Lands of Avaronia

Unfortunately cannot recommend. It's a good first effort for a solo developer but I found myself quickly bored. Right out of the gate it gave me old school Hydlide vibes which I kinda dug but after like 15 minutes of playing there was nothing compelling me to continue. Level design is very narrow and forced, combat feels meaningless without any sense of progression. Everything I experienced in my playtime just felt repetitive and boring.

I wanted to like this game, as a long-time enjoyer of old-school RPGs, but it falls short in far too many ways. The game is made in RPG Maker, nothing wrong with that in itself, but it's also very barebones. The story exists, but isn't anything to write home about - certainly not enough to push yourself through slogs of long, linear maps filled with enemies that give 0 reward for fighting. Combat is a press a button to attack, and don't let the enemy touch you with a small variety of enemies. You don't have any incentive for combat though, as there is an EXP system but killing things doesn't give you XP. Instead you find an 'orb' at the beginning of some maps that gives you a level up. With no incentive for combat, I found that it was quicker a lot of the times just to run straight through mobs in the short invuln window after being hit. Even then, maps felt long, and with multiple maps being inserted before cutscenes in some cases it became a slow trudge with no purpose other than to continue the story. Loot is found in preset locations in chests across the maps. In the albeit brief time I played it was just a simple upgrade path of loot with weapons with slightly better stats …

Enjoyable, casual game with nice music