Prodigal

Pretty fun game. It's a Zelda-like with dungeons and items like you'd expect, but with friendship and romance mechanics as well. There is a day/night cycle and there are four time periods: Morning, noon, evening, and night, and for each time period an NPC will stand a different place and have different basic dialogue. They may say other things as well depending on progress with them or the story in general. Honestly my one complaint around this is I wish NPCs has more dialogue to react to more things happening in the game, sometimes it feels very odd for some of them to not react to certain things, like Hugh had nothing to say about me marrying Siska (his arch nemesis). Takes an interesting approach where the overworld is pretty small but very dense, and I spent a lot of time running around it, especially talking to all the NPCs and trying to trigger events. I liked the characters and writing quite a bit, and did some save scumming (and light save editing for postgame exlusives) to see all the possible marriages, including all their post marriage dialogue and how others react to it. Unfortunately, aside from Caroline and maybe 1 other character depending on who it is, most ot…

Ambitious, memorable, immersive, and underrated. This is one of the best 2D Zelda-likes ever made, and in my Top 3 available on Steam, along with Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo and Master Key. Prodigal nails the fundamentals: great dungeons, great worldbuilding, great characters, great exploration, great puzzles, and a phenomenal soundtrack. Prodigal also feels like a game that follows its own vision and takes some risks. There are four design quirks that could put you off, but shouldn't. There are no in-game maps for the dungeons, although I would argue that the game doesn't need them until you are DEEP into the postame. The same system is weird and takes a little getting used to (you can save anytime to fully heal and retrain dungeon-progress, but you are reset to your house in town, which discourages save-scumming). Healing and health management are also very unusual, with the game letting you blast your max-HP through the roof, but making individual hits unforgiving. And lastly, not everyone will care about the 10 romance-able characters, but I found it all charming and not cringe. Most importantly I don't think the relationship aspect of Prodigal takes up a lot of time. …

Amazing game! Very reminiscent of Oracle of Ages: puzzle-based levels, 2D Zelda style combat.

Progidal is a very polished top-down Zeldalike with village-life-sim, optional romancing elements, and dungeons with enemies and lots of sokoban-like puzzles. You take control of a character who returns to his hometown and must try to rebuild his reputation while helping the townsfolk deal with problems and threats. Pros: - Pixel art style is very reminiscent of the Game Boy Color era. - The writing is great. Conversations felt natural and progressions with getting to know the villagers felt authentic. Choices felt meaningful. - Sokoban-like puzzles in dungeons are clever and have great synergy with the game's items (though they did start to get a bit tedious towards the end) - Postgame has LOTS of optional dungeons and collectibles to obtain. - Did not encounter any glitches that negatively impacted gameplay. - Pixel-perfect graphics. Cons - Trade sequences can be completed all in one go by speaking to all the villagers one after the other. MC felt like an errand boy, and the overall sequence did not feel well integrated to the story or adventuring. - No autosaving (but you can save anywhere, and the game prompts you to save when you try to exit). - Enemies don't drop health ite…

A lot of fun in a small package. If you liked the non-dungeon portions of Link's Awakening, then this is the game for you.

Evaluation: Interesting adventure RPG with deep lore. Experience: This is a story-driven RPG where the main plotline centers around the player character, but much of your time is spent uncovering the backstory of the world. Most of the characters are rather shallow, but likeable nonetheless. The real draw comes from the worldbuilding lore, which clearly has had alot of time an effort put into it and is what makes the game shine. Gameplay wise, there are puzzles and combat. The puzzles are pretty interesting, though frustrating in a few places, and the combat system is subpar, with most enemies serving mainly as annoyances and the bosses being pretty trivial. Suggestions: Recommended if the worldbuilding aspect sounds interesting, and if you're willing to put up with some janky mechanics. Despite its flaws, this game is good at capturing the player's attention and making you want to find out more. While the game contains nothing inappropriate, a few characters are killed off permanently, so I wouldn't recommend it for children unless they are okay with that.