Dark Deity

good game reminds me of the old fire emblem games, very similar.+

This game definitely scratched an itch that I had. What's even better is I didn't run into any issue or bug or any nuisance that didn't have a mechanic built in to adjust or turn off. Achievements are entertaining and not overly annoying to get. Really enjoyed the characters and story. Overall, really glad I bought this game.

TLDR: Not a bad game. However I will only recommend this game if there's a sale for it. To start, this game is a diet Fire Emblem. Now I am using the lens that this is not a AAA studio or what not when it comes to my criticism. I think as a Fire Emblem inspired game, it's not a bad effort. But I will say that there are things about this game that bothers me. In my personal opinion, I think the pacing is a little off. In both story and combat. The story is pretty okay, but it isn't groundbreaking. It's definitely something akin to someone's OC World or DND campaign type of story. In terms of combat pacing I think it's relatively fine, but I will say that somewhat early on enemies kind of get strong. And no, I'm not complaining about the difficulty, it's the pacing. I can't remember what chapter it was, but there was a decent jump in power level between you and the enemies, but then it kind of smooths out towards the end. The final boss was pretty meh though, but what can you really do when you have an army vs just 1 guy? My biggest criticism with this game though is the presentation. The menus felt very basic/barebones. If you ever played one of the newer fire emblem games, then you're probably used to shortcuts or smooth menu navigation. That really isn't the case here, and it's not that the menus are awful, but more so inconvenient. For example: trading items. Now i am playing on controller because I could not stand playing on mouse and keyboard, so maybe it's different with mouse and keyboard. But anyway let's say Character A is on top of the trading, and Character B is the 14th down the list. You have to Select Character A, tap down 13 times until you get to Character B, select an empty slot or item from A, select an empty slot/item from B and you'll trade. You can't hold down, you have to tap. I know that seems like a nitpick, but when you have to do that constantly it gets a bit tiring. Another presentation issue I have is the character sprites. I think they look great starting out, but then when it comes to class change/selection, it kind of goes downhill. While Fire Emblem does the same thing, in this game they're essentially just heads mounted onto a male or female body. I think the sprite work could've been better, or at least gave the units more unique traits than having the same exact body as enemy units like maybe Sophia's ferret could've stayed a constant thing through her sprites. Speaking of Sophia, her sniper sprite is cursed. Her arms get really long during her attack and critical hit animation, unnaturally long. It's not like it isn't noticeable either. My biggest complaint though are the enemy sprites, more specifically boss sprites. In GBA Fire Emblem, enemy bosses are typically given their own art and/or battle sprite which typically is just a pallete change. That's fine, but this game doesn't do that. If fighting a normal boss, they're just a generic looking brown haired guy, and they use the same heads as other enemy NPCs. There's a couple more things I have gripes with, but presentation was definitely a big thing for me. Overall i give this game a 7.7/10. I don't think it's bad but wait for a sale. There's bugs and stuff but they haven't been game breaking on my end. I haven't played the sequel, but I hope that they've improved on the aspects I didn't like about this game.

One word makes this game almost unplayable and certainly ruins the fun...dodge

Pretty solid. I had my share of fun with it. To start with what the game does right, + I enjoyed the level design + Music is pretty good. + I think the animation is solid. + Models look good and the characters stand out from one another at least their character sprites, actual unit design can get pretty similiar though. + Narrative-wise, I think the characters also do a good job of standing out. The fact they each have flavor interactions means you can see their personalities more, though in practice they don't stray that close from the expected tropes they are based on. + Gameplay was fun, I personally think it's the just right in terms of difficulty, and the balancing works out. + I normally don't enjoy forced iron-man mode but the game makes it work pretty well in most cases (The game does not permit saving and loading mid-level, you can at most load a save from before the chapter started and replan). + The RNG doesn't seem unfavorable + The options to tweak the difficulty are appreciated + No gamebreaking bugs or issues. + Respectable game length at around 23 hours. Your mileage may vary based on dialogue interactions. I'd also like to note that in spite of the multiple mentions on the matter, I haven't had any troubles with the controls using a keyboard and mouse to play the game. The game does suffer from a few issues which do drag the experience down. - There are some typos here and there, not enough to be obstructive but enough to be noticeable. - The plot is indeed rather predictable, though it would be nowhere as bad if it had a smaller, more manageable cast of character. - In that regard, the game has far too many characters for its own good. While it gives you a lot options and you can surely find several to your taste... There are so many that its inevitable a good third if not more fall by the waysides. - This can even be the case for the protagonist, which you might find yourself not bringing to battles since he is nowhere near as strong as most other characters, especially not by the endgame. - The balance between said characters is also lacking in my opinion. Though I would consider this more a "Neutral" aspect as it helps certain characters stand out and be more memorable by virtue of the fact they are powerhouses. - Personally, I don't think the choice between 4 weapons is that balanced. Finesse is the best by far and Focus the worst indifferent of class or character. - The decision to have all flavor dialogue conversations and banters be offered at the end of the level for a multitude of characters got exhaustive for me. It is affected by the fact that barring some story-locked dialogue, most of interactions require the party members to be deployed to a mission. This makes it more manageable but also ensures that characters can fall out of the narrative, barring the brief line they offer every couple of missions. It makes some of their later interventions and the story acting as if everyone is a band of brothers feel a bit off to say the least. - Additionally, I think the dialogue is at times a little too much "Banter" and could have benefited from being condensed a bit more. Though that could just have been me. Overall, 8/10.

Dark Deity plays much like a classic Fire Emblem game, except there is no permadeath mechanic for your units. Instead, when one of your characters is defeated, they are removed from the remainder of the battle and receive a permanent decrease to one of their stats. Given its price and customizable difficulty, I would easily recommend Dark Deity to any fan of the Fire Emblem franchise or someone new to the SRPG genre.

Insanely good homage to Fire Emblem. It plays like its own thing though. It really leans into the hitrate chaos with insane dodge values and just as wonky crit rates. That way it plays chaotically, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Easy pick up at full price, but it goes on sale often enough to wait. I just hope they hired at least one proofreader for the sequel.

Fire Emblem like tactical RPG with none of the charm and all of the issues. + Visuals are nice i guess? Pretty generic at points. + There are a whole bunch of classes, items and others to make for a somewhat interesting character building. I like to spend time decking out my troops, thinking of synergies and such. - Gameplay is a mess. There is no guidance, youre thrown right into it without any explanations. Some mechanics like different weapons per NPC serve no purpose except making everything more convoluted. Player is not eased into it and has to figure everything else by himself and not in a good way. - Tactics aspect of the game is just not fun. All enemies feel the same, maps are uninspired and uninteresting. It gets really boring after a few fights. - Every time you or your enemy attacks someone animation plays out. This prolongs the fight and is super annoying. You can turn it off in the settings but if you do, there are no animations whatsoever so it feels very static and flavourless. - Story is very very generic and characters are very bland and uninteresting. Everything about this game is bland so theres no point in continuing for me. Nothing gripped me and probably wont grip you either.

Apparently I wrote notes on this game but never got around to writing a review. I plan to write a review for the sequel so figure I will leave something here. Ultimately, I decided Not Recommend on Dark Deity 1. There are not a lot of alternatives to Fire Emblem on Steam but this one was a frustrating experience. However, there was enough there to make me think the developer could do better on a sequel and thus why I still gave Dark Deity 2 a shot. So I recommend skip this and just go straight to 2 which improves on all its flaws. There is no reason to play 1. I don't remember a single thing about the story and the couple of characters I do remember return in Dark Deity 2 and drop some references but nothing crucial. What put me off from Dark Deity 1? It was not player friendly at all. Extremely long load times for such a simple game. Crashes causing me to restart not just the chapter but my entire PC. Weird/misleading text and lack of explanations while trying too hard with complex systems, etc. I did really like the graphics and the critical/battle animations reminiscent of Fire Emblem - the whole reason I got the game. Thankfully you can just get that in 2 now! So go play that one instead if you're interested in a GBA Fire Emblem Like.

Bought for $5 and would rather buy a nice sodie pop and a bag of chips from the gas station then this generic ahh Fire Emblem game with terrible and generic characters. Just play some of the good romhacks.

Great tactics RPG, get a great old school "Fire Emblem" vibes here

If you're looking for a Fire emblem type of game, this one will satisfy your hunger! Ran into some bugs - Enemy range wasn't shown properly and instant killing my archer. - Slayer promotion traits straight up show a different passive than you get. If you're really into the story and characters have fun with it but for me it's a skip all narrative. it's a poorly written story and it lost my attention rather quickly, besides all these issues it was a good 18 hours of skipping the story and just having fun with the fire emblem style gameplay, nicely made devs. I'm getting the second game now :)

Didn't blow my mind but I had fun. There were a couple bugs but nothing game breaking. The story is basic, but serviceable . They try some unique things to stand out from Fire Emblem, I liked the weapon system which provided greater flexibility by providing multiple options within the weapon class. I hated the permanent stat loss when a character is downed.

[h1]TL;DR[/h1] A slightly-better-than-mediocre tactical RPG with a lovable cast of characters and beautiful art. A unique spin on the weapon system and no permanent unit death add some variety not present in similar games of the genre. The game struggles with an all-over-the-place story and somewhat boring map design. Playtime: 18.5hrs for a blind playthrough on the hardest base difficulty (Deity). Another ~2hrs to tidy up missed achievements on giga-easy mode. Tip: For Aren Jee Zuss achievement: [spoiler]Customize aptitudes to 200% and switch linear levels on, don't change anything else, and select Hero difficulty. On Chapter 3 Bianca should be guaranteed to get all stats increased on her first level-up.[/spoiler] [hr][/hr] [h1]Pros[/h1] [b]Gameplay[/b] - It scratches a particular itch for me that's filled by Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy Tactics, or even games like XCOM. You get attached to your units as you follow their stories and create your own. [b]Characters[/b] - An enjoyable cast of characters. I believe that anyone could find at least one of them that they like, whether it's their backstory, aesthetics, or gameplay. [b]Artstyle[/b] - Very nice fullbody character art. Most of the character designs are unique and have a bit of flair, but even the few simpler clad units tell their own story through their plain armor. The stills during the story were also very well done. [b]Unit Growths[/b] - You can see your units growths by toggling the Stats display on the Unit Info screen, and any changes to them on promotion. It's some welcome transparency and can help newcomers to the genre pick promotions better. [b]Unit Death[/b] - No permadeath, which I found refreshing. The penalty for death is being unusuable for the remainder of the mission and losing 10% of a stat. Early on it's not too big of a setback, and it might not even be a stat that matters. [b]Weapons[/b] - Instead of equippable weapons, each unit gets four "types" that have different stats depending on their class. Balance, good for general use in most situations. Finesse, high crit rate and lower damage. Focus, high accuracy but also high weight. Power, strong with low accuracy and high weight. Finesse and Focus see a lot of use and Balance always has its place, but I think that Power is a bit of a noob trap and not worth using. [b]Campaign Customization[/b] - Lots of options, applicable to any difficulty level. You can make the game harder or easier by altering base stats, gold/xp modifiers, or player/enemy aptitudes. There's also randomizer options for items, weapons, enemy classes, and recruitment order. [hr][/hr] [h1]Neutral[/h1] [b]Difficulty[/b] - I played through blind on Deity difficulty (no modifications) with minimal deaths and felt like the difficulty was in a good spot. I only failed one chapter, and restarted a few early due to silly mistakes and bad RNG. My only complaint is that a lot of the enemies have stupid levels of dodge later on in the game, but other than that it was fairly well tuned as long as you have a balanced party of damage/armor types. [b]Bonds[/b] - I've always enjoyed peeking into the relationships between characters. A lot of the support conversations are interesting and help with a bit of character growth and backstory, but some of them fall flat. They serve their purpose by adding some flair. [b]Passives[/b] - Each character has a distinct passive and they can range from "wow this is broken and I can build around it" to "this is absolutely useless, or too situational to matter." There's also passives associated with each class and while some stand out a bit more, they all felt usable. [b]Abilities[/b] - Each class branch has an ability they can use on their turn, such as: warping an ally to the opposite side (Phase), giving an ally a +1 movement buff (Haste), restoring health to an ally (Heal), pushing an adjacent unit away (Push), reducing an enemy's movement to zero (Chain), or removing an enemy's weapon stats (Disarm). Most of them other than Heal are pretty situational, but you do get EXP for using them so you can abuse that a bit if you units have nothing better to do on their turn. At some points in the game using the ability gives more EXP than defeating an enemy. [b]Spritework[/b] - I really like the majority of the map sprites, but a lot of the battle sprites are kinda... chunky? For lack of a better description. Fits on some classes, but really jarring on others. [spoiler]Magician/Arcanist map sprites show tummy, why not let battle sprite show tummy. :([/spoiler] [b]Animations[/b] - General combat animations are serviceable and very reminiscent of GBA-era Fire Emblem games. I really enjoyed the critical animations. I liked seeing them but they're kinda slow, but there's only a toggle that's all or nothing. You can also skip the animation for individual fights. [b]Eternal Aspects[/b] - Equippable unit buffs, that like Passives and Abilities tend to be a mixed bag. They do things ranging from "enemies attack you more" to "swaps true speed and power" or "critting increases crit chance by 1% for the rest of the level" to name a few. [b]Beach DLC[/b] - Provides some eye-candy for all of the playable units by giving them swimsuit outfits. Sadly it's an all-or-nothing deal and you can't toggle them per-unit. It also adds 7 standalone levels to the game, but I'll admit I didn't do them and have no interest in doing them. [hr][/hr] [h1]Cons[/h1] [b]Controls[/b] - Mouse controls are absolutely abysmal, and even towards the end of the game I was accidentally clicking on things and attacking when I didn't mean to. I didn't give controller a try, but it might be slightly better. [b]Item Management[/b] - You can't sort the Convoy and you can't access it from battlefields. Shuffling around items feels tedious, and inventories always end up a bit cluttered. The best solution for me was just filling up everyone's inventory slots once I knew I was going to commit to using them. [b]Healing Items[/b] - There's just too many. I counted like 8 different ones in the first few chapters. They really just clutter up the Convoy. I can count on one hand the amount of times I actually used them during the game, but that might be a playstyle sort of thing. [b]Map Design[/b] - Most of the maps break down into boxes with some walls here and there. It makes them sort of boring and more of a slugfest than needing any tactical decision. I think this largely comes from the lack of terrain types like Forests, Mountains, Forts, etc present in Fire Emblem games. [b]Story[/b] - It's a little all over the place which made it difficult to follow. Too much exposition and jump cuts between scenes and locales. I'm not usually interested in the story, but for these types of games I try to make an exception. The game does a lot of "tell not show" if that makes any sense. [b]Glitches[/b] - There's quite a few visual glitches and bugs, but I didn't run into any that were gamebreaking. Sometimes enemy threat ranges wouldn't display properly, but I have a habit of double-checking such things before committing so it didn't bother me too much. I also noticed a handful of typos here and there. If you don't mind the jank it's not too bad.

good game. Perfect to scratch my Fire Emblem itch

Even though I like strategy RPG's such as Shining Force and Fire Emblem, this feels a bit too light on mechanics. No exciting gear or really unique characters and way too many enemies to slog through in each battle. I won't be finishing this one.

I mean if you like Fire Emblem and you're feening rn this game is pretty good

fun start, playing this before i move onto the 2nd one

a nice alternative to fire emblem

Very good game love it

GOOD GAME

no