Flowstone Saga

Another game that got its start via Kickstarter, Flowstone Saga is a 16 bit RPG that contains puzzle elements and a fighting mechanic that may or may not resemble a certain Russian puzzle game that made it big on Game Boy...

Taking on the role of amnesiac Mirai, a young girl who was found a year prior and adopted by a small village. On one of her frequent excursions  she discovers a mystical artifact known as the Flowstone, which allows the young girl to help her adopted village by harnessing the magic within. However, these acts of kindness draw unwanted attention, and it's not long before you're thrust into a larger world of adventure and peril. Classic RPG storytelling, and fans of the genre should find this pretty familiar.

I found myself picking this up for an hour initially and then spending four exploring, taking on tasks to improve the village, fighting pirates and experimenting with the game's many battle mechanics. I only stopped as it was midnight and all the house lights turned themselves off...

You can earn money by defeating monsters, finding treasure or completing tasks, spending it on upgrades, new items for your house or even weapons to improve your attack power. Everything is well laid out, simple to understand and slightly addictive. The tasks you undertake for the village (and you'll know when these are available via an icon over their heads) involve mining for materials, growing food or obtaining key items for new facilities, so as your skills grow, so too does your village. It all blends perfectly to make a very satisfying experience, far more so than I expected from a little indie RPG.

The secret to this addictive quality is the integration of the block puzzle game that drives everything. Need to unlock a temple? Puzzle game. Fighting? Puzzle game. Mining? You get the idea. But the fact that you can adopt frog spirits to change the nature of the blocks and the width of the grid allows for some interesting variations on how this puzzle game plays out. You have block effects that can be manipulated for extra damage, such as fire which will continue to damage an enemy after your initial attack, bombs and other items that make the grid engaging. Furthermore you can have two active buffs too (my favourite is the one that lets you just chuck a block at the enemy for instant damage). So more than just an homage, it takes the idea and really runs with it. 

And if you suck at puzzle games, the game will even give you an easy mode so that the blocks don't fall unless you move them, and this can be toggle any time if you're stuck. This is a smart way to make the game accessible to everyone, and not just my sister-in-law, who's a block stacking demon.

Graphically, the game certainly has an indie look to it. It's all very competently presented, but it lacks the pixel-art genius of a Square RPG like Octopath Traveller. Effects are by contrast more modern affairs, but the mix of the two is handled well and you'll soon get used to the look and feel of the game. I did like the variety in locations, moving from fantasy woodland to modern industrial and beyond made the journey feel more epic and provided a sense of place to the whole affair. 

Locations are varied and visually interesting

One of the big standouts for me was the music - it's absolutely stellar, from the haunting melody of the opening screen (with some lovely character art I must say!) through to the powerful tracks that accompany the combat, this is an adventure with a wonderful musical accompaniment. Furthermore you can mess with this too, creating a playlist of your favourites to play during battles. It's the little touches like this that elevate the game from standard JRPG to a game that seems like a genuine passion project. You can listen to the overture on Youtube Music and I do confess I had access to a few tracks in the asset drive for the game but will buy the rest first chance I get.

I don't want to go into spoilers as the game is so much fun to play I want to leave as much intact as possible, but it's very clear that Impact Gameworks has put a lot of thought into this game - there's very little backtracking, map travel is instant (so no long slogs with random monsters every few minutes) you can flee any battle you don't want to fight and generally it just really comes across that this game wants you to have fun playing the game. It's dumped a lot of time-sink mechanics of older RPG's and instead created a beautiful, fun romp that maximises your enjoyment by removing the twaddle, taking out the guesswork and making everything clear and concise. It's easily the most fun I've had playing an RPG lately, you're just instantly involved with a great central character, addictive battle system and friendly world that, incidentally, looks great on Steam Deck (text is all very readable).

It's almost impossible to believe that I find this little RPG more appealing than a lot of big studio RPG's, but here we are. The game is a perfect nugget of RPG love and I'd urge everyone to seek it out. So good in fact that I'll pick up a physical edition on Switch if we're lucky enough to get one, just to look at the spine on my shelf.

If that's not infatuation, what is?