Dark Deity - turn based RPG with fantasy. We start off with a few characters in a youth military academy and soon we have to choose which to take and at the end we'll have too many that it will be hard to keep up with their names and stories, having to tighten the focus on just the best 14 of them, otherwise the fights may be longer and more complicated to win. The Hero difficulty (the golden middle) still feels a bit on the easy side especially considering we're able to drag our fights to grind free experience by using special abilities on allies. The only time I felt overwhelmed by the difficult level was in the second half of the game by one single mission. It wasn't difficult because of the layout or some special event happening, but because enemies had high stats so if you've not been grinding and spreading weapon upgrades efficiently, you'll have a hard time beating all enemies but still have a high chance to do the main objective. I grinded only a little and the new characters I received had higher levels than the starting ones but they start with no upgrades on weapons so they might have higher primary stats but ineffective attacks. Enemies also tend to be higher level but you win in numbers. The game doesn't really require grinding, only good positioning of your characters. Sometimes enemies wait around until you get inside their range, that's when the game is too easy and you have time to fully regenerate and reposition closer. If you're an old school gamer you might wanna pick the Deity difficulty with more challenging fights because for the most part, it is an easy journey through chapters. I recommend you to keep playing the same 14 characters from the start or you can wait a bit to get a higher level version of the same classes and start upgrading them instead. When reaching character level 10 and 30 you'll be able to promote your chosen class and pick amongst 4 class types of 2 higher tiers. These promotions give your characters specific abilities and adjustment to their primary stats. You combine tier 2 and 3 abilities but the final stats are a combination of a final class and personal aptitudes. It feels like each character can efficiently be played only in 2 or 3 paths, otherwise it will be taking up space for somebody useful. Each class has a specific 4 weapon types, red prioritizing in damage, blue in critical chance, green in accuracy and yellow is a mix of the other 3, usually a lower weight weapon affecting dodge and double attacks. We will get our hands on a lot of items to equip that will modify the stats. Each character can equip one and hold 3 additional HP replenishment. Your combat playground is where most of the game time is spent besides reading dozens of story paragraphs. You will need to swap weapons and position your fighters properly to maximize your results. The various types of weapons, subcategories and classes create interesting variation in playstyle whether the objective is simple and while some unusual events may occur to pepper your run across the grids. The story did not disappoint either. It's unnecessary to create bonds and read through hundreds of dialogues between your companions but there's still an overwhelming amount of text between each fight and it is not taking huge risks, we'll always get fights and resting which exchange one another in cycles. That's why the story may be a bit lacking in creating moments of suspension or some kind of twist. A decision to keep increasing the number of characters is also questionable because I feel like it's very unlikely to get so many unique and different and sometimes opposing sides to keep cooperating for so long and in greater lengths. Characters occasionally talk with just a few words, more like shouts, so they set the mood and it was well suited. The dialogues themselves are also exploring the backstories, creating relationships and they tend to be silly, most of the time trying to be funny and there were only very few that made me stop to think a little bit more about what I'm reading. In other words, they're a huge bite of game time that doesn't bring too many interesting flavors but without it, the game may feel very hollow and repetitive. This way I have at least some connection to my fighters even though I realize it's a high fantasy world with focus on fighting. I must point out one thing, the bosses were not particularly hard, they were HP sponges with high damage but they had nothing too special going about them. It's a decent game. 7/10 Enemy types + Promotions + Characters + Gameplay + Weapons + Enemy AI - Graphics + Difficulty ~ Sounds + Levels ~ Items + Story ~ 44 hours to finish on Hero difficulty.
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