Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom

[b]Episode I: The Phantom Grimace[/b] This is another Kemco-published game that was originally a Japanese mobile game with ads and an in-game shop that gets sold as a single complete package on PC. I'm giving this game a pass almost entirely for being cheap because I got it in a bundle and it's a budget version of the very specific Gust Atelier-series subgenre I specifically adore. If that's not your highly specific taste, you're probably going to bounce off this one. (And if you haven't played games like Atelier Sophie or Ryza, go play those, instead.) I'd consider this game nigh-unplayable if you do not have a controller. (Specifically, it seems to require it be an X-Input controller like an XBox controller, but most 3rd party controllers like my Logitech f310 controller have a switch on the back to toggle it.) In spite of being made for touchscreen and having giant buttons for everything on the screen at all times, the mouse is [i]COMPLETELY NONFUNCTIONAL[/i] in this game. The keyboard controls are also weird, expecting you to press WASD to move while hitting buttons like Z, C, Alt, 3, and Enter as the command buttons, and there's no way to rebind keys. I've had problem…

its really a shop/crafting game, all the combat is just auto battle and the dungeons are just random crafting mat nodes and respawning enemys.

Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom, developed by Rideon,Inc. and published by KEMCO, takes a familiar role-playing framework and reshapes it around a more grounded and cyclical premise. Instead of focusing purely on heroic quests or world-saving stakes, it places the player in the role of a young blacksmith trying to build a livelihood in a desert kingdom, blending dungeon exploration with shop management and crafting progression. This shift in perspective gives the game a distinct identity, even as many of its systems draw from traditional JRPG design. The experience revolves around a consistent and clearly defined gameplay loop that becomes the backbone of progression. Players venture into dungeons to gather materials, defeat enemies, and complete guild quests, then return to town to craft equipment and sell it through their shop. This loop is simple but effective, creating a steady rhythm of exploration and production that drives the game forward. Each successful expedition feeds directly into crafting opportunities, and each crafted item contributes to financial growth and character development. Over time, this cycle becomes deeply ingrained, offering a sense of routine that can f…

The lack of wiki is infuriating enough that I attempted to write my own wiki. 10/10

One of my favorite gather, craft, upgrade, and progress games. Keep coming back to replay from the beginning. Definitely recommended.

I'm just gonna ignore everything else wrong with the game to mention a fairly hard to miss problem. You kill monsters and you get runes fairly often. Runes can be attached to gear. If it ended at this, it'd be a minor issue of excessive tedium for s t a t s. Gear with runes is not only worth more, it sells better. Meaning you can crank up the markup higher with less penalty, making it worth WAY more and sell more of them faster AND for better rep. With all that said, the major issue with a painfully easy fix. You can't apply runes to multiple items at once. Would it be awkward to? Yes. You'd need many of the same rune, and many of the same item. However, you sell items in bulk due to the way the game expects you to play it. You get x number of slots you can put a massive number of the same item in if you REALLY want to, which you frequently will, as you need to make 25+ of the same item to upgrade it and unlock the next item. Next issue, by the third dungeon, you have more than enough runes to apply them in bulk at least once. But no, you won't do that. You barely want to use runes, as they are so tedious to apply to gear. To apply a rune, you pick an item from a…