Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest

Instant TL:DR; -- Good game. NOT a puzzle game (as suggested in some of the negative reviews), but tactics are required. You simply lack the brute force to brute force your way through no matter how high your level is. Damage output per hit is low compared to general enemy HP. Support and debuff abilities are critical. Manipulating map position to your advantage is vital. Prioritize targets. Think XCom, but fantasy setting, no stealth, and no fog of war. The art is pretty solid for a fixed-angle camera. Music is a matter of personal taste, so I don't tend to comment on it. That said, even if its not your cup of tea, I doubt you'll find it particularly obnoxious. Storyline follows established tropes to a degree, but has a few unique elements and is delivered with a bit of a cynical hand. The ending doesn't really do the rest of the effort put into this justice - its a bit unsatisfying. Still, I give it a solid B+, A- on a good day.
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More detailed review
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Its an interesting game, and as far as I've seen, a fairly unique take on the concept. Several negative reviews have called it a "puzzle game", which is definitely not accurate. There are 5-7 puzzle missions (depending on whether you consider a multipart mission 1 or 3), with 4 being entirely superfluous and skippable if just don't want to do them - ignoring them doesn't impact story progress and rewards are fairly minor and in no way unique. You can even identify those 4 easily, since they all have the word "trial" in their names. That said, it's not a traditional combat RPG either.
My best description of the game would be something like D&D 5E, but with stats and randomness removed. Other similar concepts might be XCOM or Fantasy General II. In Druidstone, the weapon determines damage. The character's class determines its abilities at a given level (you also get to choose each time, with the previous, unchosen ability always available and 2 new choices presented until about half-way through the game). Because there are no stats and damage is purely a function of weaponry and (usually limited use) abilities, there is very limited potential to simply increase your damage. Consistently 1-hitting even very early enemies (like the centipede, first seen in the second mission) even when they appear late-game just simply isn't going happen. Doing higher damage per turn ultimately comes down to finding ways to hit multiple enemies at once, using terrain (holes or edges of maps can be combined with knockback for instant kills - though this doesn't play a central feature to game, which can be completed without using them at all - one singular mission probably excluded, it being 1 part of the 1 unskippable puzzle mission), knocking enemies into one another with knockback attacks (dealing 1 damage to each - assuming no armor or anti-armor ), or inflicting status effects. The nature of this is likely why people complain about a "puzzle" nature to the game, but its not as if you need to follow a pre-defined solution to missions - brute forcing it just doesn't usually work and the tactics required are a little more chess-like than "tank in front, mage in back".
Even with very limited availability of auras, positioning is extremely important. You can get a lot of mileage (no pun intended) from mobility-oriented builds. Moving around the map to drop Void Haunts quickly is a lot less resource-intensive and completes missions faster than dealing with their constant stream of spawns. Inflicting status effects is important. Personally, I tend to get immense value from Slow and Poison, though adding Burn and Bleed DOTs to this set on some missions can be hilariously overpowered since they ignore armor but ARE affected by the "poison" status, thus dealing 4 damage per turn any affected foe. In a game where the biggest enemy in the game has 50 hit points in hard mode and really difficult, tanky enemies have 10 or 12, only very large boss enemies survive this long enough for the burn to wear off after 3 turns, given the most common way to deliver poison causes 2 damage and the most common way to deal burn dishes out 4 or 5 depending on your setup, plus 1 if you poisoned first. Just make sure you can survive inflicting these statuses and dealing with other targets. Damage is dealt at the beginning of YOUR turn, so burned enemy with 1 health remaining still gets to act before it dies. A timely freeze/sleep can also be a game changer, say, for shutting down a particularly annoying, spawn-happy general nuisance on a mission where you're already sacrificing action economy, resources, and position to move, shield, and heal mission-critical NPCs being targeted with lighting by an enemy deity (especially if you decided "Pull" just isn't an ability you want yet).
AI is smart enough to present a challenge, but not brilliant and doesn't necessarily target your objectives with you extreme prejudice. In an early "save the NPCs" mission, the enemy seems to prioritize attacking your characters exclusively and saving the NPCs themselves really is more a matter of wasting your action economy and limiting your AOEs than it is a high-pressure immediate concern. It won't "guard" map positioning objectives, it comes after you. It doesn't run away on timed mission where you might take damage after X turns. It doesn't make an effort to stay out of your range (though that might be a result of your range being ridiculous).
Overall Gameplay gets an A.
The art is pretty well done. There are very few cases where an enemy blends into the background. Maps are interesting, map features that influences you ability to move through them are usually clear - more obvious denotation of which corners can be moved-through diagonally and which can't could be improved but that is something you can usually deal with as you can undo your movement in most cases. Characters can be seen carrying and using their specific equipped weapons. Enemies appear menacing at a level fairly congruent with the degree to which they present a danger and a glance usually indicates whether they'll be attacking at melee or range. Its not AAA art, but its not a AAA game and doesn't come at a AAA price. Make up your own mind on this - Steam's store page images are a solid representation of what you're going to see. For the price and pre-generative AI, solid B+/A- material.
I don't tend to like to comment on music, but even if you don't like it, it won't make your ears bleed.
The storyline follows fairly well-established tropes. It has some interesting elements but don't expect anything earth-shattering. You know this story. It's classic. That said, it is delivered with a pinch more cynicism than average and a some humor - both plusses in my opinion. Characters are a touch less dynamic than is usual - a bit more committed to their paths than is typical. The big twists aren't terribly twisty, none of it is going to blow your mind, a few moments at the end might be more of an eyeroll than the intended shock, and the ending... well... it could have been significantly better. All in all, story gets a C.
All in all, solid tactical gameplay so long as you treat it as a tactical challenge rather than expecting to over-level your characters to outclass the enemy so badly they just die when you look at them. Recommend, 7.5 or 8 out of 10.

Genuinely surprised how good of a time I had with this game. Druidstone is a Tactics/Strategy RPG that combines an amalgam of ideas from across the genre's history and sub-categories and STEEPS it in the energy and writing of Your Roomate's Dungeons and Dragons Game. So much is thrown together and at the wall in such a short runtime for this genre that I've come away with very few truly bad things to say.
Its tactics gameplay is overall quite strong, combining elements in equal measure from a more traditional Strategy RPG (Character Progression, flowing maps with mixed objectives and ganks/twists) and the more recent trend of Strategy Puzzlers (simplifed hit point system, undo-ing moves, heavy emphasis on micro movements and manipulation). I thought it came together quite well, with just enough give and take between playing the game's game and feeling like I could break the game over my knee with clever build ideas.
The whole package is really elevated by its its feel: the rawness, long shots, and occasional baffling misses that come from a smaller team making this.
This is felt especially in the writing: simultaneously bland on its face and occasionally quite striking; oscillating between nonsense, cliche, offensive, and confusing until all I feel is a general and perhaps misplaced charm.

DruidStone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest is a game that doesn't do a lot new in the turn-based tactics genre, but that still means you should check it out as there is a quaint, enjoyable and at times tricky example of the genre here.

Things I enjoyed:
- Classic Turn-based tactics gameplay. You set up your party with the equipment and skills you want, then pick a quest to undertake.
- Felt like a surprising amount of depth in the combat. There were definitely some skills and equipment I didn't give much of a chance to that I can see using in a new playthrough.
- Nails the setting. Absolutely looks and feels like a magical forest.
- The game ran great for me with no issues.

Things I didn't enjoy as much, but you might:
- The story isn't very fleshed out. Feels like there is something interesting there with potential, but I feel like there were some aspects I wanted to be more fleshed out. I particularly felt this with the main villain, who is just sort of 'there'. Cool design though.
- The dialogue at times was funny, but also quite jarring with the setting. Sometimes it landed, sometimes it didn't.

Overall, I definitely recommend the game for fans of the genre. I enjoyed my time and I'm sure I'll revisit it.

I finished this game with The Warden achievement which means I beat every mission on hard and didn't ever take a mission on any other difficulty level so keep in mind everything I say is in that context.

I found this to be a surprisingly fun and engaging game. The difficulty of some of the battles is greatly diminished when you come back to them later with upgraded spells or more powerful items, but there is definitely a great deal of trial and error to finding the right cadence to the harder fights. The music is nice, the plot is pretty bog standard but it really won't get in your way of enjoying the strategic combat.

The game is 90% combat 10% inventory and spell management, so about the combat: there are loads of options and most fights are a bit of choose your own adventure. I will say the last fight, which is appropriately the hardest, has a few weird things to it which make it pretty much a DPS race and nearly impossible without some RNG, unlike a lot of the other parts of the game which I found kind of disappointing but this is really a small complaint. Most of the game stresses positioning and action economy (of course with DPS sprinkled in) and I found it a lot of fun to maneuver my way to objectives instead of blasting them. In any case, most of the time you are against the clock in terms of how many turns it takes you to complete certain objectives and blasting is a matter of necessity and not usually a valid route to victory.

I found my time with this game enchanting and definitely recommend it.

Its a fun game with good progression and a functional story. I like it, especially for the discounted price its often available at. Even full price it would be worth it I think.

A strange game. It can't decide if it's a Turn-based tactics RPG or a puzzle game. A simplistic system that scales to higher difficulties.

The story is extremely predictable and the production quality is actually fairly low on the "interludes". The game almost feels "unfinished".

I would recommend if you enjoy tactics RPGs, but only on a deep discount.

Beautiful tactics game, which plays almost like a puzzle at times. Narrative is also quite good.