SWORD LORDS - WILL OF THE WITCH QUEEN

I dumped about 2 hours of game time into this and I'll have to say I'm very impressed with the game and the story. It's easy to follow, and the dungeons are challenging yet not tedious. The difficulty scaling as you progress in the areas feels natural and I absolutely love the Rune (materia) style magic that evolves as you gain experience. I played a simlar game that I purchased on steam and that game froze quite a lot. I didn't experience any freezing on this game. 

I know it's a demo I won't critique too hard, one thing I  noticed was when purchasing the accessories on for the main character I couldn't equip it through the shop upon purchase. I was able to equip it in the menu so no big deal on that. The other thing I noticed was that it showed only one out of the two accessories that you can have equipped. Again this is a demo so I'm sure that was already polished up.

The other thing I ran into was near the end before you get the a new way to transport. (Don't wanna give away any spoilers) The main character's custom name switched back to default as the key item was exchanged for the reward and remained through the end of Chapter 1.

Again these were very minor things and overall the story was solid. I was able to connect with the main character. I absolutely loved seeing the character models in the status window, that added a really nice touch to the immersion. It was a great world it was very well constructed. And it scratched my retro game itch big time with the music and battle/boss scores.

I hope to see this game get finished. I donated because I'm sure that took a lot of time and effort to build and put together. Great work MurdockBerk, you made a really solid game.

Itch won't let me paste in a review, so I'll paste it here as a comment:

Sword Lords is an 8-bit style RPG with a deep combat system, and an openness of using equipment to truly customize your party of 3 to your liking. Took me 2.5 hours to complete the demo, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The big appeal is the game managed to hit that 8-bit NES vibe with art, characters, and music. The boss music is particularly good.

You begin with a single character, and over time, expand your party into three. Combat is where the game shines. Characters have typical fighting, and magic, but they also have skills that use skill points which build during battle. Increasing your character levels through combat will unlock new skills. Runes when used in empty equipment slots will add magic to a character. Some characters are worse with magic than others, but you have that choice for customization with plenty of spells. With each party member able to have two relics, that rounds out the customization nicely with certain bonuses anywhere you want them, whether it's more attack strength, defense, magic power, luck, or speed. These elements arrive very early in the game, but never feel overwhelming to grasp, despite there being so much.

With this being a demo, there is a single region to explore with 4 settlements. Each settlement has a surprising amount of exploration in towns with rewards everywhere for those willing to check every dresser drawer. It could almost be considered a thief simulator from how much you can pilfer in a single town. Beyond that, the mine rewards those for exploring every nook, and cranny. Most of the dungeons aren't nearly as rewarding, and a bit more straight forward.

Each town has several shops with a wide array of items to keep you fighting, runes to customize your arms, and a few select pieces of equipment. Inns recover health, and magic points at a fair price compared to the greater expense of coffee to restore mana, and crosses to revive your deceased allies. This is one of the few RPGs where items felt useful, even when magic became so abundant.

The quests were formulaic, someone would tell you where you need to go, you go there, the story unfolds, you enter a combat area, defeat a boss to get a special item, then you return to get a new quest that will be unlocked with the special item you just earned. It all fits into a bite-sized 30+ minutes each. The story didn't feel overbearing. Every character had motivations, and connections to the world, but that didn't really feel like a standout like the combat, and style. The world would also change as the series of quests built to something. A town would be on fire, with smoke all around. Merchants would mention what's changed in town, but still be willing to sell their wares. Townspeople, and soldiers also point out that they know only you can accomplish a mission, and so they'd give you things, rather than simply selling them to you.

The only real down-sides that I see are lack of full screen. Maximize works, but full screen just doesn't. Once you've gone into the final dungeon, you're not allowed out. However, you have plenty of save file slots, and auto-saves to go back to. It's still beatable, even if you might have no choice, but to press on in that finale. There needs to be battles with more, but weaker enemies, and enemies that have different shapes and sizes. Bosses are big, but there can be some common enemies that are large as well.

Hopefully the game continues with more of this formula of several missions, each building to a finale of the region, and then driving you to a different region. If it doesn't make it to that point, this demo was still very enjoyable.

Found this on scored. Seems interesting, lots of promise. Will give it a try and if it looks good. I'd be down for buying the rest of the full game. I hope it gains native controller support in the end.