Akatsuki Lord of the Dawn | A casual Strategy RPG for days you just want to chill
#steam, #review, #akatsuki
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2758030/Akatsuki_Lord_of_the_Dawn/
Strategy and RPG don't necessarily feel like apt descriptions, as they are not very deep in the game. You'll build an army, kill enemies, construct buildings, collect items, make items, level up characters, all while travelling to new islands.
The story element is played through quests you complete on each island, and they feel pretty secondary to the gameplay loop. It takes a pretty hands-off approach so none of it feels particularly deep or necessary. So, I'd say the story isn't going to be the driving force to keeping you playing after a few islands.
The gameplay loop is extremely casual. Recruit some party members, explore tiles to fight enemies, level up with the medal system, and that's the loop. You can get quests daily that will give you more cash, items, and items required to level up your units. There isn't a lot of variety in the quests and most will consist of killing a certain amount of enemies or creating specific items.
The level up system is somewhat robust with a lot of skills to research, but you can go through that relatively quickly. You can unlock subclasses which will make your units stronger, but they'll have to get to level 99 first in their current class. Then their stats will be slashed, and you'll need to level them up again. It'll surpass their previous stats but it can be problematic if you aren't able to level them up much after classing them up.
Graphically the game is cute and looks good. There is a lot of variety in the enemies you'll encounter and overall I have no complaints about the graphics.
Sound is fine, but music mostly feels like a bunch of short 15-20 second loops that will play during battles and on the overworld.
I think if you go into this knowing that it will be a very casual game without a huge amount of depth that's best played in smaller increments you'll likely have a good time.