Planet Stronghold

 PC
Metascore
tbd

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User Score
7.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 5
  3. Negative: 1 out of 5
  1. tacticalcraptic
    Jul 6, 2011
    9
    This is a fantastic little indie RPG. It is actually nice mix of a visual novel with WRPG and JRPG game mechanics. It has some very nice artThis is a fantastic little indie RPG. It is actually nice mix of a visual novel with WRPG and JRPG game mechanics. It has some very nice art which does a good job of pulling you into the sci-fi setting. The battle system is very well thought out and is alot of fun. The exploration of the game is like an old school adventure game with alot of text to read. If you enjoy reading and character development this is a great thing. Though if you just want to shoot things. This is not something you are going to enjoy. The writing is fairly well done and control you have over the game flow is huge with all of the possible choices and dialog options. If you enjoy sci-fi and text based RPGs or adventure games. Give this game a go, it's a good'n.… Full Review »
  2. AbeMC
    May 12, 2016
    4
    A choice-laden narrative and attractive soundtrack are minor positives for a game let down by an immature story, horrible dialogue, andA choice-laden narrative and attractive soundtrack are minor positives for a game let down by an immature story, horrible dialogue, and boring, badly implemented / balanced combat. Avoid unless frustration is your preferred form of masochism.

    First the choices. There are a lot of choices, and they do branch convincingly: if you wanted to romance a certain character and screw it up, there's no way to charm yourself back into their good graces. Find a save, and re-load. The choices aren't just about romancing: every single member of your party has dialogues and side missions that will unlock if you talk to them enough and make the right dialog choices. Even faction alliances are contained within mutually exclusive dialog choices. Full marks for a branching narrative.

    The choices and consequences are real enough, but don't buy Planet Stronghold expecting mature levels of writing. The story verges on the ridiculous – a recruit with all of 2 days of experience is put in charge of an army. I'm all for playing pretend and enjoying impossible accomplishments, but come on. It's not like in Dragon Age Origins, for instance, where Alistair cedes command of the party to you; that was explained within the story as part of the character arc. Here, you get a command because the prince you've known for a few hours suddenly “trusts you.” Some of the dialogue is worse than what you would find in a B-movie. And there's no voice-acting to make the lines sound better than they are. They're just there, and if you as a player can't commit to the characters and the story, you'll be strongly annoyed about how the dialogue sounds in your head.

    Combat is, unfortunately, awful. It takes the relaxing visual-novel experience and forces story progression through hours of meaningless and boring combat. Fire guns, use Psionics to buff the hero and his team, let the bad guys fire back, repeat until the enemies fall. When weapons are dealing 5 points of damage per shot (even after de-buffing the target), and an enemy has 350 points of health, that's a lot of sitting still and clicking, waiting for the fight to be over.

    What makes matters worse is that the combat itself is badly balanced (if the word balanced can even be used here). Here's an example. If my character has an 80% accuracy rating, there is no way (mathematically) he should miss 3 shots out of every 5. At most, he should miss 1 out of 5, or 2 out of 10, or 3 out of 15. But when his burst of fire is 7 shots, and he misses 5 of them, something is badly wrong. “You need to level your Accuracy skill and take into account the enemy's Evade skill” (I did) “and don't use the Burst setting!” (I didn't). I even reduced the difficulty to Easy to see if it would make a difference. It doesn't. The only conclusion I can draw is that the results of the turn-based combat are entirely random. Not a good thing to hang onto your choice-laden visual novel. Not saying the IDEA of having turn-based combat in a visual novel is bad – it isn't – but don't make it randomized, then boast your game is “challenging.”

    I generally start a game wanting to like it. Planet Stronghold was no different. After 20 hours and multiple attempts at progressing, I'm giving up and am off to play something else.    … Full Review »
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