METRO QUESTER

Formerly just "Quester," some publisher weirdness resulted in a new steam entry so I thought I should review again. I really love this game. An old school dungeon crawl with a great retro anime/retro PC aesthetic. Basically zero story. Short resource-based expeditions into the dungeon, explore a little more each time, unlock paths, find new entrances to start from in the future. Very satisfying. The battle system takes a while to click but you set your whole team's actions and watch the turn play out, available actions are based on gear and innate abilities from leveling up. Tons of characters with great art to discover. Also check out Monochrome Echoes, same engine but fantasy themed.

Very cool game. I expected a Shin Megami Tensei cyberpunk + magic vibe, but Metro Quester is more themed around the logistics of regular humans fighting monsters with nothing but swords, spears, salvaged firearms, explosives, and a light sprinkling of science fiction tech. Like, the most important move in your starting party's options is Edge's ability to throw a flashbang. This game was very overwhelming at first, but the learning curve is faster than I expected. You end up issuing up to three commands per character per turn. But the game saves your selections and you can just start another turn with the same commands with a single button press. It feels a bit like you're establishing a plan in advance then executing it, which feels appropriate for the whole vibe.

Basically more of the same in regards to the original Quester - it's fun, but even the earliest fights can be quite challenging. It's a very bare bones built RPG, but it still feels and plays nice. It's unique in its visual style and its simplicity, but it's obvious there's some heart here.

There's sovl and vision, there are plenty of QoL for the genre, yet it's not as polished as I'd like. It's a recommendation since it's a small game and it's pretty chill for 2-3 evenings. Engaging with the attacks queue is very fun - as a autobattler enjoyer I appreciate setting up my plans for turns instead of tediously choosing the attacks manually as in traditional turn based crawlers. The biggest flaw of this game is how easy it is while it also got systems limiting your progression tempo. I feel when I solved the combo of my team and equipment, almost none of enemy color (difficulty of a mob) mattered. Some bosses demanded from me conscious play and changing actions per turn. And the last boss demanded switching eq directly targeting him. Other than that I was just mashing "Next Turn" button, unfortunately. I started NG+ but I doubt I will finish it. I'm already tired of the gameplay loop in the current form and I don't see any challenge anytime soon. All of that mean multiple things: the balance presented in this game makes an experience that I'm not exactly a target of; it's a very charming game with a lot of character and it's not that far from me being satisfied. I…