Artifact Adventure

Artifact Adventure is a retro-styled role-playing game built around exploration, meaningful choices, and the freedom to shape a journey instead of simply following a rigid storyline. Developed by bluffman and published by PLAYISM, it deliberately recalls the appearance and mechanics of early Japanese RPGs with its pixel graphics, turn-based battles, compact character classes, and straightforward interface. Beneath that nostalgic exterior, however, is a surprisingly flexible adventure that places considerable importance on where the player travels, which situations they become involved in, and how they resolve the problems encountered along the way. The story takes place in a fantasy world facing the threat of the Swamp King, but the game does not constantly force the player toward the next major objective. Exploration is a central part of the experience, with towns, characters, quests, enemies, and secrets scattered throughout the world. This freedom makes wandering worthwhile because discovering a location can lead to an unexpected event rather than merely another combat encounter. Players who enjoy searching every corner of an RPG map are rewarded more generously than those who …

I -LOVED- this game. I normally don't go for games that are this difficult, which says something about how amazing this is.

The main problem with this game is that it is very front loaded. It feels like there is half a game a game here with a good portion of the map lacking points of interest. At the time this game was released there was a lack of official NES style turn based rpg games so it filled a niche. Now though with the NES era Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games available to play on steam there just isn't much of a reason to play this game. It's a shame really because the bones of a innovative take on the classic rpg experience are here I just think it falls a bit short in the end game. I did like the game enough to check to see if it had been updated since the last time I had played and it doesn't appear that it has so I'm going to give Artifact Adventure a thumbs down. There are better games in this genre on steam to try. Particularly now.

Mid

Great homage to classic NES era JRPGs. If you have fond memories of dragon quest 1-4, you'll like this.

Scratches the itch of old dragon warrior games on gameboy. I'm enthralled :D