Rise of the Third Power

I'm not gonna rave about how awesome everything is, some of these other reviews feel like they're exaggerated. But it's an all around solid JRPG. I don't think anything is particularly amazing here, but I didn't feel like any aspect was poorly done.

This small indie team clearly put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into crafting a good story, in a cool world, with fun characters, and an excruciating attention to detail, that is worth your time and money.

I'm impressed, and recommend it for fans of the genre. I'm also excited to see what these devs do next.

A little over a year ago I reviewed Stegosoft's first game Ara Fell. I couldn't sing the title enough praises given what I had come to expect delving into the bottomless pit of what is Indie/RPGMaker games on Steam - many of them are quite awful and bland, but every now and then you find a diamond in the ruff, which is how I came to know and follow Stegosoft Games.

So how does Rise of the Third Power stack up to Ara Fell? Well, if you had the foresight to see the blue thumbs-up icon at the top of the review then you probably already have your answer, cheeky. I was quite surprised. I was following the early stages of this game's developments all the way through it's beta testing, the whole while thinking that it was basically going to be Ara Fell with slightly different characters and that initial "wow" factor and spark was going to be lost. Not to say that the game was going to be bad or anything, but not give me that immense sense of surprise and satisfaction that Ara Fell gave me - I was wrong, and happy to be wrong.

The same charms I found in Ara Fell are here, but better and more numerous. The cheeky character interactions, the hilarious pop culture references (more than one Aladdin one as I recall, which always made me smile). The presentation isn't a huge leap compared to Ara Fell given the same assets were used, but where it was allowed to shine was in the drawn character portraits. I have to admit, I was taken aback by them at first, as it seems a lot of players were, but they quickly grew on me and I can't imagine the game without them now. They add much needed emotion and general characterization that was otherwise lacking in Ara Fell.

The battle system is probably the defining feature of this game, however. And my oh my was it a step up from Ara Fell. You have eight playable characters that all manage to feel unique and have their own individual strengths and weaknesses. While you will likely play through the game and find "the" party for you, they are all unique enough in their own ways there isn't the de facto party that you are stupid to not play the game with as you'll often find in most RPGs. That said, shout out to Reyna. She may not be required, but you will be remissed not to use her whenever possible, especially on Expert.

All that said and done, I feel a bit more qualified to nitpick some things compared to Ara Fell. I'm more experienced as a player and reviewer and Stegosoft is more experienced as developers, so... fair game.

The combat, while it is a step up from Ara Fell, also starts to feel a bit stale after awhile. Yes there are eight, unique characters to play as, but the skills at their disposal are few, and even mixing and matching characters doesn't really lend to developing new strategies with them. For example, you'll use the same few skills for Rowan regardless of who you are fighting against, and who you are fighting with. After awhile you muscle memory your way through battles whether they are random enemies are bosses. The last ten hours or so started to wear on my patience because of how samey all battles had become by that point. However, to be fair, I only played on Normal. I might find myself humming a different tune if I had played on Expert, but given what I've heard from my peers who have played the game on Expert, I'm not missing much in that respect.

Other than that though, my nitpicks are minor. I would have appreciated if more chests contained useful items rather than another arbitrary item to sell for money, would have appreciated a little more variety in dungeons aside from get this type of key, that opens this type of door, so you can find the next key to open the next set of doors, etc...

Still. I absolutely loved the game overall. And honestly my big gripe with the sameness of combat exists partially because I played the game so much, in so few sittings, because I was hooked. So even that one major complaint is somewhat self-inflicted because I enjoyed my experience so immensely.

Evelyn, Joey... you outdid yourselves again, and I'm anxious to see what's up next.

I'm on my second run to get the achievement for the hardest difficulty now.

We need more RPGs like this. <40 hours to 100% the game once on normal difficulty. That's huge in a time of sprawling open worlds with procedural quests and a flood of games-as-service titles.

Pros:
Beautiful sprite work and really fun combat animations
Creative world design that does just enough to encourage exploration
Related- dungeon design is logical and mixes things up just enough to not get stale. Good balance
Crafting is much appreciated in this type of more linear game
Characters are varied and generally very well written (in particular the main character and Tariq veteran)
Story themes are well handled and it does well to combine the personal and the global plots
Music ranges from catchy and solid to being, like, really striking. I adore the track used in the Tariq capital.
Turn based combat is simple to grasp and a good test of pattern recognition. Status effects are powerful and necessary. Very satisfying.

Cons: I promise these are all really minor gripes
Personal taste, admittedly, but I'd prefer pixel art character sprites rather than the rendered ones in game.
Dungeon design plays less with perspective and sneaky hiding places than the dev's early title Ara Fell (still really good though)
A turn based RPG without elemental magic? Not a real issue, but a curious design choice.
The dark magic character just kinda...exists?

All in all, if you have a soft spot for old turn based RPGs, this is an absolute must play.