Overall most helpful review

Posted on: January 24, 2015

Gabby2

Games: 366 Reviews: 14

Great if you know what to expect...

Ok, I really like this game. But it's not perfect, by anyway. I'll start with the bad, because I don't want you to be disapointed. The begining is quite bad. It's not difficult, it's randomly punishing. Basically save and load each 30 seconds, boring early fights. Early food management is not fun. Choices have consequences and you CAN screw your party by overspending your cash or choosing the wrong skills. Character developement uneven with poor choices - many useless skills and counter intuitive stats. Story, writing and storytelling are poor (you're the Chosen one, have a look at the job board). The game involve A LOT of backtracking. Like, a lot. During all the game, equipemement is rare, it's a design choice but it can be frustrating. Grind required and not easy to do - limited monsters. On the bright side, once you passed the early game, the game becomes great. The turn based fights are really nice, lots of options that make sense, at least once you get a few skills and HP not to be instakill too often. Ressource management (gold is scarce, food must be restocked often) is really interesting and challenging (it sucks at the beggining but starts to make sense after. The idea is good, it's just poorly adapted to a low level party). Fights are the core of the game (story is so generic you won't pay attention) and they're good. There is the exploration side, tons of stuff to find on the maps, well designed dungeons - pretty shorts in general but sensibles. A good share of puzzle that don't seem too much out of place. The characters are fairly balanced as long as you don't screw things up with your skill distribution. They took many ideas from Wizardry, M&M, Ultima, BG... and came up with a coherent game thatis clearly made of their love for old school RPG, with all the modern improvements to UI and ease of use we are used to now. Just know what to expect : demanding turn based fights, slow paced exploration and ressource management.

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Posted on: January 21, 2015

Typingviking

Verified owner

Games: 231 Reviews: 3

Frustrating, unforgiving, fantastic

This game absolutely refuses to hold your hand and happily smacks you in the face the second you do something even slightly careless. Grinding is somewhere between important and mandatory, regardless of strategy; in spite of this, the game limits the number of encounters per section to limit the extent to which you can do so. At least some save-scumming is a necessity to all but the most hardcore and masochistic of old-school purists. Gold spent on items and the leveling system can, at times, bring marginal relief if at all to all these things. Why five stars, then? Because this makes finding the right skills to increase, the right items to buy, the right strategies to use all the more rewarding. The fights and traps and skill management are unforgiving, but not unfair. The "save anywhere" option mitigates the punishment for carelessness or tactical error, the graphics and combat system are fairly simple but smooth and engaging, the music and story are solid and the setting and classes are familiar enough to your average RPG fan but with enough variety and creativity in application to be familiar without being style. Even on the lowest difficulty, this is a tough game to master. But even the journey to competence is enjoyable and rewarding, and anyone who likes games like Baldur's Gate, Wizardry or Dragon Quest should give this game a try on the virtues of its blend of accessibility and old-school difficulty. That said, if you find games like Baldur's Gate, Wizardry and Dragon Quest too hard or unforgiving, I'd probably give this one a pass. Fair warning.

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Posted on: March 4, 2015

Wildeyn

Verified owner

Games: 97 Reviews: 1

Loved this game from beginning to end

I'm an avid player of rpg's and have played nearly all of the usual ones over the last 20 years. My taste generally agrees with most other GOG'ers: SWKOTOR, Baldur's Gate 2, King's Bounty Legend are among my favorites, etc. I loved this game from start to finish. Just finished it on "ironman" (not really ironman, thank goodness, it just means you can only save in towns), hardcore. I first got a party about 1/3 through the game, around to lvl 23, on the middle difficulty, then read over the character guide on the internet and switched over to the highest difficulty, and it was completely doable, pretty much every fight was won without reloading, which means that at least the middle difficulty should be good for most anybody who is paying attention and takes maybe a few hours to first play around and familiarize themselves with what is going on. I read one person say that the story was generic, which is odd to me. They must not have finished the game, because the story develops in a very original fashion, unless I've missed all of the games and books with this particular story. The story isn't all that important; the game is immersive for other reasons, but the story strikes me as highly unique. This game has a terrific feature that is somewhat invisible unless you know to look for it; one that sucks when otherwise good games get it wrong. The resources in this game all matter constantly throughout the game. Otherwise good games get this wrong and people wonder why they lose interest. Still points, perm ability boosts, potions and scrolls, gold, experience-gaining, and equipment all really matter the whole time. You feel (correctly, pretty much) that you'd better be as strong as you can be, because the enemies are strong, but then when you do build your party and equipment well, then you can handle challenges and win without reloading or getting lucky (but not where it is at all boring). Very fun. totally recommended. From the ending, I expect a sequel.

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Posted on: May 5, 2015

flux_c

Verified owner

Games: 156 Reviews: 1

Almost great

'Almost great' is certainly meant to be a compliment. If you enjoy games that are challenging and require a great deal of thought and longer term strategy, Lords of Xulima is probably something you would enjoy. I am definitely having a very good time playing the game. For the most part, the graphics are beautiful, there's quite a lot of content, and the mechanics are pretty solid. However, there are a few things, some that are subjective, that keep it from entering the 'great' territory, for me. I would chalk up a bit of it simply to inexperience, and I look forward to seeing where the developers go next. Here are the primary ones I can think of: - A premade lead character - I understand why this was done, and I'm sure there are people that like/prefer this style, but its not to my taste. - Ill-described mechanics - The game actually does have a great number of tool tips, but there are keywords that just doesn't seem to be explained at all. What's 'action modifier'? 'Complex' weapons? What does 'Materialize Essence' do? The game can be fairly unforgiving, and not giving the player all the information they need to make informed decisions causes it to sometimes feel like a crapshoot. - Randomness - This is particularly aimed at combat. Of course, most RPGs have a degree of randomness in combat, but I feel there's a bit too much here. I can't exactly point my finger at one thing and say 'that's the problem,' but I often feel like when I win or lose, its not because of any particular decision(s) I made. Honestly, when I originally saw this in development, I had a 'meh' feeling. But, I figured I would support an indie. However, I'm glad I picked this one up. If you're looking for something both original and familiar, I recommend at least considering Lords of Xulima.

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Posted on: July 20, 2015

mothwentbad

Verified owner

Games: 916 Reviews: 25

Maddening min-max minefield

Lords of Xulima is old-school in some of the best ways, as well as some of the worst. It can be pretty addictive, if grindy and sometimes harsh. Some of the design decisions are mean, though. Once you've read some guides and learned how things scale, you'll realize that about half the skills in the game are dead-ends. An informed player can only decide whether to level them up once for immediate relief, or not at all for long-term viability. Mages in particular are level 7 or 8 before they can start spending points on spells, while Summoners get all of their skills almost immediately and have to pick two (or else spread points too thin to the point of them all being useless). While Summoners have to commit to their skill sinks, other endlessly-levelable skills, like the paladin heal, are dead ends (for much fewer skill points, a Priest spell does better later on). As a result, you can easily cripple your party, and adaptability is low - you can't reasonably swap weapons according to enemy type; at most, you can use the most appropriate character's mana more liberally and add in some consumables. The Amulet of Golot DLC is a mildly pay-to-win sort of add-on, perma-binding itself to an inventory slot on your main character and occasionally granting your entire team skill points. If you're thinking about Xulima, consider getting the Deluxe whenever it's on sale for a big discount. Microsoft Excel is the real must-have DLC for this game. There might be some joy in planning your stable of one-trick ponies, but the dead ends and lack of respecs make playing out a botched party unsatisfying on Normal and unworkable on higher settings. If you can accept that hazard, then have at it.

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