity is worth checking out.
It's buggy as all hell, has a very poor story, and it's deviations from fire emblem style gameplay are largely confusing and only serve to complicate the simple math which I consider pretty integral to FE strategy.
In spite of that I still enjoyed myself well enough, FE is my favorite series gameplay wise so even a pretty poor attempt at it's style was fairly enjoyable and I wasn't looking for a story heavy game in the first place.
In spite of that I still enjoyed myself well enough, FE is my favorite series gameplay wise so even a pretty poor attempt at it's style was fairly enjoyable and I wasn't looking for a story heavy game in the first place.
I originally wrote a review when I was around Chapter 16, but now I'm finished with the game. I will be echoing a lot of the same points I did the first time, but adding some bits to it now that I have the whole game (under the Normal/Hero setting complete). For reference, I have played the majority of the Fire Emblem series before playing this game, which is where most of my SRPG experience comes from.
This game likely shouldn't have released when it did. It lacks a good deal of polish and the 4 or 5 patches releasing in the game's first seven days were a tell of that. It's good to see the small team of developers working hard to fix their game, but it likely should not have been released when it did and given more time to polish, refine things and make sure they work properly. I played the game over about a month, giving some time for updates and patches to fix some of the early bugs, yet still when I finished it there were still notable bugs (units appearing in spaces they aren't and glitching to other spaces/being unmovable, two infinite chests). There's also a few spots where punctuation or lack of proper capitalization was missed, but those are minor issues and easy to overlook.
I've only talked negative so far about this game, so let me speak about why I actually like this game. Stylistically, this game is great. The UI looks really nice, the spritework is amazing, Astral Seeker is probably my favorite class for animations, the character designs are nice to look at, and the voice actors they got to work on the game all did wonderful jobs at giving the characters life. It's an amazing game artistically.
Gameplay-wise, it was an interesting deviation from the standard Fire Emblem formulas of gameplay. The weapon upgrade system is something I don't mind and am okay with personally, though every new unit coming with level 1 items that you have to rank back up with the money you would be using on units who already have ranked up weapons if you were planning on using them isn't fun. Units should at least get some if not all weapons ranked up during the story when they join depending on their join chapter. The combat was fine with me, weapon type vs. armor type is a neat distinction from the usual weapon triangle though I didn't think as much about it as I would an FE weapon triangle. The map arrows showing positive/negative matchups was good.
One notable annoyance that other people may know is that there is no crit avoid stat in the game that helps you avoid getting blasted by enemy crits. It's good that crits only do x2 instead of x3 damage with this and that enemies doing more damage to you is more of a threat, but also annoying to see.
Like said before, I played on the game's normal difficulty (Hero) and the challenge was sufficient for a while. Similar to most FE games, you can find ways to break it if you know what to do, and there are certainly some classes/characters that trivialize the game's combat. The mounted Dragon Knight and Illusionist classes come to mind right away as strong endgame classes with 9 movement and magic damage. Speaking of classes, I do like the game's class system. Of course there's going to be some classes that are better than others, but the choices are quite fun to play with.
The last gameplay topic that I should mention is Grave Wounds. The game has no permadeath at all, and instead of losing a unit permanently, they lose 10% of a stat depending on the weapon damage done to them. I... don't hate this? But I don't love it either? It does take away stress from restarting entire maps over if your favorite unit just got unluckily hit by a 12% hit, but also sometimes feels like it should be more punishing. I've seen my units with 0 magic lose... 0 magic multiple times throughout my playthrough. The option to have permanent unit death or an ironman mode for those that want that extra challenge would be nice and I hope they can add it in a future update. They do like to keep the characters either story-relevant or able to talk throughout the entire plot, but just giving that option where they are unable to fight for the rest of the game would be nice.
(Last note about gameplay I'll add is that the game runs on 2RN for dice rolls, similar to FEs 6-13 and 16, if you care about that type of thing.)
Story-wise, it's about on par for most FE plots, not that deep or complex and just kinda goes along and gets the job done. The story-writing is fairly basic as well, some of the characters shine better in their support conversations (Bonds), which there are a lot of.
One last major issue I had noticed through the early days of the game were mostly the lack of explanations or clear designations on how things worked. The tutorial section was much more barren when the game launched than it is now, but for example on some maps it's difficult to tell exactly how the map ends or when it ends precisely. I've both had maps end too early because I didn't realize exactly how the map concluded and also had one map end because it was a full-on Escape chapter where every single unit had to escape, unlike the other chapters in the game which were Arrive chapters where only one unit had to reach the destination, even though some of them are also labeled Escape. More clarity would do this game really well.
I don't have much to say on music. Nothing really stuck out. Wasn't expecting FE tier music from this game but you wouldn't go wrong listening to some Genealogy of the Holy War or Echoes music over listening to the soundtrack in this game (I only picked those two games because they're my favorite FE OSTs. :) )
Overall, I found the actual gameplay fun and getting through it to be enjoyable outside of the bugs. I will be playing this game multiple times in the future because of finding it fun and hope that bugs can be ironed out more with time. I recommend getting this game on a sale.
TL;DR: I found the game fun, it's kinda buggy still but not to an extreme point, doesn't exactly play like any Fire Emblem game, it's its own SRPG. 6.5 or 7/10.
This game likely shouldn't have released when it did. It lacks a good deal of polish and the 4 or 5 patches releasing in the game's first seven days were a tell of that. It's good to see the small team of developers working hard to fix their game, but it likely should not have been released when it did and given more time to polish, refine things and make sure they work properly. I played the game over about a month, giving some time for updates and patches to fix some of the early bugs, yet still when I finished it there were still notable bugs (units appearing in spaces they aren't and glitching to other spaces/being unmovable, two infinite chests). There's also a few spots where punctuation or lack of proper capitalization was missed, but those are minor issues and easy to overlook.
I've only talked negative so far about this game, so let me speak about why I actually like this game. Stylistically, this game is great. The UI looks really nice, the spritework is amazing, Astral Seeker is probably my favorite class for animations, the character designs are nice to look at, and the voice actors they got to work on the game all did wonderful jobs at giving the characters life. It's an amazing game artistically.
Gameplay-wise, it was an interesting deviation from the standard Fire Emblem formulas of gameplay. The weapon upgrade system is something I don't mind and am okay with personally, though every new unit coming with level 1 items that you have to rank back up with the money you would be using on units who already have ranked up weapons if you were planning on using them isn't fun. Units should at least get some if not all weapons ranked up during the story when they join depending on their join chapter. The combat was fine with me, weapon type vs. armor type is a neat distinction from the usual weapon triangle though I didn't think as much about it as I would an FE weapon triangle. The map arrows showing positive/negative matchups was good.
One notable annoyance that other people may know is that there is no crit avoid stat in the game that helps you avoid getting blasted by enemy crits. It's good that crits only do x2 instead of x3 damage with this and that enemies doing more damage to you is more of a threat, but also annoying to see.
Like said before, I played on the game's normal difficulty (Hero) and the challenge was sufficient for a while. Similar to most FE games, you can find ways to break it if you know what to do, and there are certainly some classes/characters that trivialize the game's combat. The mounted Dragon Knight and Illusionist classes come to mind right away as strong endgame classes with 9 movement and magic damage. Speaking of classes, I do like the game's class system. Of course there's going to be some classes that are better than others, but the choices are quite fun to play with.
The last gameplay topic that I should mention is Grave Wounds. The game has no permadeath at all, and instead of losing a unit permanently, they lose 10% of a stat depending on the weapon damage done to them. I... don't hate this? But I don't love it either? It does take away stress from restarting entire maps over if your favorite unit just got unluckily hit by a 12% hit, but also sometimes feels like it should be more punishing. I've seen my units with 0 magic lose... 0 magic multiple times throughout my playthrough. The option to have permanent unit death or an ironman mode for those that want that extra challenge would be nice and I hope they can add it in a future update. They do like to keep the characters either story-relevant or able to talk throughout the entire plot, but just giving that option where they are unable to fight for the rest of the game would be nice.
(Last note about gameplay I'll add is that the game runs on 2RN for dice rolls, similar to FEs 6-13 and 16, if you care about that type of thing.)
Story-wise, it's about on par for most FE plots, not that deep or complex and just kinda goes along and gets the job done. The story-writing is fairly basic as well, some of the characters shine better in their support conversations (Bonds), which there are a lot of.
One last major issue I had noticed through the early days of the game were mostly the lack of explanations or clear designations on how things worked. The tutorial section was much more barren when the game launched than it is now, but for example on some maps it's difficult to tell exactly how the map ends or when it ends precisely. I've both had maps end too early because I didn't realize exactly how the map concluded and also had one map end because it was a full-on Escape chapter where every single unit had to escape, unlike the other chapters in the game which were Arrive chapters where only one unit had to reach the destination, even though some of them are also labeled Escape. More clarity would do this game really well.
I don't have much to say on music. Nothing really stuck out. Wasn't expecting FE tier music from this game but you wouldn't go wrong listening to some Genealogy of the Holy War or Echoes music over listening to the soundtrack in this game (I only picked those two games because they're my favorite FE OSTs. :) )
Overall, I found the actual gameplay fun and getting through it to be enjoyable outside of the bugs. I will be playing this game multiple times in the future because of finding it fun and hope that bugs can be ironed out more with time. I recommend getting this game on a sale.
TL;DR: I found the game fun, it's kinda buggy still but not to an extreme point, doesn't exactly play like any Fire Emblem game, it's its own SRPG. 6.5 or 7/10.