Guardians Of The Rose Is Zelda Meets The Elder Scrolls
Promise of choice
Guardians of the Rose [official site] is a skill-based action RPG that plants you in the shoes of a guild master out to achieve world peace. Alongside customisable stats, skills and gear, you have the power to recruit any NPC, any enemy and "even a few" of the game's bosses in your quest for unity, so say developers Pixel x Pixel Games, however can also be swayed by the forces of evil depending on the choices you make.
Yes, it's another pixel-heavy retro-inspired throwback, but citing inspiration such as old school Zelda, Gauntlet, Ragnarok Online, and the Elder Scrolls series has led to Guardians of the Rose being recently wrapping up a successful crowdfunding campaign. In any event, aesthetics aside, the choice-driven depth it promises is what's caught my eye. Trailer time:
"Make your way across a blood-soaked continent to oppose the forces that have taken your kingdom," explains Guardian of the Rose's Kickstarter blurb as to what it's all about. "Steal ancient relics from wraith-kings. Bring down underground cities of the Old Kingdom. Risk your sanity as you travel through the cursed Clock Valleys. Hunt by moonlight to draw out creatures of the night. Venture into the snow-ridden Mountain Lands and discover hidden temples in the wild. Explore the Unfellable Forest while being chased by Sand Giants. Encounter river spirits, groundlings, and dragons alike."
Sounds alright, doesn't it? If you'd like to catch up with more of the game's lore you should head over to the above-linked Kickstarter page, however what I'm most interested in is the way in which Guardian of the Rose lets you interact with its environments and population.
Your alignment towards good or evil is based on your actions, see, which means slaying monsters to save villages, for example, helps you earn "good points." Conversely, engaging in shady activities, such as stealing or killing innocent civilians, ups your evil quota and your alignment ultimately affects how NPCs respond to you and how your story plays out. It does sound very Elder Scrolls/Fallout-y, but intriguing all the same.
With peace the end-game, change can by ascertained by inciting revolution from the shadows or by engaging in full-blown war and while I'm well aware Guardians of the Rose is promising a lot with a relatively modest budget, I'm nonetheless keen to see how it develops and, crucially, what it will and/or won't deliver on. It'll launch "May 2017" according to the Kickstarter and I for one will be watching this space.