Kyn - RTWP party based RPG

[kain611]

Played 26 minutes. Got a refund.

 

[Infinitron]

Early Access Impressions: Kyn
John Walker on August 4th, 2015 at 1:00 pm.

When thinking about which genres are appropriate for early access, I’m quick to suggest that RPG is one that should avoid it. Games so heavily reliant on narrative, even branching narratives, seem like they should get it right out of the gate. But clearly I’m wrong – look at the success of Divinity: Original Sin. And now I’m finding myself rather taken with Kyn [official site] – an indie tactical action RPG that’s quickly reshaping itself by the response of early adopters.


Indie RPGs existing outside or RPG-maker or similar JRPG 2D frameworks, are not exactly common. It’s a big ask, for a small team to construct something so unwieldy. Shorter length is an inevitability, but it can also bring in the charm. Tangrin is a two-man outfit in Holland, attempting to do just that. Having developed Kyn for four years, they’ve put it out on Steam’s Early Access, and what’s on display is already looking impressive – if a touch rough around the edges.

Emphasising itself as a tactical RPG, this tale of Vikings currently sports no expository opening or explanation for your antics, but it’s familiar enough to get on with. You start with two characters under your control – who have apparently just completed the tasks necessary to call themselves Magni warriors – and an unfolding tale of strange attacks from the local beasties, the Aeshir.

Combat is quick and as simple as a single click, or indeed methodical and as complicated as arranging your crew to use specific attacks at the right moments on the right enemies. Kyn rather oddly describes itself as having a “unique slow motion feature”, in which “time slows down to almost zero”, which in reality is very similar to a pause as is familiar from any BioWare RPG. It allows you to employ more tactics in combat, certainly, but I’d suggest falls rather short of earning the “RTS” crossover they boast. Still, it’s very nice to see this being used.

In fact, it’s worth emphasising that it’s far more lively than I’ve seen it in other RPGs. Because it’s slow-motion, rather than a true pause, you can’t just sit there and think for a long while – enemiesare continuing to attack, albeit very slowly. This means you dish out instructions much more promptly, and it keeps things moving at a pace.

Because there is no main character, no you in the game, it means you have to work as hard on each of your party members as you usually would on your lead, and this means a lot of jumping between them. I think the game could greatly benefit from an easier access to each character’s pool of resources during combat – at the moment, you need to select them individually to be able to see their skills, then reselect them all when wanting to simply direct them to attack a simple crowd of enemies. Just having the heal spell of Alrik always accessible would make life so much simpler than having to remember who it is who has it (much harder when they’re not meaningfully introduced, and not divided into obvious classes – it’s interesting to learn just how much character’s distinct costumes usually play a role in making these games more accessible).

There’s currently no attempt at all to give opening characters Alrik and Bram distinctive personalities, and what brief dialogue there is appears in silent text, often in a bubble above their head that’s impossible to read while they’re moving. It’s definitely something that needs work.

And of course there’s a lot else that needs adding, fixing and tweaking, as you’d expect from an early access release. But the good news is, that stuff is coming thick and fast with very open and clear communication from the devs. Which, I think, is crucial if something like a linear narrative project is going to survive this extended beta-testing-but-for-money process.

Players have requested the ability to rotate the camera, and what I’d have thought could have been a huge task for a game not planning to include, it will apparently be rolled out in the next few days. Obvious missing features like being able to access the options in-game will soon be put in, as well as getting rid of a ridiculously cumbersome load screen when quick-loading, while a much-requested option to salvage equipment will appear soon.

There are all manner of balancing things to do too, and they’re working on implementing formations for your characters. And the rather strange way the game plays entirely differently when you enter a hub town is being ironed out for some more consistency. All good stuff indeed.

Of course, this may well leave you thinking, “Well, I’ll wait until that’s all done before I throw in my £15,” and that certainly makes sense. The surprising thing is, it might only be a matter of a week or two before that’s the case. And I’m certainly enjoying – while craving a rotatable camera – things as they are now.

There are a lot of lovely details in there. It’s splendid that the moon reflects in puddles, the way instructions dished out in slo-mo are represented by animated arrows, the excellent flinging ragdolls of defeated enemies, and the way it makes an ARPG feel like it’s packed with potential combat depth.

This is still about potential, of course. It’s superb to see how quickly the developers are responding to requests, and I hope that they have greater ambitions to create an opening, and ideally, record some dialogue – there’s not much in there, so it’s not quite the gargantuan task it might seem. With that in place, and a few more features implemented, it will really come together.

 

[Anthedon]

But the game is not in Early Access?

 

[Renevent]

Yeah I thought it was the full release...kinda strange.

 

[Renevent]

...and it was pulled lol.

 

[Infinitron]

It's here now: http://store.steampowered.com/app/314560/

 

[Renevent]

No, the RPS article.

 

[Anthedon]

Has anyone tried this yet? It can be had for $10 at GMG currently.

 

[Sinatar]

It's on sale for $5 on Steam. Is it as bad as it looks?

 

[Renevent]

It's ho-hum honestly. I enjoyed it for what it is was but it's not anywhere near as good as games like Divinity/Wasteland 2/etc or the more recent RPG's released lately. Basically fun enough to go around leveling up and collecting loot, but not much beyond that. For $5 if you aren't the type that requires every game be some epic masterpiece and have enjoyed other, lesser quality games in the past, it's worth it. I think for a lot of people here though that even for $5 it just isn't worth picking up.