Paper Sorcerer

This is the kind of games that hardly are made nowadays, and luckily this one is quite good to quench the hunger of Wizardry clones. The visuals are soundtrack are great, specially for such a small production, and the story, even without much exposition, is quite cool. The gameplay is done in traditional Wizardry style. It's turn based and offers a lot of tactical depth. Probably the biggest complaint I have is about the interface. It's completely unwieldy, and unlike the rest of the game, very ugly.

I get there are people that like this, and I'm sure they're genuine, but for me, this is a okay game ruined by an abysmal interface. Even people who like this game admit that the interface is poor. The UI for an RPG is critical, it's like having responsive controls in an action game, it's not something you can afford to screw up, and this game screws it up big time. This is a game about navigating menus. Navigating menus to fight, to cast spells, to use and equip items. And the interface to do so is _terrible_. It's laggy, it's obtuse, it's ugly, and it's genuinely worse than a lot of the games it's trying to copy from decades ago. I can't play a game where the core action of the game feels awful. It would be like trying to play a platformer where the jumping felt awful. Another big problem I have with the game is that the soundtrack is - in my opinion - awful, and _you can't turn it off_. I could totally forgive a bad soundtrack, but there is no option to turn off music in this game. Again, this is a basic feature that games were getting right _decades_ ago, why is this game made in 2014 worse about it? Finally, I didn't like how the game was less exploration driven than most first person RPG's. There's no map, for example - that would be crazy in most 1st person RPG's, but this game doesn't actually need a map because the levels are so tiny and linear. So the main reason I play this genre, the sense of exploration, is neutered and the focus is on the combat, which involves going through those terrible menus which I hate. If it wants to be different and be very linear, that's okay, but that just leaves the awful game-play. I'm sure there are people that are able to look past this stuff, but I can't. Why would you play this instead of any number of better games, new or old, that do the same thing but way, way better, some of which are on GOG? It's impressive that this was made by basically 1 person, but this is a commercial game. And in my opinion, it sucks.

Pros: Amazing styled graphics. Nice combination of characters that makes for combinations of Damage, Tank, Healing, Buff and De-Buff. Cool story concept. Cons: Terrible music and sounds and no audio options. Grindy as all hell, despite the games description saying strategy over grind. Terrible interface that is unforgivable in the modern age of gaming.

Paper Sorcerer is inspired by Wizardry, Might & Magic, Elminage and other old-school CRPGs, with a few twists. First of all, you play the bad guy and gather a party of evil creatures, and your goal is to escape your mystic prison (a magic book) to wreak hahoc again. To do so, you'll have to climb a tower, defeating its guardians, scavenging for secrets and delve deep into catacombs to regain your former glory in order to escape. Your party of 7 (with 4 active characters) can be hand-picked from a choice of about 15 creatures, each unique and none being a bad choice, between tanks, healers, spellcasters and mixed characters, including the Puppet, a magical construct entirely customisable by isung specific parts. While in the tower enemies are marked and don't respawn, the catacomb will give you plety of opportunity for loot and XP runs to pay the trainer and generally save on buying items. Skills are plentiful, varied, level up individually and can produce some cool synergies. The turn-based fights are simple but clear and engaging. However informations might be sometimes hard to read. The B&W art style is nice and very atmospheric, making good use of Unity, I like the illustration style and the feeling you're actually inside a magical tome. Menus are a bit frustrating, like Elminage Gothic they follow an old-school, controller-based logic and nagivating doesn't flow too well since the game is Kb&M. I read many people complaining about the music, I don't see why, it reminds me of 80s/90s computer music and I like it, just some simple loops as a nod to old RPGs. I've clocked about 50 hours over 5 different parties, just to experiment with the minions and I've had a lot of fun, with different difficulties you can even choose your challenge. For such a low price, there is a lot of fun to be had, and Paper Sorcerer is definitely an game not to be missed in my eyes.