Ember
“Back in the earliest days, there was no sun and the world was dark. The heavens opened up and stars fell like beacons into the pitch black world, and they were known as “Embers”. Powerful and wise druids of a primordial race, “the Lightbringers," roamed the land searching for this luminous matter. They performed a ritual of awakening to call the “Embers” out of their deep sleep. Suddenly the world became bright, and the veil of darkness was lifted. The Embers were the embodiment of magical flame, light, and life, but as word spread about the sheer power of the Embers, they came to be hunted and captured…and so the War for Ember began…” A passion project 10 years in the making, Ember is a homage to classic role-playing games (RPG). Enter the world of Ember as a resurrected “Lightbringer” summoned to protect the dying Embers as the world is on the brink of collapse.
Game Discussion
Steam User 3
YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I finally finished it!!!
I was looking for an RPG that doesn't have 3 million walls of texts and each skill requires an essay of 30+ pages to read... And then you have fifteen hundred other skills all over the place... That makes me only understand one and there are so many stats... That you start to wonder how you will ever make it through life again...?
Well in this game...! There are simple rules. Simple tactics. There are ONLY 3 equippable skills and 2 passive skills.
The game teaches you the Basics, drops you off and then you go explore and do what needs to be done.
I liked almost everything. The opening CG, the ending CG, the quests, the decisions, the skills, the... You get it. All was fun!!!
I did however think my character was a bit too dumb lol. I mean... They told him stuff and he forgot it immediately. I have to forgive him I suppose... He is a corpse n all.
The companions... Well, those surely blindly followed me everywhere and agreed on everything I did lol. Granted I am a nice companion, but... They were okay with me murdering a guy in the middle of the night because he was a baddie and wouldn't give me the ITEM I needed?! Eh well. I found it hilarious.
Oh yeah! The Books! I liked the stories in them. Some I couldn't find a continuation to and then realized... Maybe I shouldn't... *-*
Ah yeah and running everywhere... 's okay up until the end of the game, especially when you have everything you wanted... You wish you could ride the horse... I don't know if you could... I couldn't find the stables anymore and the polar bears tried to kill me, instead of letting me ride them. D:
Last thing... You gotta be really close to an item to actually have it pop up as interactable. Our MC doesn't have really good Depth Perception.
Either way, this was worth it. I may not have been overly attached to anything or emotional about it... Up until the end. Good stuff.
YEAH!!!
Steam User 2
I got this game several years ago but never got to play it until now. It clearly shows it's age. The beginning was pretty rough, moving around the map with point and click felt really clunky and in chokepoints it was sometimes hard to navigate if one of your partymembers blocked the others. Overall it was hard getting used to especially since holding the mouse down lets you move the camera.
In that regard, fighting felt really clunky aswell as you only have limited options at your disposal while your party fights enemies on their own. You can pause the game at any point to individually move your partymembers out of harms way. You have 3 active skills at your disposal that are tied to the Weapon and Armor you use. Skills cost mana, but since they have no cooldown, you are encouranged to pause the game mid fight over and over in order to activate skills on all 3 characters. This makes fighting optimally more tactical but not exciting at all.
But if you pull through and endure the beginning, you'll rapidly notice that underneath all these rough systems, there's a lot of love poured into the game despite the clearly showing lack of budget. The Story is rather generic (hero's quest) but they added lots of side dialogue and lore-books if you want to know more about the world. The pacing is really good between advancing main story and doing side quests on the way. The Areas look nice and the map artwork is beautiful.
Along the way you'll find lots of food, herbs and ore to mine that are used for crafting. They put a lot of work into the different types: cooking, woodworking, tailoring, alchemy and blacksmithing. You can buy recipies from vendors or obtain them by looting chests. While there's really a LOT of different ingredients, the crafting menu was terribly inconvenient. So much that besides some basic cooking i didnt further bother diving into it and used the items i found along the way or bought from vendors. Really missed potential
Inventory management is clean with each item using up one space in your 99 slot bag. Later in the game you'll find additional 16 slot bags for more inventory space but unfortunately item stacks dont merge (so if you put 1 iron ore in one of you small bags to make room in the big bag, mining another iron ore will still use up space in the big bag as you have 2 stacks of 1 ore each until you manually drag it). Each item you find has a description that tells you exactly what it is used for so you can easily distinguish items used in crafting from items beeing solely useful to make gold selling to vendors.
Character progression is basic. You have 3 types: Melee in Heavy Armor using Strenght as main Attribute, Ranged in leather armor using Dexterity and Magic in light Armor using Intelligence. The 4th Attribute is Vitality for more Health. As mentioned before, skills are tied to the Weapon/Armor you use so you can test around which ones fit your playstyle most
The game itself runs very well and i havent encountered a single bug in the game, so kudos to the programming team. Steam achievements are easily obtainable in one playthrough with one exception: After visiting the giants cliffs for the first time and beeing sent back to the city of light, save the game before accepting the quest, do the quest in one way until you receive the achievement, then reload the game and do it the other way for the second achievement (there are steamguides explaining this). There are 2 different endings to the story, you can either replay the final bossfight reloading the game, or watch the alternative ending sequence on youtube.
Conclusion:
Despite it's sometimes very rough edges, i enjoyed my playthrough in Ember. It's clear the developers put a lot of love in their game with much attention to detail. If you can look past the flaws i mentioned above, you'll have yourself a fine little 20h adventure.
Steam User 1
6/10. It's good! Definitely above average.
The plot starts off basic, you begin as a newly resurrected Lightbringer that gets charged with saving the world. The lore behind the world is quite extensive and in-depth. There's a lot of optional books to read and it's clear there was a lot of thought put into the lorecrafting and world building.
UI is a little bit amateurish. Could have picked a different default font other than Arial...it feels very mobile gamey.
The music is very good. Some of it feels nostalgic -- reminds me of WoW night elf areas.
Voice acting is hit or miss. Not all lines are voiced.
Combat can be a bit boring at times but it's serviceable. There are no spells that you actually learn -- it's all connected to whatever gear you're wearing at the time.
There are some side quests, but nothing that actually explores side characters or your companions. It's a very plot-focused game with a couple twists but no real character development. It's an entertaining game though.
Steam User 0
A good little B-tier RPG game for under $10. Plot has fairly good tongue in cheek humor as it offers the usual tropes but makes pithy comments about them at the same time. Linear main path with a few optional side quests. Almost no character customization/builds or companion choices (pick 2 of the 3 offered). Minimal voice acting. Extensive crafting system for armor, weapons, and aids that is also almost entirely unnecessary (learn a few foods and 3 potions (health, energy, and ironskin for the hard fights and that's all you really need). Not particularly difficult on normal mode (didn't try hard mode). But for all of that, an enjoyable little romp for 35 hours following the main plot and seeing what comes next, so for me worth the sale price for a single run through (Not much replay value).
Steam User 0
Really fun game. If you're looking for a game like Dragon age origin, this is a good fit.
Steam User 0
Interesting game slowly putting things together it takes time to build. It has challenging parts. Think about movement think about your attacks. A slight learning curve. But play it slow and smart and can be successful.
Steam User 0
the engine is very good, it makes the game a flow. looks and sounds good and the ui is also well designt. only skills should be placable on keys but until now this game is making me happy.
let'S check out the story ^^