Wildermyth!
This is a party-based RPG that I bought a while back, but didn't really check out at the time. Now that I've got a bunch of free time on my hands again, I thought it was high time I dived in and experienced this Overwhelmingly Positive rated game! 😁
We start with a bunch of nobodies. You can change their appearance, and who they -are- as people. Maybe the warrior is an angry poet, the mage a sad romantic, and the hunter a comedic coward. It shapes their personalities and how the upcoming story will unfold.
The story is shown to you as a comic in-between battles and moving to different tiles on the map.
Sometimes events will randomly pop up, some events are tailored for specific members of your party that will shape them as a person, and you can also encourage rivalries, friendships and romance between the characters. Sometimes that'll happen by itself too!
For instance, in one random event I had - two of my ladies were captured and imprisoned... and one of them fell in love with their rescuer. N'aawwww.
It's not just for the sake of it, either.
If you have a romanced couple in your party, say one of them gets hurt... well, their partner can then attack the enemy that hurt them for more damage - Lover's Vengeance!
Same if you have rivals in your party. They will compete against each other and do more damage to various enemies, screeching at one another the whole time, "Oh yeah?? WELL WATCH THIS THEN!!!!!"
The combat is turn-based but pretty engaging! You can use things for cover, attack those same things to use them as makeshift weapons against your enemies, as you level up you can choose different passives and abilities for each character which can also benefit other characters.
It's pretty standard stuff, but it's done really well!
Monsters get stronger the more you fight them, too!
By the time you near the end of the campaign, the above window is pretty much filled with enemy cards making them stronger, giving them more armour and health, summoning new foes.
Sometimes, you get the option of using your Legend Points to cancel an enemy from gaining new cards, but you need to use those points wisely.
As you complete battles, secure areas, and encounter random events you can find gear. Some items are legendary gifts with special abilities! And once you complete the campaign you're in, those legendary items will be craftable for future games.
The crafting system itself is pretty straight forward. As you explore and secure areas, you start gathering materials. Sometimes you might find an item that you don't want so you can salvage it into base materials for crafting. And then you can send off your people to town to get these items crafted for them.
If you don't have all the materials required, but you have some Legend Points from completing some story bits, you can use those points in lieu of materials!
Where the game really shines, though, is with the characters. In the screenshot above, you can see this great tentacle-creature using one of my people as its voice.
This lady is now afflicted with the monster's touch forevermore. As such she loses some charisma and becomes more of a loner.
And many years later, it's grown upon her face and is a permanent part of her being.
And here she is again, an older lady, still marked by that fateful day.
When your heroes die - and they will! - you can add them to your Legacy to be usable in other campaigns. Same as when you finish a campaign, the people who served in the final fight will have the option to be immortalised in your legacy.
So when you start a new campaign, travelling about with a new bunch of nobodies, if a town is offering an interested recruit you can either choose a fresh face to turn into a hero or use your Legend Points to select a hero from your Legacy.
Doing so essentially brings that hero back to life - with their armour and weapons and a couple of abilities, and backstory. For instance, I brought back my Huntress from my first game who fell in love with a random water elemental man... she still speaks of him and how she's looking forward to returning to him.
Two of the random events that happened in this second campaign involved transforming one of my dudes into a blue person now in-tune with nature and magic and the secrets whispered amidst the in-between, and one of my other dudes became one with the crows. He now has wings and an aura of inspiration that affects any party members in his radiance.
It's a really great game and I'm looking forward to spending some more time in it!
It's been a struggle to immerse myself in something over the past week or so, so it's nice to have finally found something that's taken my attention for the time being. 😊
You can find more information about it on the Steam Store:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/763890/Wildermyth/
And I heartily recommend it!
All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, 
