Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs - Tanks seriously suck

This is another generic kickstarter game. Tactical TBS game, "comedic" storyline, pathetic main character, it basically checks every generic criteria for a kickstarter game these days. What makes this different from the others is that its actually fun to play. I was in awe at how fun this actually turned out to be. When I saw the trailer for this game I thought I was watching something from Wakfu, a tactical TBS MMO. The artstyle was similar and combat looked similar. Then it went into detail of everything else the game had to offer. Town building, choose your own adventure quests, personal bonds, multiple party members with unique skills, and a whole bunch of shit. I was hooked in and gave it a try right away.

Before we get into the details of the game we need to talk about the story and the main character. What is up with the sudden influx of loser protagonists. You start the game as Kay, a whiny punching bag loser who ends up being the heir of the House of Loren, the next in line to be king. You along with your two sisters, the younger Elaine who is a giant bubbly airhead and the older Gwendolyn, the grouchy haughty sister who is probably the only competent one of the family. She is basically in charge. Then there is Griffith the family servant/bodyguard who is all about justice, honor, and all that garbage. If this was another game he'd be the stereotypical main character. I know people want to avoid being generic heroic manly protagonists but now that there are a lot of loser protagonists it isn't very unique anymore. Either way as you progress the game the characters all grow. Kay actually isn't that bad compared to the beginning. The only issue I have with the main cast is you don't really see Elaine or Gwendolyn do much. They don't help you in combat and they're only around doing behind the scenes stuff. You don't even get to raise personal bonds with them. I'm not talking about incest or other weird shit but siblings definitely don't get along all the time.

What the hell is a personal bond. They are basically the social links from Persona. Every character has their own schedule at where they will be and what they will be doing. You can look up the calendar to see if they are available to hang out or they are away on leave or on a break. Spending time with someone will take an entire day. Since there is a time limit in the game as well as a set schedule, you should try and plan out in advance what you are doing. Monday I'll talk with Griffith, Tuesday I'll talk to Theo, Wednesday I'll hang out with Haksun. Then I'll go dungeon crawling on Thursday for 12 days. Shit like that. There are over a dozen people you are able to bond with and each person has 5 levels to their personal bond. Acquaintance, Buddy, Friend, Confidante, Admirer. Each level requires bond exp gained by spending time with them, picking the right choices in adventures or events. For example choosing to loot dead bodies during an event will drop your personal bond with several characters. These bonds all give bonuses depending on the person. Party member bonds will unlock skill morphs and skill traits. Personal bond with NPCs will usually give a bonus like extra DLC, Dilac the currency for the kingdom, gained from all sources to allowing the crafting of better gear. They will also unlock skill perks. This is a very good way to improve your team's fighting prowess. Your only gear is a weapon and 2 relics and leveling up adds small stat boosts. Each level will unlock a skill perk slot. Skill morphs change the effect of the skill in some way, usually for the better. They can take from 1 to 4 perk slots to use. While skill perks are just stat increases like damage boost, bonus accuracy, and like skill morphs also take anywhere from 1 to 9 slots. You'll end up with a max slot/level of 20 so pick and choose wisely what you want.

Outside personal bond you also have to manage your kingdom. Usually through the form of completing kingdom quests. You are given the time limit of two months to complete 5-7 kingdom quests. These can be done in any way you like. Constructing buildings is a kingdom quest, as is building bonds with many people. Crafting, fishing, you name it. Then there is the dungeons. Outside of the kingdom are a wide variety of dungeons. These take days to travel to and clearing out the dungeon will usually take a week or more. Inside the dungeon you have little action blocks you can progress through. A sword block means its a fight, an exclamation point is a choose your own adventure section, two speech bubbles is a rest area where you can resurrect fallen teammates. You must progress through the dungeon in order from block to block. If your teammate dies inside a dungeon they cannot be used again until you find a rest area. You cannot backtrack to a previous block so if you had to go though a rest area to another and someone died after then you're fucked. Hopefully your others can carry the slack. However the game is lenient, you can restart a battle with no penalty if you fuck up. Dungeons also have varying difficulty, from easy to moderate to difficult. Dungeons also need to be cleared in order like the dungeon blocks. You cannot do the dungeon behind the ones in front of you until you fully clear it. So the later dungeons in the far corners of the map are the hardest while the ones immediate to the castle are the easiest. However that is not the case as sometimes you find moderate level dungeons locked behind difficult ones. The game is well balanced if not a little easy near the end. Start off you might find yourself dying all the time and trying to get over the hump from easy to moderate dungeons will take awhile. But as soon as I unlocked the blacksmith and got a few bonds for skill perks it really started snowballing in power and I had no more problems with the game. You will still die if you fuck around and mess up. Its not walk in the park but you really shouldn't have any problems if you're min maxing your characters.

Combat is tactical turn based strategy. There really isn't much to say about it. There are a bunch of monsters they attack you, you move around the map in little cells and attack them and you win. You can bring up to 6 party members with you in a party and deploy 4 in a single battle. You can check the elements of enemies or skills to see who you should bring or replace for certain fights. A lot of ranged guys sniping you down? Don't bring fucker tanks, send in the assassins and destroy them. Bunch of fire trolls? Don't bring Aliss shes full fire, bring in Theo and have him rain ice on them since they have no ice resistance and will die in two hits. You might be thinking, what only four people at once in a single battle thats so little. Think about it, Final Fantasy Tactics only allowed you four to five people at a single battle too and everyone was fine with it. Each character comes with 5 skills that can be morphed in some way. The final one is always an ultimate with a long cooldown and cost authority points. Each turn you gain an authority point that can be saved and use for ultimates or used for a second turn, letting you move in kill someone and get out with an assassin or needing the extra turn to kill an opponent at low health. Its very flexible and is part of why the combat is so fun. Every character you have in unique, not just in personality, but their roles all differ from each other.

Kay - He is probably the strongest character in the game. He is the only healer. At the start he may feel weak. but once you get his skill morphs in he's the most powerful character. He has command, which can either Shield an ally for 20% of their health or Mark an enemy preventing the target from dodging. This should be morphed asap to ignore line of sight letting you heal allies while hiding behind walls and other safe spots. There is no way to heal in the game other than gaining shields which are permanent. He has a pistol shot and a basic slash attack, pretty garbage. Then he has the banner which gives all characters a 30% chance on the start of their turn to gain empower which is a 25% damage boost. With skill morph that chance becomes 100%. This thing should be dropped whenever its off cooldown and is the single strongest buff in the game. His ultimate is a 60% shield, and when morphed becomes 100% and reset all cooldown on the target to 0.

Griffith - The tank. Pure physical damage. He is slow, his attacks are weak, all he does is single target damage and he has a long range single target taunt. There is really no point using him after the initial few stages as he gets completely overshadowed by everyone. He does get a charge that lets him run in quicker but he just dies because he can't kill the enemy fast enough before he gets killed. His ultimate is even more trash. Its basically an execute letting you do bonus damage on targets below 40% health on a single target. Just no.

Signy - The assassin character. Shes probably my favorite character and one of the strongest. At first she ends up dying really quickly but later on her dodge gets so high that she becomes tankier than a tank as well as having the mobility and damage of an assassin. Her basic attack is a leap attack that does 60% of your weapon damage. It looks really weak at first until you realize that the leap hits all adjacent cells next to her. When morphed lets you ignore line of sight letting you hop over walls to assassinate targets and pounce out when done. Its both a strong mobility move and a good AoE move. Whirlwind does 90% lightning damage to all adjacent and diagonal cells next to her and apply sundered. Lowering their defense by 25%. Empower is a self buff that boosts damage and movement speed. When skill morphed this skill doesn't take a turn when you cast it so you can empower run in pounce into a pack of enemies, whirlwind, then pounce out. Savage roar does pure AoE damage, ignoring shields and causes enemies to panic. This forces them to run away. Her ultimate does 4 high damage hits to random enemies within a huge AoE. Its a good AoE attack and if the target is alone, as very powerful single target attack. Great debuffs, great damage, great AoE, great mobility, best overall character.

Aliss - Fire mage. Shes not amazing but she does have one skill that can make or break her character. She suffers from severe accuracy issues and until you have skill perks to boost up her accuracy you'll find her weak as shit. Her basic attack is a fireball that chains to nearby targets. This will also mark them causing them to take bonus fire damage from Aliss. Its a very weak single target nuke for 60% of attack but once you can start chaining two three and even four enemies at once the damage adds up really fast. Inferno is a big 3x3 cell aoe burst but the main power comes from blazing barrier. Its a firewall you can put down that when enemies walk though take 50% of your attack in damage. Since AI in this game can be stupid you can strategically place it so all the enemies must walk though the wall from end to end to get to you and you can watch them walk through the wall go "oh shit I'm on fire, then walk backwards and burn themselves to death one by one. Its broken beyond fuck and the only reason I use her. She has a fire shield that reflects damage for a turn and a summon for an ult thats meh.

Levant - Another tank. I hate tanks in tactical TBS games. My strategy is always to kill before you get killed. He's better than Griffith defensive wise but honestly what is the point of a tank. He can leap around the battlefield with his skill and he takes up 4 cells meaning he gets stuck in narrow passageways and move at the pace of a snail. He sets up walls and his ultimate is a full map one turn silence. I would call him the worst character in the game if he didn't have slightly more utility than Griffith. He does shit for damage though. Avoid.

Theo - Ice mage vampire. He has the best mobility in the game in that he can teleport anywhere within range of his movement squares. His basic attack has long reach and deals pretty significant single target ice damage that applies Victimized. Batswarm is a weak AoE that applies Blind. Captivating Gaze is a single target nuke that applies Silence. Seeing a trend here? Pure harvest does 50% + 40% for each debuff on the target in pure damage to everyone on all adjacent cells next to him. Can be skill morphed to be 60% damage per debuff. This is fucking disgusting damage. But the weakness is he has to be next to the opponent and he's squishy as shit. If your team has a lot of debuffs you can easily blow up someone in a single shot with the skill. His ultimate sucks though as it picks one random effect and applies it to every enemy in the battle. Basically letting you use Levant's ultimate if you really wanted to. Overall solid character.

Diego - Physical damage archer. His damage isn't too bad and he really needs to stand at max range to gain overconfidence from his main attack. Depending on the distance you get more overconfidence, up to 6. His other skills will do effects based on how much overconfidence he has. He has a strong low and poison but neither are very powerful effects. He's really not that bad but is overshadowed by the two mages and the other ranged character.

Grenn - Stealthy assassin character. Why pick him if Signy exists. Really what is he good for? Almost nothing. He can stealth and his basic attack applies poison but poison is really annoying against you but really useless against enemies because they die too fast for the poison ticks to do much. He has a bunch of debuffs that do no damage so there really is no point in using him over Signy. Pretty shitty.

Esther - Engineer character. She's odd but powerful. You can drop turrets that can tank and do damage. Set them to self destruct for big AoE damage and stun. Her basic "attack" is tinker which lets you buff an ally or buff your turret. She gets a stun grenade for big AoE damage and push back. And when I mean big I mean biggest AoE in the game. Her penetrating round attack hits an entire line with unlimited range for 150% physical damage. 50% less for each target. It looks strong until you realize you rarely hit more than one target in a line. Thats where skill morph comes in and changes it to a single target sniper shot dealing 250% damage. Thats stronger than Griffith's ultimate and can be used every other turn with unlimited range. Usually one shotting enemies. What the fuck. Her ultimate is the aeon clock that stops time and lets her move around and do shit without ending her turn. Pretty crazy strong. She is only available if you side with Shedu in diplomacy.

Henrietta - Lordemar's representative. I picked Shedu so I can't get her.

Mifune - Samurai Dwarf tank. Fuck not another tank. Tanks suck ass. He moves slow he hits for no damage and he is a pure piece of garbage. Every turn he gains a Laido stack and each Laido stack lets him perform an attack. This can be saved up an unleased all in one turn for pitiful damage since he is a tank. Don't pick him. Only available if you side with The Empire.

Valen - Pirate elf prince. Alfheimr's representative and probably better than Mifune but I don't know because I can't get him.

These are your party members. They are all pretty unique and you can build them in whatever way you want. Make them tanky with perks, boost their damage, their move speed, go full sniping team. You can beat the game with any strategy you want except mass tanks. I hate tanks.

There are a few issues to this game though, a few bugs here and there and the diplomacy options being completely garbage. Diplomacy lets pick an ally between two different nations and you get 4 chances per alliance. You need to ally with one faction at least 3 times to unlock the character but you really have no idea who you are unlocking, who your allies really are and why you are allying with them. It felt added on for the sake of adding it in and does nothing to help the game. The other party members and NPCs you get don't interact with the main story because you are able to avoid picking them up if you want to by not triggering their event. Which means its just the four of you throughout the whole game and the rest of the people are just there when battle happens. It also doesn't expand on Elaine and Gwendolyn. Voice acting is a little off sometimes for some characters but overall pretty good. There are a few bugs that lock up the game in battle I've encountered but not really replicated. It makes you restart the battle and thats when you find out the drop rates are RNG. If you don't get good gear you can never go back and farm the dungeon again. You have to craft at the blacksmith but the best items are found.

As you can tell, after typing all this shit that I really like this game. I was looking for a game with diverse classes and tactical TBS and I stumbled almost accidentally onto this gem. Unfortunately the game was released without full content and the developers have said they will patch the game after release. They also said the game will take around 30 hours to play and I finished my play through in about 20 hours but I've only done around 70% of the dungeons and missing a bunch of personal bonds. Once I go back and finish them it should be around 30 hours, which is more than you can say about other shitty kickstarter games. If you like tactical TBS games do not miss this one. Its filled to the brim with fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFQmu5HlTJY

Va-11 Hal-A - Cyberpunk Bartender Simulator

This game is brilliant. I first became aware of it when people on my steam friends started playing it and then seeing it on Twitch and people talking about how great it is, I had to give it a try. This game you play as a bartender and you serve drinks and listen to your regulars or even one time customers talk about their lives. Sometimes they don't know what they want, other times you know exactly what they want and can make it without them ordering it. After awhile you can start mixing the recipes by heart. There is a story going on in the background but you're not directly involved in it. In fact the entire game takes place behind the bar counter and you only hear about it directly from the people telling you about it. Sometimes they talk about their lives, sometimes they talk about life in the dystopian city, and sometimes they talk to you about you. All the people you meet are characters in their own stories. You are just the bartender you don't get to play hero, or save the world.

You start off randomly in the life of Julianne, Jill for short, a 27 year old bartender working at Va-11 Hal-A along with your coworker Gil and boss Dana. Although you don't really see Gil working behind the bar. He's just sort of there, as is your boss. Sure you have Christmas parties at the bar and drink in your room with your coworkers and such but you mostly live a lonely life of work and sleep. As you play the game you learn more about your regulars and more about yourself and the world around you. The city is called Glitch City. A place of crime and corruption run by mega corporations. At the bar you meet the people who call this city their home. Here many species of people call this place home. The humans, the Lilium who are humanoid AI robots, super intelligent talking animals, brains in a jar, and cat boomers, people who undergo treatment of nanomachine rejection and undergo "catification."

The whole game really is about talking to people and learning their lives. A short list of some of the people you meet are as follows:

Alma - She's a hacker and probably the closest person you can call a friend. If you get evicted because you can't pay for rent she'll take you in to live with her. Has a large family of sisters and recently has problems with one of her sisters. If you ever have problems shes there to help and listen. She loves classy drinks and always asks for them.

Dorothy - Super bubbly, super energetic, super flirtatious. She's a Lilium prostitute who looks like a 10-13 year old girl. She along with Alma are your best friends and will always be there to help you out in a pinch. She's constantly talking about her sex life and making advances on any men or women around. She loves girly drinks.

Donovan D. Dawson - Mister Donovan as he like to be called is a very crude misogynistic man. He's the owner of The Augmented Eye, a news company. He likes to talk about the bitches working for him and how they're all hungry for a raise. Goes around chasing after big titted Lilims and openly talks about cheating on his wife, and claims she cheats just as much as him so its fine. He doesn't show up often but when he does he wants Beer and lots of it.

Betty and Deal - These two are inseparable. Both of them work at Seifar Toy Company, a company ran by talking dogs. Betty is the irritable and bitchy one of the two. She is a lesbian and never has a relationship longer than a week. Deal is a Lilium and he is is serious one of the two. They will always come together and complain about each other but at the end of the day they're still both best friends. Although Deal claims Betty is really sweet underneath her outward personality. Betty loves strong manly drinks while Deal doesn't like drinks with much alcohol, which Betty disapproves of and calls him a pussy.

Virgilio - A pompous buffoon who orders though cryptic descriptions rather than a name and you'll have to figure it out what he means. He is patronizing and almost completely insane when you first meet him. He loves weird shit so you don't really know what to mix for him most of the time but guessing.

Streaming-Chan - When she shows up words will fly across the screen and the music will change to her own theme song. She is super high energy and outgoing and most likely high on drugs all at the same time. She streams herself 24/7, even bath time and and sex time, but only for premium members for the low low price of $99.99! Premium members can even download a VR of her to have sex with! All for the low low price of $99.99. She is just as annoying as you can imagine but a nice change of pace from the regular patrons. She loves drinks with high amounts of alcohol so she can get wasted on stream.

There are a lot more people but this is just a small sample of the people you can meet in the game. Everyone has a story to tell and you're there to hear it all. You even have your own story going on and the people you treat nicely will be there to listen to your problems to sleep in your arms when you cry yourself to sleep. You start get emotionally attached to these people and you can make their drinks before they even ask for it.You perk up when you suddenly see someone you haven't seen walk though the door in a week and go I remember him!

There is however no other gameplay than the mediocre life of a bartender. Its not meant to be exciting but mundane. However they can somehow turn the mundane into something fun and for that it is brilliant. I never expected to have this much fun as a virtual bartender. However this game is a whole lot of reading and a whole lot of mixing drinks. If thats not your thing then this game isn't for you. Theres no combat, no shooting peoples heads off, just a single screen behind the bar counter and you make drinks. Thats it. One thing I want to add to this is that the music for this game is great. Its probably the best part of the game. There is a huge soundtrack for you to play on the jukebox in the bar and you can set it up every day and after every break period.