Dread Delusion

A rich world with a deep, enthralling story where your choices have a profound impact on the world around you. Over and over you'll be faced with difficult questions, and there's never a right one - you'll always have to sacrifice one thing to obtain another, and it's never easy. Several times I found myself staring at the screen for several minutes, with the dialogue box in front of me, as I mulled over how this one choice would affect everything else. Whether one life was worth a kingdom's stability, whether freedom was worth safety, whether the hope for a better future was better than ensuring things didn't become even worse. While the gameplay is rather bare bones, the storytelling, music and visual design more than make up for it. Absolutely recommended.

The vibe this game exudes is unlike any other I've played. I finished it months ago now, but part of me won't let go of the atmosphere this game creates. Haunting, yet comfortable. Desolate, yet hopeful. Alien, yet familiar. It's elevated by a subdued soundscape which places its evocative soundtrack in the spotlight. It is a shame that the combat is not particularly engaging, but every other aspect (and I MEAN every) are nothing less than inspired. The dialogue, the worldbuilding, the game mechanics, the decisions you make, the RPG mechanics, the level design, all fantastic. Much of this game evokes aspects of the PS1 era, but it's not just a nostalgic imitation of those games; it's like the developers knew that the feeling they wished to impart could never be captured by mere graphics and that my imagination is the only thing that could come close. Maybe I should say that the rough, wobbly-ness of the graphics almost feel like an impressionist's painting, just there to clue your brain in on what it's supposed to be seeing. I could say more, but more than anything I can't forget how this game made me feel.

I had Dread Delusion sitting on my wishlist for the past couple of months. I decided to pick it up on the most recent sale, and it really did shock me with its quality. The first thing that got me was the art style. Obviously it's very in-your-face PS1-y. Wobbly, pixelated, messy, colourful, but charming as ♥♥♥♥. I typically am not a fan of the modern day "PS1 aesthetic", but it works here. It fits the vibe of the game perfectly. The world is overwhelming and hard to understand, and so is the art. At first it almost feels ugly, but the more time you spend in it, the more it starts to click. The second thing that got me invested was the writing. It's really reminiscent of golden-age Bethesda, Obsidian and other industry heavyweights. Despite having little to no voice acting throughout the game, the characters are all bursting with personality thanks to some fantastic writing. The writing does a lot of heavy lifting in this game, but it absolutely earns it. The world is bizarre, confusing and unlike anything else I've played, yet after a while it starts to feel strangely familiar and comforting. It's hard to explain. You slowly start understanding the world's logic, its history and…

I enjoyed this game. It is a dark fantasy rpg that dips a little into the grimdark without fully fully committing, this is my opinion reflected in the good ending which kinda felt a little out of place since everything worked out ok. Besides that I had a good 25 hours of enjoyment out of this game (I did most if not all of the side quests). The one thing to consider if you do decided to play as a mage is there is no natural mane regeneration, you will need to use potions to regain it. The only exception is a ring that is found in the second to last area in the game that gives you a mana regen based on your recovery stat. In my personal opinion it should have showed up far far earlier in the game. Also the three tier five ores are never really explained, you don't really get told where to find them so I had to look it up. I did get the one I wanted, but it felt like it should have had a quest where one of the weapon merchants tells you they know of a few places you could fully upgrade your weapon.

Is it perfect, no. But it is a great journey through foreign realms.

It's awesome! Lots of interesting decisions always making you feel conflicted in the best way. Leveling is very generous for the explorers so you really don't feel locked out of any skills (and even more so with help of items which feel appropriately strong and good to find and use. I've used almost all of my equipment often switching between them for whatever I needed). Agility is perfect, very rare for games to have such simple but fun movement(zipping through the isles in seconds feels incredible), even if most locations do not make great use of it with very little platforming challenges it always feels good to just run and jump with high Agility and a boosting spell. I started on hard mode, and after dying a couple of times in the first hours I never died again, so this game's combat isn't really difficult, and I wish there was more of a need for rare potions or throwables, but that's more of a nitpick really. The open world is nicely tuned and does not feel overwhelming or bloated, quite a rare feeling with open world games for me (well this game is not that open with the main story being a huge focus but it works out great for this game). Clockwork Kingdom is a masterpiece …