Having games focused around typing has always been a neat weird little concept, but Epistory just lacks a long-staying hook after the first hour or so. Movement and exploration feels half-baked with awkward free movement controls despite having areas built out of tiles and a confusing map that feels needlessly interconnected and large. There's very little variety with combat despite unlocking some form of complexity in the form of different spells you swap between because the only way the game ups the challenge is increasing the enemy count and how fast you have to react to them, which increasingly begins to feel unfair because of words that very regularly repeat themselves across multiple enemies. It's far too easy to end up in bad situations because you think you'll be typing a word for one enemy, only to see something else in the corner of the screen get hit instead or maybe sometimes getting stuck because you hit some other letter and got stuck typing that word with no way to backspace out. I wish I could care for the story but it's so overwritten trying desperately to sound poetic about what depression feels like, and even harder to care for in the moment when you're fighting off enemies or wandering around figuring out where the next thing to type is.

Honestly the biggest problem of them all is Epistory's core focus on typing just doesn't feel as satisfying as other well known titles with its gimmick. Typing of the Dead may be sort of a meme game, but it's still the best in its class because of how it fundamentally makes typing tense and satisfying to nail and get faster at. The loud tactile sound and instant visual feedback makes those games so much stronger as typing games, whereas Epistory has one sound for every time you finish a word and the same enemy fade out for finishing all of them, and one of its core mechanics weirdly even discourages typing fast with the combo meter being timed. Playing too quickly weirdly punishes you more, which should have been a red flag from the get-go.

It's a neat seeing a new attempt at this kind of game and I didn't lose very much considering this was free on the Epic Games Store at one point, but playing it just made me want to go play Typing of the Dead again or even just loading up Monkeytype to see how fast I could slap something out.

After logging just under 3 hours and looking up a longplay to see that I've still got 2 left, I think I'm probably gonna stop playing this for now, especially since my opinion on this likely isn't going to change with any more time spent on it. That isn't to say this is bad, not by any means--it's just a little too long for a typing game where the narrative is too light to really serve as a hook.

I honestly think my biggest issue is the parts between the typing. Navigating environments and switching back and forth from the diagonal movement controls which take some getting used to, back to traditional typing and trying to find your spot on the keyboard, started out a minor issue but it seemed to grow as the game went on. It just feels awkward when you're swapping between typing words and moving around every 5 or 10 seconds. The game is at its best during the sequences when you're thrown a bunch of words one after another and you don't have to concern yourself with movement--when you're in the flow state and making lots of snap judgements about how quickly enemies are moving towards you and how many letters it takes to damage them, it's pretty damn great. It's just a shame that what makes this unique from other typing games (its hybridization with an action-adventure-y game) is also where the most of its friction comes from.

I've always had a soft spot for typing games but I also found myself thinking how awesome it'd be if there was a game that combined the typing mechanic but used it in a creative way and made a modern title out of it, complete with a story, fun mechanics, maybe interesting graphics...there's so much untapped potential there!

Epistory is that game.
It uses the typing mechanic as a way to attack hordes of enemies coming at you, and throughout the game, you get granted different elemental powers you have to use to combat different enemy types and it gets increasingly more and more crazy as it goes on. It's very fun!
The difficulty was just right but you can change it if you're struggling, so it's very much accessible.

Besides the combat, the game has a gorgeous origami-esque art style, and plays out on a map that you progressively unlock areas of and you are free to explore this map at your leisure. There's puzzles you solve and you can find treasures and the like hidden in places.

Overall, I really enjoyed the game and can highly recommend it to everyone.

Epistory: Typing Chronicles is an adventure typing game officially released in 2016, by Fishing Cactus.

You play as a girl who is riding a fox with three tails. The gameplay is straightforward, you type the words that are located above the enemy or obstacle. But throughout the story, you will learn how to use four elements: fire, ice, spark and wind. Those elements will not be only used to surpass or defeat certain enemies (enemies whose letters are coloured with the same colour of the element needed to defeat them), but also to use each element's ability (for example, fire, burns the word after the written one; ice, freezes the opponent for some time;...).
The story is sometimes hard to understand, and at times it feels disconnected because it follows the writer's writing process, which is represented by how the world unfolds.
As you type your way through this adventure, you will get typing points, which are used to get access to certain parts of the map and to get upgrades. I recommend first upgrading your elemental abilities since I've found those abilities helpful, especially when fighting at nest sites (a site found on the map from where, when you stand at the designated spot, enemies will start coming to you from all sides).
Something which I highly recommend using is the adaptive difficulty, which is already enabled as default. This difficulty option learns how fast/slow you type and according to that it makes the game harder/easier.
The only thing I found sometimes irritating is that in the last two chapters the nest fights took too long to finish and sometimes in them, there were too long intervals between enemy waves, which further prolonged the fight.

All in all, a relaxing game, with a beautiful paper-like art style, with both great and relaxing soundtracks. It's not long, not boring. I recommend it even to those who can't type fast on their keyboard since this game offers the adaptive difficulty option. To sum up, it's a sweet and relaxing adventure.

Epistory - Typing Chronicles is a game in which you play as a girl who rides upon a giant fox.

I loved the game's beautiful art style. The environments in the game are all quite unique, with their own coloration and atmospheres, and the attention to detail of the scenery and the architecture is quite beautiful.

I also enjoyed the soundtrack to the game, though I have heard some minor looping issues for some of the tracks. Nevertheless, its soundtrack is still quite lovely, and each track fits the mood of its level quite well.

I enjoyed the gameplay a lot, and I think it was a fun game to play. I've never played a typing game that is as fun as this one. I think it does an excellent job of combining typing with adventure, and the four different magic elements are a nice touch. I also enjoy games that let you gather collectibles, and I think it was a cool addition to this game. ^.^

The few issues I have with the game are these:

- The story was kind of vague, and I wish that certain things would've been explained.

- Some of the music tracks, as I mentioned, don't loop seamlessly.

Despite those flaws, I still very much enjoyed the game. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys adventure games, games with unique art styles, and games that let you explore quite a bit. ^.^

"i'm good at typing, i don't need prove anything." so i decided to get this on switch. but if you're good at typing it's all the more reason to play this on a keyboard because the waves of enemies can get very chaotic very fast and suddenly you're mashing ABXY and wishing you just had listened to the warnings, dug out your usb converter from the closet, and connected it to the damn keyboard. also the switch screen is damn SMALL and you'll be squinting and crying and you can't see the words through your tears. good game otherwise