Let's Try: Emberlight
0I picked this game up from the Racial Justice bundle from itch.io.
Emberlight currently doesn't have a story mode, so I can't really describe what it's about. It's fantasy. It's got magic. It's got taverns, and monsters, and magic wells. It's also a combination of other games and mechanics that don't really land for me.
In Emberlight, you pilot a team of characters with zero personality through various dungeons (I played the adventure mode, which just dumps you into a dungeon setting) where each area has an encounter. Maybe it's a fight, maybe it's a spring, maybe it's a booby-trapped treasure. You navigate the map similar to how you might traverse Darkest Dungeon's maps, wherein you can see the symbols of the next rooms and make calculated decisions. The fighting itself is also similar to DD and a couple other games wherein you take turns in combat choosing moves to down enemy characters. the moves have cooldowns, so you have to plan accordingly. After that it's all pretty rinse and repeat.
The one mechanic I really enjoyed is that as you fight mobs, you get the chance to observe their special moves and incorporate it into your own character's move sets. Each move comes with pros and cons, and it sprinkles in a bit of that deck-building flavour as a result.
Overall... Emberlight feels very unfinished. It feels like someone said "What if Darkest Dungeons, but without the atmosphere, polish, or challenge?" There is a tutorial...bar? That can provide some info to a new player, which is good because you get thrown right into it with zero explanation. The graphics look dated and unfinished, the music loops feel like filler... Emberlight could be something interesting. But it's not there yet.
Game info: https://quarteronion.itch.io/emberlight
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