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Operencia: The Stolen Sun - turn-based blobber by Hungarian pinball devs

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,756
Looked like absolute and utter shite - refunded.
I suppose Operencia's art style might not be to everyone's taste, but personally I found the aesthetic appealing:

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felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
Patron
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
17,274
Location
Terra da Garoa
The reason it made it to the #4 top crpg list is more due to the fact that it doesn't have anything controversial, everything is serviceable, and lack of competition. An easier, more linear ( if that's possible ! ) and more focused ( no puzzles repeated ad-nauseam ) version of BT4 is a good summary indeed.

This reminds me of what felipepepe argued in his Bard's Tale IV review - that its primary problem was that it was too bloated, not that it wasn't hardcore enough or whatever. Some people disagreed with that at the time.
I think BT4 and Operentia aimed at the same goal: a casual & accessible dungeon crawler.

But inXile still wanted it to be a megalomaniacal "Skyrim of blobbers" - extremely long, bloated and streamlined. And they weren't blobber fans, so they were willing to streamline even the dungeons and puzzles themselves. The result is a soulless and overly-long game.

Operentia knows exactly what it is: a short & fun dungeon-crawl. And they are clearly fans of the genre, so every puzzle is unique, there's a ton of secrets and maps like this:

h1Npr0B.png

It's never amazing or hardcore, but it's always fun. It's not for Wizardry or Elminage fans looking for extreme challenges, but it's a lighthearted entry point for newcomers or veterans who want a fun weekend. And that's fine, not every game has to be made to please Fargo's ego.
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
Patron
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
17,274
Location
Terra da Garoa
It's "long for what it is". The game would improve a lot simply by removing all the padding and filler content. It's twice as long as it needed to be.
 

Slimu

Augur
Patron
Joined
Sep 26, 2011
Messages
169
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Did anybody try Operencia with the new difficulty mode added with the Stream release?
 
Joined
Nov 3, 2016
Messages
425
Location
Georgie's shitter
The reason it made it to the #4 top crpg list is more due to the fact that it doesn't have anything controversial, everything is serviceable, and lack of competition. An easier, more linear ( if that's possible ! ) and more focused ( no puzzles repeated ad-nauseam ) version of BT4 is a good summary indeed.

This reminds me of what felipepepe argued in his Bard's Tale IV review - that its primary problem was that it was too bloated, not that it wasn't hardcore enough or whatever. Some people disagreed with that at the time.
I think BT4 and Operentia aimed at the same goal: a casual & accessible dungeon crawler.

But inXile still wanted it to be a megalomaniacal "Skyrim of blobbers" - extremely long, bloated and streamlined. And they weren't blobber fans, so they were willing to streamline even the dungeons and puzzles themselves. The result is a soulless and overly-long game.

Operentia knows exactly what it is: a short & fun dungeon-crawl. And they are clearly fans of the genre, so every puzzle is unique, there's a ton of secrets and maps like this:

It's never amazing or hardcore, but it's always fun. It's not for Wizardry or Elminage fans looking for extreme challenges, but it's a lighthearted entry point for newcomers or veterans who want a fun weekend. And that's fine, not every game has to be made to please Fargo's ego.

You hit it bang-on, its a blobber for casuals.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,404
Location
Djibouti
Tried the demo. Turns out the game doesn't display properly on my 5:4 and attempting to change resolution makes it crash with a fatal error.

10/10 best magyarpg.

uninstalled
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,071
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
Codex+ Now Streaming!
Playing it now, it's gud. Design-wise the clear inspiration here is Lands of Lore - a lighthearted, story-driven blobber with pre-defined characters (except the starter one). I've always liked those. LoL was my first RPG that eased me into the genre and it will have always a place in my heart.

The environmental and 2D art is one of the best I've ever seen on this production level, combat is fun, level design is one of the best in the genre and puzzles are above average. Props for not being able to spam save every fucking 2 seconds. Free saving has been an anal sphincter cancer from space on the entire gaming and RPG gaming in particular and it should be eradicated with experimental napalm and flooded with hydrochlorid acid. Ehm, back to Operencia.

The writing is p. atrocious, a haphazard jumble of Slav fairytales with tongue-twisting Hungarian names, stitched together in a true dungeon master style ("You're in a castle. Save 9 princesses. Good job. Now you're in a forest. Find a way out."). It's not bothered at all with any plot, lore or world-building coherency. I guess story was never important for these LoL-type RPGs but still...jesus.

Also performance is hilarious. Shit keeps stuttering and it crashes every hour or so. Sure I have an older rig (i5, RX480) but it handled Witcher 3 or KCD nicely, it should be able to handle an old-school, tile-based blobber FFS. It's about as bad as MMX but at least it looks a million times better.

In Chapter 3 now, having fun.
 
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Atlet

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Nov 11, 2017
Messages
1,569
This game is not THAT short according to howlongtobeat.com

20/30 hours, so I would probably finish in ~40 hours. I'm gonna wait for more reviews a bit more, before making a judgement.
 

User0001

Savant
Joined
Jun 9, 2018
Messages
530
Location
Nangilima
Playing it now, it's gud. Design-wise the clear inspiration here is Lands of Lore - a lighthearted, story-driven blobber with pre-defined characters (except the starter one). I've always liked those. LoL was my first RPG that eased me into the genre and it will have always a place in my heart.

The environmental and 2D art is one of the best I've ever seen on this production level, combat is fun, level design is one of the best in the genre and puzzles are above average. Props for not being able to spam save every fucking 2 seconds. Free saving has been an anal sphincter cancer from space on the entire gaming and RPG gaming in particular and it should be eradicated with experimental napalm and flooded with hydrochlorid acid. Ehm, back to Operencia.

The writing is p. atrocious, a haphazard jumble of Slav fairytales with tongue-twisting Hungarian names, stitched together in a true dungeon master style ("You're in a castle. Save 9 princesses. Good job. Now you're in a forest. Find a way out."). It's not bothered at all with any plot, lore or world-building coherency. I guess story was never important for these LoL-type RPGs but still...jesus.

Also performance is hilarious. Shit keeps stuttering and it crashes every hour or so. Sure I have an older rig (i5, RX480) but it handled Witcher 3 or KCD nicely, it should be able to handle an old-school, tile-based blobber FFS. It's about as bad as MMX but at least it looks a million times better.

In Chapter 3 now, having fun.


Agree with everything except the crashing. Runs smooth as a baby's bottom for me so far.

Playing on the jacked-up difficulty and combat and resting management feels extremely balanced. Not balanced in a "sawyer" way, but in a good just-don't-fuck-up kind of way. Resource management is simple but scarce, so if you waste resting material you can softlock yourself, and that's pretty hilarious.
Combat on higher difficulty feels very playtested. All major fights have required thoughtful planning and respeccing with the right talents, meaning that you can't brute force your way through the game.

About to start chapter 4, also having fun. :greatjob:
 
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