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Horizon's Gate - open world seafaring tactical RPG from Voidspire Tactics dev

Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,818
Location
Italy
i might be interested in buying this, it could scratch that privateer itch i always have. the interface and controls are an idiotic mess but i can turn a blind eye to it (with the help of an eyepatch maybe), but the guild stopped giving me jobs, i have no dialogue choices with guildies other than "goodbye". is it an extended demo issue, and i can proceed with the purchase? because i haven't found any mention whatsoever of this. if this is a bug, for as random as it can be, how globally buggy is this?
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
Do you have a nation quest going on (I think the guild simply don't propose quests while you do)? You can't get any guild quest in any town?

Overall the game is definitely not buggy.
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,818
Location
Italy
yeah, i came back to explain how i'm an idiot but the interface could have helped me here in telling me "dude, the mission is not finished until you turn it back where you got it first".
purchase incoming.
 

Tramboi

Prophet
Patron
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
1,226
Location
Paris by night
I'm a bit sad, because I loved Voidspire Tactics, it had good exploration and level design.
Then I liked Alvora Tactics a bit less (I'm not a rogue guy).
And I'm not liking Horizon's Gate much because I find it a bit tedious.
I need to grind a bit because my build is not optimized for the final boss, but I can't bring myself to.
 

Trash Player

Scholar
Joined
Jun 13, 2015
Messages
438
I'm a bit sad, because I loved Voidspire Tactics, it had good exploration and level design.
Then I liked Alvora Tactics a bit less (I'm not a rogue guy).
And I'm not liking Horizon's Gate much because I find it a bit tedious.
I need to grind a bit because my build is not optimized for the final boss, but I can't bring myself to.
Grouping up is much better than dancing frantically if you get the defensive options. Give healing items to everyone.
Try megabombs or firebombs with oil. Everything else bar strong electricity isn't really effective.
 

Tramboi

Prophet
Patron
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
1,226
Location
Paris by night
Yes I was underequipped.
To be clear I was not criticizing this last fight, but more the fact the game didn't leave me wanting to go back to grind and beat it.
 

Rahdulan

Omnibus
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Joined
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Messages
5,105
Seems like more people have taken notice of the game.

https://thenerdstash.com/horizons-gate-review-soothingly-sailing-to-battle/

Horizon’s Gate Review: Soothingly Sailing to Battle
Posted By: Stephen Kruselon: June 23, 2020In: Game Reviews, Indie Games, PC, Reviews, SteamTags: IndieGames, TacticsGamesNo Comments
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Horizons.Gate_.ReviewE.jpg


Title: Horizon’s Gate
Developer: Rad Codex
Publisher: Rad Codex
Genre: Tactics, RPG
Available On: Steam, Itch.io
Release Date: March 9, 2020
Version Tested: PC


Horizon’s Gate is a turn-based, tactical RPG in a fantasy setting. Players take the role of the commodore of a fleet of sailing ships on a quest to avenge the death of their crew. In the course of chasing revenge players explore the world, fight various monstrous and humanoid enemies, and conduct trade between the ports scattered across the map.

Retro Aesthetics
Horizon’s Gate shares an aesthetic style with Stardew Valley and Terraria. This style combines lo-fi 16-bit graphics and sound with systems that wouldn’t be possible in that era of consoles. The style has been around for quite some time. Few games manage to evoke the soothing feel of games like Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger the way that Horizon’s Gate does. Rendering the characters and world as pixelated sprites makes the mechanics of the game stand out as more unique than they are. Even if a player has seen a commodities trading system in something like Elite Dangerous, that same system in an apparently 16-bit game feels fresh and new.
As an example of the aesthetic Horizon’s Gate is a bit middling. The game doesn’t look bad by any stretch of the imagination. It just isn’t as jaw-droppingly beautiful as the best looking games of this style. Games like Hyper Light Drifter are hard to measure up to aesthetically.
The music of Horizon’s Gate is a standout quality of the game’s design. In a game that encourages long playthroughs music makes the experience pleasant instead of tedious. The tunes in Horizon’s Gate do a great job of fitting the mood of the action happening on-screen while also being entertaining.

HorizonsGateReview.D.jpg


Sailing Over the Horizon
The central pillar of Horizon’s Gate is sailing. It is the only mode of long-distance transportation the player character has. Sailing, in one way or another, is the way the characters earn a living. It’s a good thing then that the actual sailing system is a soothing, meditative experience. The game clearly shows the direction of the wind and controlling the ships is a simple matter of holding a mouse button and moving the cursor. The system is so intuitive that concepts like zig-zagging to maintain speed when traveling upwind quickly become second nature.

HorizonsGateReview.E.jpg


Turn-based Tactics in Horizon’s Gate
After sailing, the core mechanic of Horizon’s Gate is turn-based combat between characters or naval vessels. There are a few random encounters in the game’s dungeons but, for the most part, players will see enemies on the map and be able to avoid fights as in Chrono Trigger. Once a battle starts, fights play out a lot like the battles in Final Fantasy Tactics, except using a different perspective. Characters’ turn order is determined by their speed which can be affected by spells and abilities. This means by the end of a battle characters who would initially move first in the turn order now move last and vice versa. Many spells have casting times as well making using magic trickier than purely martial fighters. Horizon’s Gate features a wide variety of enemy types as well, making each battle interesting.

Naval battles in Horizon’s Gate occur if the player’s fleet is attacked by pirates or the odd sea monster. Compared to fights between characters the naval battles are simpler. Ships have fewer abilities and there are fewer ships on-screen compared to character battles. The simplicity doesn’t make them boring, though, it just makes them more streamlined. They break up longer sea voyages and keep the sailing from getting tedious.

HorizonsGateReview.B.jpg


Trade & Exploration in Horizon’s Gate
The impetus for all this sailing and fighting is preparation for the big end game fights. The player character starts off weak and must become strong to survive by gaining wealth and experience. Experience is gained by winning battles but wealth is a different story. Players will find some gold and gear after most fights but the value of these trinkets are mostly insufficient to keep the characters fed in the long term. Players must make money in other ways, then.

One way to make some cash is to sell trade goods offered in ports visited to restock supplies for your fleets. Profits can be made by reserving a portion of the ship’s hold for valuable cargo and selling it at the next town. Even greater profit comes from asking around at the local cafe for rumors of what town has a shortage of this or that item. The game even seems to keep track of the distance a town is from the source of an item. This means that selling, say, wheat all the way on the other side of the map from where it’s grown will earn more than selling it one port over.
Another way to make money in Horizon’s Gate is through exploration.

At practically any time during the game, a button can be pressed to change the cursor to a magnifying glass icon. Doing this allows players to click on almost any object to add it to their journal and gain some basic info on the object. This is as possible with simple objects like bottles and crates as it is with eldritch horrors discovered in deep caves. These journal entries can be sold to researchers for a significant amount of money. There are also cartographers scattered around who will pay the player character based on how much of the map they’ve uncovered.

Progression
The money earned from all this trading is used to buy more, and better ships and hire a crew to run them. A fleet upgraded this way makes privateering and outright piracy viable options for gaining yet more wealth. Winning naval battles against random enemies or against the rivals of the player’s chosen faction results in rewards of cargo or new ships which can both be sold for profit.

Throughout all this trade, exploration and fighting the player character and their crew will gain experience. This experience is spent on a system similar to the job system used in various Final Fantasy titles. As characters spend points in a given profession other jobs become unlocked. More advanced jobs have more complex prerequisites and must be unlocked by finding a trainer somewhere in the world and taking lessons. The progression through the job tree is complex enough to be rewarding while remaining understandable.

Horizon’s Gate’s Emergent Storytelling
The story of Horizon’s Gate is difficult to accurately assess. The tale authored by the game is a pretty simple revenge story. The game opens with the player character and their veteran sidekick betrayed and beaten. What follows is a quest to become powerful enough to avenge that betrayal. Along the way, though, the various systems in the game constantly pull the player away from that core quest to tell their own little side stories. Some might choose to spend an entire week traveling across the map becoming wealthy by trading. Others might fall in deep with one of the three factions of the game and grind out loyalty rep. Still more could roam aimlessly, filling out journals for naturalists and expanding the knowledge of their favored cartographer. Even though the main quest is quite straightforward the overall story the player tells by playing is incredibly compelling, so long as that player can meet the game half-way.

Final Verdict: Horizon’s Gate is a fantastic game to disappear into. The combination of charming aesthetics and a wide variety of deeply rewarding mechanics make for a soothing experience in which a player can get joyfully lost.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
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3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Is this game worth playing? If it is, why?

Voidspire Tactics is worth playing. Its short and sweet, and any game that rips the FFT combat and progression is already worth playing by default.
Also it has some cool mechanics, like you will find your most important loot as ore. You can turn ore into any weapon type from which you have the blueprint. So if you have a bow bluebrint and a greatsword blueprint and you find a chunk of laser you can now choose to either have a Fire Greatsword or a Laser Bow. You can undo all these choices without losses aswell by just smelting the gear back into ore. So if you find an electrical mace you can disassemble it for the shock parts, and turn them into a breastplate with the right blueprint.
Apart from that the story is great fun and it has a heavy focus on nonlinear exploration. Also a lot of secrets and small cool stuff, like a shovel allowing you to dig up hidden treasure caches when you keep your eye open for the layout of the map, or you being able to use climbing ropes to reach caves offscreen for secret bosses and more loot. Story is you are stuck on a magical flying island and need to find X things to get off there.

After that skip the Alvora Tactics sequel and go to this. This game is less focussed and more rough around the edges but interesting still. Dont play alvora because its all procedural generated, not hand crafted.
 

Trash Player

Scholar
Joined
Jun 13, 2015
Messages
438
Alvora is not lacking variety in assets but in gameplay. Maps are too linear, with few hand crafted contents. There are less unique rewards from exploration. Gameplay loop is a repetitive dungeon crawl.
That said if you fall in love with Voidspire and want more combat and eyecandies, it is a compact and enjoyable gaunlet.
 

Empary

Scholar
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
160
https://store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/1224290/view/2725193781454001768

Version 1.2.0: establish ports, info shops, elite arena, & more!

A huge update is ready with new features, a new dungeon, a new enemy type, and some graphical improvements! Check out the specifics below:

FEATURES
  • You can now 'Establish' your own towns at Supply Ports!
    • Build your choice of structures, including a Home, Cafe, Shipwright, Harbor, Smithy, Museum, and more.
    • Assign crew to tend buildings, earning you cash and earning them XP while you're away. (They cannot earn this XP if their total XP exceeds the main character's total XP.)
    • Customize your port by renaming it, recoloring it, and changing the music to your liking.
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  • New "Information" shops in each capital! (NOTE: New games only!)
  • Pay for an investigation of:
    • Fleet positions
    • Nearest undiscovered location
    • Port investment unlocks
    • Missed creature journal entries
    • Upcoming trade specials

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  • Redens' Arena now only awards an Ability Crest for your first victory. Subsequent victories give Essence Gems. (Pre-existing saves will get one last Ability Crest the next time they beat the arena)
  • New 'Elite Arena' (accessible after you beat the regular arena once) where you fight twice as many enemies. Rewards twice the cash, and gives Ability Crests as the grand prize

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  • New location: Frostbite Cave (small dungeon at )
  • Gladiator's 'Swift' has been reworked to pierce Guard and ignore counter attacks, but only gain +5% Accuracy (increased by +5% per rank)

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  • Added 'Netchal' enemy type and 'Itchy Barbs' item, found in hard Monster Dens
  • Added additional 'insect group' hard Monster Den encounter
  • Added support for Paste (Ctrl+V) into text fields
  • Holding Left/Right keys now quickly moves through text fields

GRAPHICS
  • Damage numbers now use background icons, and now have an icon for Physical damage

d21401612848988d6b4cdff205c51963d3e54d59.gif


  • Added background texture to parchment windows
  • Improved magnifying glass graphics for 'Look' mode

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BALANCE
  • Increased Spidest defenses by +1
  • Dispel and Cure no longer affect buffs or debuffs from Cafe food
  • Greatly reduced the number of Sleep Darts arena combatants can get

BUGFIXES
  • Items pushed by abilities now move according the indicator arrows instead of diagonally
  • Fixed bug where losing the Arena would disable autosaving after combat
  • Fixed Zoar not being immune to ground-based attacks
  • Fixed world domination dialog not working for Seartial
  • Fixed dropped items being able to stack onto buried items of the same type
  • Fixed ships bouncing off of certain locations instead of entering
  • Fixed crash if you drown while alone

MODDING
  • New 'formulas' console command that lists all globalFormulas
  • Added TaskType.UIPartInputCommand which calls handleUIPartInput_command()
  • DataManager.checkIfZoneExistsInZoneData() now checks mod content correctly


v1.2.01
  • Fixed missing Monster Den set pieces
  • Fixed training dummies being pushable
  • Pushing or pulling a brazier now knocks it over
  • Left/Right journal buttons now 'scroll' through grid pages

New update
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Versive

Literate
Patron
Joined
Jun 25, 2020
Messages
5
I would appreciate a suggestion on the race to select for my main character. I prefer mages and enjoy min/maxing however, I don't have a strong grasp on the mechanics at this point. I assume that the flat +10MP bonus is quickly OBE. Is there a level cap that makes the human trait useless at end game?
 

Trash Player

Scholar
Joined
Jun 13, 2015
Messages
438
I would appreciate a suggestion on the race to select for my main character. I prefer mages and enjoy min/maxing however, I don't have a strong grasp on the mechanics at this point. I assume that the flat +10MP bonus is quickly OBE. Is there a level cap that makes the human trait useless at end game?
Don't worry too much. None of the species differs that much. You have a team of five and your MC isn't really special. There is no relevant hard cap on stats and you can grind as much as you want.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
What you really want for a mage is the furry for their speed bonus. All the more powerful spells have a charge-up, and enemies will readily leave area of effect if their initiative allows. Furry's speed bonus gives you more leeway with that.
I assume that the flat +10MP bonus is quickly OBE.
Not really, there's no stat bloat in these games. Unless you minmax really hard, you'll maybe double your starting MP by the endgame.
Is there a level cap that makes the human trait useless at end game?
There's no level cap because there are no levels. You just spend XP directly on abilities and classes unlock after gaining a certain amount of XP. XP also isn't carried between classes, so yeah, XP bonus is fairly useful.
 

Versive

Literate
Patron
Joined
Jun 25, 2020
Messages
5
Thank you both. With respect to XP, is there a permanent bonus from completing a class like in Fell Seal?
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
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Location
at a Nowhere near you
No, but class change system is very flexible, you can switch to any unlocked class and back at any time. You only get class bonuses from the class you've "equipped" as primary, but stat increases you've bought with stars are permanent irrespective of class changes. Plus passives, once trained, can be equipped from any class at any time. And there's a rare item that allows you to equip one additional active ability from a class that isn't your primary and secondary.
 

WhiteShark

Learned
Joined
Sep 17, 2019
Messages
370
Location
滅びてゆく世界
I just spent the last week and a half playing VT on intense/ponderous and then ruin/ponderous (including the necromancer and vyse/jin fights) as well as AT on intense/ponderous (not sure if it's worth doing a Ruin run but I might to force myself to try some of the other classes). Obviously I love this series and I have every intention to play Horizon's Gate. That said, I see that it's still actively receiving patches and content updates, and I would like to play the game in its most complete form. How long does Eldiran plan to keep adding to it before moving on to his next work?
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
The content updates are more like free DLC. The game is quite playable the way it is.
 

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