Developed and Published by Eternal Vigilance Entertainment, The Adventures is an open-world turn-based tactical RPG that focuses heavily on Party building.
Have you ever played a game that is fun, but only for the first 6 to 7 hours of playtime, before dropping you into a pit of despair and enraging tedium?
No?
The Adventurers sure came close to taking me there.
Let’s Talk Gameplay.
No sugar coating it: The Adventurers is a glitchy buggy mess that would make you want to break the nearest leg you can find. However, I will try to be nice since it is still in early access, but forgive my directness on the matter, as I take certain things quite seriously.
Despite the intimidating UI, this tactical rpg is quite simple to operate. You start with a party of adventurers(this can be 3, 2 or even 1 if you are daring) and you travel a large open map, visiting towns in search of bounties to collect. These are usually missions asking you to clear out a bandit camp or slay an ogre, etc.
Meanwhile, you must manage resources like food and water, and arm your party with weapons and armour. You can always hire new party members from the tavern by paying an advance followed by a daily salary.
As you play, the missions get harder, the enemies increase in number and characters get upgraded. That is the tactical rpg in a nutshell. Pretty simple and engaging stuff
Now, for the less engaging, the Plot side of things.
Lack Your Own Story
There is no fixed story of The Adventurers, that is up to you. However, despite having a narrator and unique dialogue for most encounters, there is no narrative reason to attach yourself to the characters or their actions.
This was a big issue for me as I progressed the game. The more progress is made and characters get stronger, the less the attachment gets and you just can’t muster the energy to keep on going.
In a way, I have to say, every moment I played this game, I enjoyed it but I do not see myself loading back in once I publish this review.
There is still time for something meaningful to be added in the days to come. I should repeat that this is an early-access build for a game that has a lot of heart behind it. So we will see what comes of it. But as of now, I am still a little on the fence about this open world game.
It was Fun while I Lasted.
In the past year, I have reviewed a reservoir of Raring rejects, so it is nice to have something fun to bite my teeth into now and then. This was exactly that. The Adventurers had me waking up early in the morning wanting to get back into it immediately.
I wondered as I played, how long should I carry on before writing the review. That answer was soon revealed when a raid of ambushing giants squashed my party to a pulp.
When it came to putting words to paper, I found myself looking in the mirror… This is when I decided that Google Docs might prove to be a better medium. So here we are:
While it wasn’t exactly a doom and gloom death after the 6th hour, The Adventurers failed to hold up for very long, courtesy of a lack of proper storytelling within its systems. The gameplay, on the other hand, is very engaging and, at times, wonderfully managed. So in summary… of this summary, The Adventurers is a 50/50 open world tactical rpg and should be marked with a scarlet 7 up until the date of final release.
Well, that got critical real fast, didn’t it?
