Indie Passageway of the Ancients - Baldur's Gate-Like RPG with Dual-Persona Character Development

[BosanskiSeljak]

Got a lot of potential with the comfy feeling atmosphere and I'm hoping the encounter design, enemy variety, etc. keeps up and makes me use the abundance of options for combat (I went Strategic difficulty).

Hope the writing stays more grounded than the videos because those were very hard to keep up with because of all the different names I know nothing about. It also has the type of dialogue I'm usually not a fan of (i.e. who talks like that?) but that's most RPGs so not a deal breaker.

Sad the gay eyeliner on all humans (except the asians) couldn't be fixed.

However, I do have some good news. You can still go crazy with character creation and it translates into the game itself:

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[processdaemon]

I've been playing for a few hours and I'm enjoying it a lot.

Combat is high lethality at the start but after I got a few companions to hide behind and access to the potion shop my mage started deleting most things pretty handily (although things can still go south if you don't pay attention to the health bars). I'm not a fan of the option in Combat Mode where you have to select whether to aim High/Medium/Low at an enemy in melee but it's not that disruptive and there is a Combat AI setting that you can use for it if it annoys you (although the game warns you it's not always accurate). I do like the other options that allow you to choose how to balance things like attack speed with damage and other considerations though. The skill tree for levelling up (which is done at the guild) is very straightforward, I'm mildly concerned that it might end up a bit too simple by endgame when you have most of the abilities but I'm not far enough into the game to judge that yet.

The writing is fine so far and the story is decent enough that I want to keep playing. I'm only about 5 hours in so take this with a pinch of salt but so far the game is very linear and I haven't really seen any sign of C&C, which isn't always a bad thing but worth pointing out as I know some people value that a lot in RPGs. The music sets the mood of each area well and environments and models are good enough not to take you out of the game. The art style for some of the vendors is quite memorable but I think that's a deliberate stylistic choice.

Memorable vendor

There are little things I like too, like the fast travel method (I've always preferred mark/recall type fast travel to static points on a map). It also plays well and loads very fast with the highest settings on my well below spec PC so if anyone's worried about the high requirements they shouldn't be (I might try it on an integrated graphics laptop tomorrow to see how far I can push it).

Overall unless it really veers off track I suspect it'll be worth the £13 I spent on it.

 

[JonG]

So far so good. A lot of text but it is well written. Music is nice. Cant say too much about combat just yet but its no walk in the park. My Paladin got killed by a measly goblin as soon as I got distracted. Brings back BG1 memories. Not a fan of lockpicking and runestones mini games though.

very thoughtful well crafted comments... thanks

 

[Hoodoo]

Reminds me of KotC looking at it. Is the combat comparable?

 

[Spike]

Bought, will play possibly in December over break or (some indeterminate time in the future)

 

[HoboForEternity]

I am not sure about the whole combat stances and spell modifier thing. It is interesting but depending on how varied the encounters and enemies are, it could just be tedious.

The UI is very rough, and playing on TV some of rhe texts are barely readable. Overall first impression is good though, it has an interesting hook and writing is generally good and the music is also good. The UI is my largest gripe so far.

 

[The Wall]

The UI is very rough, and playing on TV some of rhe texts are barely readable.

Island Nigger. Swim back to where you came from. And watch Kardashians and World Cup on your TV there. Did you play Baldur's Gate 2 with XBOX controller too? RPGs like this are not played on giant screen

I mean do you also put nuttela on good pizza and eat it on rain outside and then complain about suboptimal experience? Of course you do

 

[HoboForEternity]

The UI is very rough, and playing on TV some of rhe texts are barely readable.

Island Nigger. Swim back to where you came from. And watch Kardashians and World Cup on your TV there. Did you play Baldur's Gate 2 with XBOX controller too? RPGs like this are not played on giant screen

I mean do you also put nuttela on good pizza and eat it on rain outside and then complain about suboptimal experience? Of course you do

You play your stolen games on your stolen pc whilst crying inside your roach infested mother's basement.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Martyr]

^ great track!
can anyone tell us the exact download size please (not the file size).

 

[JonG]

^ great track!
can anyone tell us the exact download size please (not the file size).

23 GB

 

[GloomFrost]

Any chance to add an option to increase the text size in the next patch? Thanx

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

I have this weird thing where my settings for camera and party reset to default all the time. As in, I want it to be free cam + always have full party selected but randomly becomes locked to party or only 1 character is selected (and always happens when switching to a new area)

 

[JonG]

I have this weird thing where my settings for camera and party reset to default all the time. As in, I want it to be free cam + always have full party selected but randomly becomes locked to party or only 1 character is selected (and always happens when switching to a new area)

we will look at this soon

 

[JonG]

Any chance to add an option to increase the text size in the next patch? Thanx

We will see if we can do this without grossly breaking stuff

 

[Fedora Master]

The UI is very rough, and playing on TV some of rhe texts are barely readable.

Island Nigger. Swim back to where you came from. And watch Kardashians and World Cup on your TV there. Did you play Baldur's Gate 2 with XBOX controller too? RPGs like this are not played on giant screen

I mean do you also put nuttela on good pizza and eat it on rain outside and then complain about suboptimal experience? Of course you do

I've noticed an uptick in console niggers and console-adjacent niggery here on the Codex lately and it's concerning.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

JonG

Bestiary search doesn't work at all ex. "red" or "imp" doesnt bring up red imp. It would also be better to have a grid view to click on, rather than having to click through many pages to get where you have to be, especially considering how many encounters there are.

I also found some things named "Game Object #7,500", if you'd like to know where I found such things

My game is crashing when I'm equipping the mantle of Ragnor set on a character - no idea what that's about. Probably related to the massive frame drop, randomly started playing at 15-20 frames when it was running fine before. On another note, where the fuck are the boots of this set I cleared the entire chapel and nothing

 

[HoboForEternity]

The UI is very rough, and playing on TV some of rhe texts are barely readable.

Island Nigger. Swim back to where you came from. And watch Kardashians and World Cup on your TV there. Did you play Baldur's Gate 2 with XBOX controller too? RPGs like this are not played on giant screen

I mean do you also put nuttela on good pizza and eat it on rain outside and then complain about suboptimal experience? Of course you do

I've noticed an uptick in console niggers and console-adjacent niggery here on the Codex lately and it's concerning.

Bitch you dont even play the game and just shitpost

 

[processdaemon]

On another note, where the fuck are the boots of this set I cleared the entire chapel and nothing

Shoe location in Family Chapel

In a box on the table near the start of the level

 

[JonG]

JonG

Bestiary search doesn't work at all ex. "red" or "imp" doesnt bring up red imp. It would also be better to have a grid view to click on, rather than having to click through many pages to get where you have to be, especially considering how many encounters there are.

I also found some things named "Game Object #7,500", if you'd like to know where I found such things

My game is crashing when I'm equipping the mantle of Ragnor set on a character - no idea what that's about. Probably related to the massive frame drop, randomly started playing at 15-20 frames when it was running fine before. On another note, where the fuck are the boots of this set I cleared the entire chapel and nothing

We are correcting the "Game object" bug will be out in a patch soon. The drop in frame rate: try saving and restarting the game could be a Unity issue or try lessening your resolution a bit or try the performance option for moderate machines move in small increments. We haven't seen this issue. Will look into it. I'm not sure partial phrases will work. I will check on this.

 

[Anomander]

For the frame rate - check the options - for me it was the bottom slidebar - it was moved to Low Performant (or something like this) and the whole game was like a slideshow. I had to move it back to the right side.
It just changed on itself after starting game second time.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Ok, 4 hours in, honestly took a while to get used to, but it's quite charming. The combat, while having a unique mechanic, is really nothing to write about (so far) because these goblins and kobolds only have regular attacks and it's just a matter of whacking each other out. Maybe when you get to other enemy types it will get interesting.

The main draw so far is the story, idk why it gives me arcanum vibes. The setting is wholly different, but the central mystery just has similar vibes of uncovering a bigger web beneath simple tragedy (the blimp crash vs your parents death which led you to an artifact you have to trace) .

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Yo where the 2 handed weapons at?

 

[JonG]

Yo where the 2 handed weapons at?

Sadly those are mainly the province of Barbarians and won't show up until game two

 

[JonG]

JonG

Bestiary search doesn't work at all ex. "red" or "imp" doesnt bring up red imp. It would also be better to have a grid view to click on, rather than having to click through many pages to get where you have to be, especially considering how many encounters there are.

I also found some things named "Game Object #7,500", if you'd like to know where I found such things

My game is crashing when I'm equipping the mantle of Ragnor set on a character - no idea what that's about. Probably related to the massive frame drop, randomly started playing at 15-20 frames when it was running fine before. On another note, where the fuck are the boots of this set I cleared the entire chapel and nothing

In case you missed my update to aan earlier post: The drop in frame rate: try saving and restarting the game could be a Unity issue or try lessening your resolution a bit or try the performance option for moderate machines move in small increments.We are correcting the "Game object" bug will be out in a patch soon.