Elin

I could not narrate the average sequence of events I would go through in a day of this game without being institutionalized.

It's 3 am currently and for some reason, I decided to write this as an "early post-tutorial" review after 80 odd hours in this wonderful little game as my character is currently sat in one of the cities, perfecting his harp play, preparing for his musical debut, while his bodyguard and a trusty steed, that being a centaur, is watching over him with a loaded M16 with the safety off. No, I'm not joking.
Frankly, I've no idea where to begin. I suppose let's begin with the graphics, because, don't let those fool you. As simple and familiar as they might be, the game running beneath that is anything but. Joking aside, the pixel art may be RPGmaker-esque but all the small assets and little items made to fit the world look wonderful and clean, which makes building your homestead (which is something you do here) surprisingly clean, enjoyable and makes it rather easy to build structures that, even if simple, are rather nice and cozy.
Now, the story is... there? For those that care, what little I've seen of it, it's actually fairly interesting with a bit of political intrigue, mysticism and the good ol' interference of the gods where they have no business being. That said, it feels like almost an afterthought to be honest. The game doesn't really pressure you into doing anything or force any urgent stakes. I've personally spent several in-game years building, exploring, dungeon delving, farming, dying (we'll get to that one), learning skills and first and foremost understanding the esoteric nature of this game, because believe me, some s*** in this game is flat out weird thanks to its procedural nature that seems to be deliberately freeform to create the most insane scenarios and items on purpose. Now, you might say "Wow, that seems like a mess" and while in most cases, I'd agree with you, if you pay the least bit of attention to the lore, the chaotic state of the world actually makes sense as there are 10 gods in total, each with their own "domain" and each of these domains are thrown into the melting pot that is this world, yet none of these gods seem to exactly know how to run things and purposefully or accidentally get into each other's way... They are also physical beings that you can find or attract into the physical plain, because that's a thing you can do. That's why you can have literal dinosaurs inhabiting the same dungeon as high-tech murder bots and that's exactly why in this game you can be the just and honorable knight or a SWAT commando in full ballistic armor with SPAS-12 shotgun loaded with adamantite slugs for maximum penetration.
With that mentioned, we get into the mechanics and... my god... is this game complex, basically you start with nothing except a handful of recipes, a bland piece of land that you get tricked into owning, a VERY short tutorial that teaches you almost nothing and then you get a slap on the back and/or a*s and off you go. You have to FIND every crafting recipe either through questing or looting and uh... you can craft basically EVERYTHING you see in the game. Like the wall style in one of the cities? You can make that. Like a decoration? You can make that. Like a piece of furniture? You can make that. Or you can take it/buy it/steal it. And believe me, there are a lot of those, as in, probably couple thousand. Oh yeah, and because you own aforementioned land, you have to pay taxes. So... better figure how to make money or the IRS is going to get involved and they are not going to be nice or bring lube. But let's assume you get a hold of that and manage to scrounge enough to cover your tax bill. Well? You have to go and hand it in into one of the cities. So get out there and oh no... there is a whole world out there.
The global map, it's a continent and it's full, both with static cities and procedural dungeons that serve as your technical occupation as you are, after all, an adventurer also... well, you technically never have to step foot into one and just become a farmer, but let's assume you do. So, you hand your taxes in and discover the quest board, on the quest board are several things, first a listing, then a scoreboard and in case of your own settlement a recruitment of workers as well. The quest listings are for people with a myriad of demands of the most random things, from the usual monster extermination to item requests, which... can be exceptionally bizarre, to farm requests, to performing at music banquets etc. The scoreboard? That contains all other adventurers in the world, yes they are actual NPCs you can find, ranked from E to S rank, and you being a little baby, are an E rank, and everyone above you is laughing at you. It's there to basically insult you, so you work your way up and laugh back at them. So, you do quests. You work. You improve. You build. Choose and believe in your god, earning divine favor, or in some cases the God himself as your party member. You buy more land. You pay your taxes. You become respected. You become rich. You step foot into the dungeons, fight bosses, get OHKO nuked and wipe by a boss that just happened to roll all the exact modifiers to absolutely roll your overconfident dumb*ss, you find magical artifacts powerful enough to clear the map in a microsecond and that's when you realize. This game is literally Runescape with 0 sanity checks, it's an old school grind, except there is no balance, there never was, with every perfect set you build, you can push deeper, fight stronger enemies, find better loot, gain more stats, become stronger again and do you want to know the best part? The world accounts for it. It is built with the intent of accommodating you becoming a force of nature and it provides you with all the tools you will need to accomplish it. Although, it won't give them up without lynching you first. It's great.
Now, all that I've said are exceptionally and I mean EXCEPTIONALLY long term effort results. The end of which I've not even seen myself yet, hell I've not even scratched the surface, and only know about them because of slight spoilers I've been doing my best to avoid, seeing as I've had to absorb countless fan articles about various ambiguous items the game throws at you with zero explanation. Before you ask. Yes, it's entirely possible to play this game blind and I've tried, believe me, I did. But some things contain such leaps of logic, you have nearly no chance of figuring them out yourself, outside of complete accident. So, feel no shame when looking up answers in this game. To summarize this. Elin is a wonderful and unbelievably autistic project distilled to near 100% pure dopamine. If you grew up playing games where you chased stats, this is the ultimate one. Because no matter what you choose to chase, no matter what path you choose to walk, all of them are viable and all of them are infinitely scalable.
The only things that are obviously going against it are two-fold, the learning curve. It's a learning cliff, enough said. And the ambiguous nature of combat. The game can go from really easy to "Oops, you are dead" really quickly depending on how the RNG rolls. You could steamroll dungeons by the dozen and then hit a brick wall seemingly out of nowhere. Not to mention early on, this problem is exacerbated, since you won't have a pool of stats to cushion yourself or an idea of what you are even doing, so enemies just one-shot you out of seemingly nowhere. Want advice? Get a bow or a gun... or a couple of meat shie-I mean, party members! Going alone vs. going with a group of 5 or even 8 (or more with mods) is actually quite fun and believe it or not, it doesn't ruin the difficulty since what one-shots you, likely one shots all of your friends too. 10/10. There are ton of things I didn't mention, because frankly, Steam doesn't allow me to write an essay that long, but I'll absolutely be writing part 2, presumably after 500 hours or more...

The first 10 hours of this game you are going to feel so lost but keep finding more things to do. Same with the second 10 hours, and third 10 hours. I'm 30 hours in and I do not know what I am doing but this game is incredible.

I added two new people to my party, a knight and an orc and went to a low level cave to try to make them stronger and find some gear for them. On the third floor the orc wanders off and I pay no mind to it. 2 minutes later, something dies in the distance. I've beat the dungeon. The orc wanders back over and regroups with the party. This guy just solo'd the dungeon boss with nothing but a bucket hat and wooden sword. He then proceeded to die in one hit to a spider.

The base building is a lot of fun, and the dungeon exploring has been a blast. Reminds me a lot of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, but much more difficult. Only gripe I have so far though is the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ monsters that can use fire based attacks will burn all the food in your pockets and some of your armor if it's flammable and it forces me to go forage so I don't keel over from hunger.

Stardew Valley if it was made by Japanese Schizophrenics

This is the kind of game you that you start new, binge for 40 hours, start to get the hang of it and forget about for 6 months. Play again not knowing what is going on, start a new game, binge for 40 hours, start to get the hang of it and forget about for 6 months. rinse and repeat.
I love the game, but never know what's going on.

This game is not what it seems. I thought it was gonna be another typical SRPG when I looked at the screenshots, but some people on my friends list were playing it so much I had to see why.
Glad I did. I got quite a bit of enjoyment out of it.
There is no denying it is very indie, I believe one guy makes it, and he is using very simple and dated assets to be sure. However, there are a number of things that set this game apart:
) You can get multiple plots of land and build on them
) There are more than a dozen crafting stations and most have dozens (plural) of recipes
) You can recruit and summon all manner of characters and animals, equip them, and progress their stats
) Your own stats and abilities are nearly infinitely progressable.
) As you build and grow things they often get better stats, sale price, or other bonuses
) There are a very good selection of skills to level up, with many unique classes and races.
For example, I can collect seeds from the wild, craft a watering can, shovel, hoe, plant the seeds, water them, go run some dungeons, come back, reap them with my sickle, and find that they have +1 charisma on them. I can then go make a salad with them, eat it, and repeat that enough to see my charisma stat go up, to where I can recruit a chicken. I can take the chicken into dungeons with me, get him exp, give him some gold to train in town, and see his abilities to go up. While I am in town, I can play a song on some silk panties I found, and then have people throw stones at me and kill me, because I was so horrible my music skill. Oh, I can also put my wizard on my shoulders and ride my chicken while I do it.
I do wish the combat gave you a bit more tactical control. It is the roguelike combat where you bump into someone to swing. There are a number of spells, ranged weapons, bombs, potions, rods and staves, and other items though that make combat interesting enough.
I think I spent a good 100 hours just getting my little initial group of adventurers together, making them salads, turning fish into wine, and selling it all while building my initial little village/camp with a store where tourists came to buy my wine often enough for me to pay taxes. It was all very engaging.
After you figure out all the systems, delve a few 100 floors into dungeons, and get 3 villages setup, it might not be as interesting, but I think for $20, getting to that point with 100s of hours where neurons are actually firing, is a good deal.

I can give harpies weed and convince them to join my farm to make harpy milk and an unstoppable mobile militia with shotguns and magic spells.... yeah keep reading, it gets better.

You can literally do ANYTHING in this game, for better or worse. I've never played a game, in three decades, with such limitless freedom. To call it a sandbox RPG with roguelite dungen crawling would be an understatement. Want to be a drug dealer selling catnip wine to an army of felines and their cat goddess? Check. Want to romance a lich and start a happy little stardew farm together? Check. Want to be the hero of all time and take down gods with pokeballs, taming them as your eternal pets? Check. Want to piss off a god and get punished with a massive ball of death? Check. Want to turn your hard earned fish, walls mined out of dungeons to get to a new path, and literal grass into wine and weapons of mass destruction? Check. Want to be a succubus and do succubus things and level up for it? Check. Want to be a cute fluffy cat/fox girl who everyone naturally loves and pets? Check.

You should ask yourself what you CAN'T do rather than what you can... and the answer is... I'll get back to you on that.

Buy this game!