Dark Envoy

If you want a CRPG experience that feels a little less complex than many, you could do worse than check out Dark Envoy’s colourful fantasy world.

Dark Envoy is a solid cRPG featuring an interesting world and lore, a solid real-time with pause combat system with turn-based elements and a simple choice and consequence system that lends the experience to multiple playthroughs. The focus on combat, however, came at the expense of everything else, preventing the game from being an essential purchase if not for fans of the studio's previous game and cRPG fanatics.

Dark Envoy is an interesting CRPG that has some good features such as customization, some not always negligible defects such as a flawed AI, a combat system that fails to express its potential, a weak story and, perhaps, even an ambition that seems held back by the constraints imposed by her independent nature.

Dark Envoy isn’t without its strengths. The class system and skill trees lend themselves to interesting character builds and adventure party variety. But Director’s Cut or not, Dark Envoy simply had too many serious technical issues and minor hiccups. They constantly intruded into whatever fun the game was trying to give me. I’ll check back later to see if things improve but for now, Malakai and Kaela are on their own.

The new isometric RPG from the creators of Tower of Time looks interesting at first glance, but a closer look reveals its flaws. The most interesting are the fights in real time with the possibility of slowing down. Overall, though, the game feels unfinished.

I went into Dark Envoy curious about the title, but I came away apathetic and annoyed. There are some interesting class & skill systems in place, but tedious encounter design, a sluggish narrative, forgettable characters, and a multitude of performance issues, all make this title a difficult RPG to recommend.