By Adam Smith on December 17th, 2012 at 10:00 am.
Chaos Chronicles was announced back in August, which is so long ago that I’d entirely forgotten that the game was in development. When I saw the trailer at 8.30 this morning I was still half asleep, and twenty seconds of music that might as well be a man repeatedly saying ‘this is a fantasy RPG’ along with short scenes of characters running around and doing very little almost tipped me back into unconsciousness. And then hexes appeared and the turn-based part of my brain woke up and immediately went into overwatch. Observe.
The developers previously worked on Jagged Alliance: Back In Action, which showed an understanding of how to make tactical combat interesting, even if the game as a whole didn’t quite come together.
17/12/2012 at 10:13 JackDandy says:
Oh, fuck YES.
I’ve been really wanting to play something like this. Will keep an eye out for this one.
17/12/2012 at 10:19 Memphis-Ahn says:
Agreed, mite b cool.
17/12/2012 at 10:41 frightlever says:
Reminds me, somewhat, of Temple of Elemental Evil from Troika.
17/12/2012 at 14:03 harrylimet says:
on this note i would like to know the hive mind`s opinion on temple of elemental evil . is it worth playing after the community had years to fix it ?
17/12/2012 at 14:52 pegolius says:
Funny enough I installed the latest CO8 Patch ( http://www.co8.org/forum/ ) just two days ago because I was in “need to play something from the backlog”-mode and I have to say that with this patch ToEE is very much playable. It even manages to fix the pathing issues to some extend.
17/12/2012 at 14:56 harrylime says:
thanks for the fast reply. as its currently supercheap on gog i guess i will give it a go
17/12/2012 at 17:13 werix says:
Thanks for this, ToEE is one of the games on my back log. I can get to it once I finish The Witcher, The witcher 2, Planescape: torment, Baulder’s gate 1 and 2 . . . and the list goes on. I was deprived and didnt play any of the old Iso-metric RPGs growing up save Fallout 1 and 2.
But yeah, when I get around to it, ill play with this patch.
17/12/2012 at 15:01 squareking says:
If you’re not easily turned off by standard D&D character creation and development, it’s very easily worth your time. It was one of the first D&D-type things I played, so it was mostly trial and error, but I stuck with it because I found it so engaging. Definitely grab the Circle of 8 modpack for your first playthrough — they killed hundreds of bugs and added delicious new stuff. The combat is exceptional, the visuals have aged extremely well, the writing is great, there’s quite a lot of replayability…it’s on sale now on GOG and might be cheaper if they have an RPG daily sale, too.
17/12/2012 at 17:26 harmlos says:
Depends on what you’re looking for. If you are looking for an RPG with an engaging story, look elsewhere. If you’re looking for a game that does tactical combat in a D&D setting really well, look no further.
17/12/2012 at 10:16 bill says:
I’ve always thought watching parties of adventurers run around makes for a really boring looking trailer.
But I just watched The Hobbit and now i think it looks like all the long shots in that movie.
17/12/2012 at 10:20 FurryLippedSquid says:
I want to put my thing in this game.
17/12/2012 at 10:34 gravity_spoon says:
Fantasy….rpg
*snore*
How about someone make an isometric sci-fi arpg this time ? I don’t recall any except “Greed Black Border” which could hardly be called as a hallmark of that type.
17/12/2012 at 10:43 frightlever says:
For someone who wants a SF ARPG you haven’t been paying attention. There was Space Hack and Space Siege, also Metalhearts (less said the better) and… oh. At least another one. Edit: and Dark Spore.
17/12/2012 at 11:01 gravity_spoon says:
Space Siege looks equivalent to (if not worse than) Greed and I played DarkSpore when it came out. It was a fucking mess. See this is the reason why there needs to be more sci-fi isometric arpgs. There is no innovation in that area and there is only so many times one can save the world from an ancient mystical evil.
17/12/2012 at 11:03 Zanchito says:
Yeh, all Sci-fi ARPGs in memory are pretty terrible, thats a pity.
17/12/2012 at 11:07 elsparko says:
+1
Who wants to see the n-th installment of some Tolkien-clone world…
17/12/2012 at 12:23 Lawful Evil says:
I want…
19/12/2012 at 10:38 Tuco says:
I frankly don’t give a damn about the setting.
It’s an interesting turn based, party based tactical RPG.
That’s pretty much all I need to know.
17/12/2012 at 12:24 SooSiaal says:
Have you checked out Underrail? Isometric sci-fi rpg thats currently in alpha stage.
*edit*
http://www.underrail.com/ a link for you lazy lot, also, it is turn based
17/12/2012 at 13:28 InternetBatman says:
There’s also Harbinger, by Silverback games. It’s kinda meh. But this isn’t an ARPG, so I don’t know why you’re complaining.
17/12/2012 at 18:15 Dances to Podcasts says:
The idea that you’d have to go from fantasy to scifi for a fresh perspective seems weird since those are the two big cliches of gaming.
How about a high school setting? Steampunk? Colonial times? Polynesian trade? Streetgangs? Chinese history?
17/12/2012 at 20:24 gravity_spoon says:
I did not say lets limit it to sci-fi did I ? And yes that is how a change is perspective is needed ? I am getting fucking tired of elves and dwarves in aprgs after about a decade.
17/12/2012 at 10:39 man-eater chimp says:
I also have a similar part of my brain that immediately wakes me up if I come across turn-based video games I’m the morning.
Other stimuli’s include bacon, permadeath and juggling.
17/12/2012 at 10:43 ThatAznGuy says:
I’m intrigued to say the least. Won’t pre-order it like I did with Jagged Alliance since we all know how that ended.
17/12/2012 at 10:48 Th30n says:
Combat is turn based!
It has hexes!
The game mechanics are based on D&D 3.5 OGL Ruleset and the developers are particularly inspired by Temple of Elemental Evil from Troika!
I think I have a winner for my most anticipated turn based tactical CRPG :D
Not gonna preorder though, because they really botched the Jagged Alliance remake :(
17/12/2012 at 10:56 PoulWrist says:
Must be rather losely based then, ’cause D&D 3.5 uses squares, not hexes O.o
17/12/2012 at 10:59 f1x says:
That changes everything!
17/12/2012 at 11:22 Crosmando says:
Not sure about the hexes/squares thing, but the game definitely is using the 3.5 OGL (Open Game License) rules system, which is the open-source version of D&D 3.5 edition, they state such on their dev blog.
The developers actually post quite a bit on Rpgcodex, because RPS is too casual you see :)
17/12/2012 at 11:35 Th30n says:
Compared to RPGCodex… RPS is too casual :D
I’m surprised the devs do post on Codex, I wonder how will they feel when the game will be available for playing. Codex will tear it down if they spot any flaws.
But then again, that is the reason I visit Codex – to get a review with expectations and criteria so high as to meet my own :D
17/12/2012 at 11:45 Crosmando says:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/chaos-chronicles-discussion-thread.76538/
You’ll notice they haven’t been spared any criticism, especially regarding that ill-fated Jagged Alliance sequel.
17/12/2012 at 11:48 Michael Hoss says:
We do also post here. In the forums. And even in the comments! Ninja’d!
17/12/2012 at 12:35 pakoito says:
The do post in our forums. Look at this apology for JA:BIA
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?7292-Chaos-Chronicles-spiritual-sucessor-of-Temple-of-Elemental-Evil&p=230005&viewfull=1#post230005
17/12/2012 at 12:39 Michael Hoss says:
It was not meant as an apology. Just as an explanation why some people were satisfied and some were not.
17/12/2012 at 16:12 pakoito says:
They didn’t apologize == WORSE_THAN_HITLER
17/12/2012 at 15:06 Bob_Bobson says:
I really hope this nails turn based D&D 3.5 OGL. It’s a system that’s perfect for tactical party based combat with a computer doing some of the heavy lifting and yet as far as I know there are no games that use it (ToEE and NWN don’t count – pause often isn’t the same as turn based. Not better or worse necessarily but not the same tactical experience I really want). Hexes or squares makes no difference to me, so long as positioning matters.
17/12/2012 at 11:44 vedder says:
I read Dishonored Diaries :(
17/12/2012 at 12:01 SuperNashwanPower says:
I also did this
17/12/2012 at 12:52 Atrocious says:
Lol! Yep, I also read it. “How the f*** is this related to Dishonored? …. Ah, I see.”
Looks like an interesting game though!
17/12/2012 at 11:49 Kem0sabe says:
If the game is anything like the previous game from these guys… JA Back in action, then i won´t be expecting too much from Chaos Chronicles.
Anyways, the level graphics at least look nice, characters not so much.