▼ Not recommended
4 hrs
This is a garbage tier Ren'Py kitbash from Russia... and I guess we should be thankful to see something other than an asset flip from Russia, this does come across as genuinely made... it's just also awful and badly made. Basically the developer took Ren'Py (the e-book writer) with some plugins to make a very basic kitbashed RPG set in Russian mythology... and it's terrible.
Thing is, Ren'Py is for e-books, not PC games, and the garbage it pumps out is basically the same thing as a browser/HTML/Adobe Flash train wreck... not what anyone would call a real, genuine PC game. So basically you're clicking through badly written fan-fiction text and playing a lightweight browser game RPG. But on PC, on Steam, with PC game pricing... absolutely not okay.
And of course... it's not even a complete game, the "developer" just rushed this onto Steam to try get a few roubles for an abandoned Ren'Py kitbash. All those glowing, one liner Russian reviews on this sure look suspicious, don't they?
This game has been translated from some other language into English... badly. If this was done through Google Translate, Google Translate should feel ashamed of itself. Regardless, the language in this game is broken and will put off a lot of gamers.
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
For gameplay purposes, because the user interface for this game is mostly just 2D static text/images... it might as well be a web page. It's functionally no different from a browser game. And we all know, Steam isn't here to compete with Chrome and Firefox. If the game can be done in a web browser, it's just not rich or compelling enough to appeal to serious gamers on PC.
The artwork here is terrible, it's all just amateurish "My First Wacom Tablet" style drawings used instead professional looking game assets. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget to arrange someone who can create graphical assets properly, or lack of talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low, enough on its own to deter gamers.
There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.
These flaws make this game fall far short of the professional standards we expect from a modern PC game.
You don't have to take my word about how bad this is, we can measure gamer interest by looking at the achievement stats. Path of the Bogatyr has achievements, and they reveal a damning picture of how little engagement this game generated. The most easily attained achievement is "Steadfast Bogatyr", actually trying to play this Russian web browser reject - trivial to unlock - yet less than 2 percent of players bothered getting that far before uninstalling. That's a vanishingly small fraction of people who even tried.
The poor quality of this game is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 4 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 130 million gamers on Steam and well over 140,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
It's hard to describe this as a game, the focus is more like that of an e-book/visual novel, there's only minor, shallow and uninteresting gameplay elements. The crux of this is to push some very low quality, badly done fan-fiction tier writing, where we see once more a developer fail to understand the importance of "Show, don't tell", and for whatever reason, weren't able to convey their narrative through gameplay, giving us endless lines of badly written e-book text instead. My gaming rig is not a kindle.
Now on to pricing and value for gamers. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 140,000+ games on Steam?
Path of the Bogatyr has the laughable price of around $6 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.
For comparison, the $6 asking price for this game could get you games like "Metro Exodus", "Disco Elysium" or "Project Zomboid". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.
The quality problems and defects with this game makes the asking price totally unrealistic. It's impossible to recommend this to gamers here on Steam.
Apparently the developer has no time to work on or complete the game they took gamers money for, breaking their commitment to deliver a complete game to gamers, but, remarkably, they have all the time in the world to pore over reviews and hammer down responses explaining, basically, why they should never have published garbage on Steam Direct in the first place.
This is a "I'm The Main Character" attitude; no consideration for gamers was made. It explains everything about this garbage and excuses none of it.
Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this abandoned game to anyone.
Thing is, Ren'Py is for e-books, not PC games, and the garbage it pumps out is basically the same thing as a browser/HTML/Adobe Flash train wreck... not what anyone would call a real, genuine PC game. So basically you're clicking through badly written fan-fiction text and playing a lightweight browser game RPG. But on PC, on Steam, with PC game pricing... absolutely not okay.
And of course... it's not even a complete game, the "developer" just rushed this onto Steam to try get a few roubles for an abandoned Ren'Py kitbash. All those glowing, one liner Russian reviews on this sure look suspicious, don't they?
This game has been translated from some other language into English... badly. If this was done through Google Translate, Google Translate should feel ashamed of itself. Regardless, the language in this game is broken and will put off a lot of gamers.
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
For gameplay purposes, because the user interface for this game is mostly just 2D static text/images... it might as well be a web page. It's functionally no different from a browser game. And we all know, Steam isn't here to compete with Chrome and Firefox. If the game can be done in a web browser, it's just not rich or compelling enough to appeal to serious gamers on PC.
The artwork here is terrible, it's all just amateurish "My First Wacom Tablet" style drawings used instead professional looking game assets. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget to arrange someone who can create graphical assets properly, or lack of talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low, enough on its own to deter gamers.
There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.
These flaws make this game fall far short of the professional standards we expect from a modern PC game.
You don't have to take my word about how bad this is, we can measure gamer interest by looking at the achievement stats. Path of the Bogatyr has achievements, and they reveal a damning picture of how little engagement this game generated. The most easily attained achievement is "Steadfast Bogatyr", actually trying to play this Russian web browser reject - trivial to unlock - yet less than 2 percent of players bothered getting that far before uninstalling. That's a vanishingly small fraction of people who even tried.
The poor quality of this game is also reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 4 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 130 million gamers on Steam and well over 140,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected.
It's hard to describe this as a game, the focus is more like that of an e-book/visual novel, there's only minor, shallow and uninteresting gameplay elements. The crux of this is to push some very low quality, badly done fan-fiction tier writing, where we see once more a developer fail to understand the importance of "Show, don't tell", and for whatever reason, weren't able to convey their narrative through gameplay, giving us endless lines of badly written e-book text instead. My gaming rig is not a kindle.
Now on to pricing and value for gamers. So, should you buy this game? Is this one of the best of the 140,000+ games on Steam?
Path of the Bogatyr has the laughable price of around $6 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.
For comparison, the $6 asking price for this game could get you games like "Metro Exodus", "Disco Elysium" or "Project Zomboid". Quality, professionally made games like those are frequently on sale cheaper than this.
The quality problems and defects with this game makes the asking price totally unrealistic. It's impossible to recommend this to gamers here on Steam.
Profile Features Limited!
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.
Developer Response!The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the Developer Usage Rules for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.
Apparently the developer has no time to work on or complete the game they took gamers money for, breaking their commitment to deliver a complete game to gamers, but, remarkably, they have all the time in the world to pore over reviews and hammer down responses explaining, basically, why they should never have published garbage on Steam Direct in the first place.
This is a "I'm The Main Character" attitude; no consideration for gamers was made. It explains everything about this garbage and excuses none of it.
Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this abandoned game to anyone.
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