Ephemeral Tale

Update to previous review:
The developer has already delivered a balance patch *two balance patches* on day 1, and is looking at further adjusting in order to balance the game out even more. It looks as if my benefit of the doubt was not misplaced. I have a lot of faith in this game, and even more faith in the developer now that I know he's responsive, and really cares what people think of his work.
The loot tables could still use some adjusting imo, especially in the tutorial cave, where to me it felt like nothing ever dropped besides Potions, but maybe that's intended or I was just unlucky. The enemies in the Forgotten Forest also felt pretty broken, but maybe that's just because I was gear-starved from the tutorial cave. I will continue to play the game and see how it goes. All things considered, I'm raising my intial review score significantly.
OVERALL RATING: 8/10
Review previous to January 14th patch below:
Steam doesn't have a neutral option for reviews, so I'm opting for Recommended, to give the developer benefit of the doubt until I figure out how the heck to be decent at this game, while I explain what its (my?) issues are.
Firstly, looking at the Store Page for Ephemeral Tale, I was not expecting a challenging game. I thought it would be a cute little casual game with some fun loot mechanics. Little and cute in its own way, sure. Loot? Sure. But this game certainly feels like the turn-based version of Dark Souls. But maybe I just suck at it, hence the benefit of the doubt, so let's move on to other things.
Price-wise, this game is cheap, $5 USD for a new indie game is very reasonable, even in Early Access. Even if you end up not liking the game, and you don't want to refund it, it's not a huge financial loss. I probably would have been willing to pay upwards of $15 for this, because that's how much I thought it was going to cost. Combat is turn-based, plain and simple. You've got your Attack, your Magic spells, Guard, and Items. Enemies are random encounters on the maps you travel on. Gear drops from chests, and enemies, along with items. Music is fitting, graphics and art are cute, UI is functional and minimalistic.
I didn't notice any bugs during my playtime, and didn't experience any crashes.
The "tutorial cave" you start out in doesn't seem bad at first, but gets rough if you're trying to explore the whole thing (you need to), and you get unlucky with Potion drops and enemy spawns. I had several 3-5 enemy fights in a row with no Potion drops, and you don't have any healing abilities. Early on a skull/headpiece dropped that made enemies increasingly stronger for every fight you win, and I knew right away it'd be a terrible idea to equip it, so I never did. But somehow, enemies still felt like they were getting stronger? The same slimes I'd fought when I first entered the cave that took 1 hit to kill, now take 2 or 3, so that was weird.
Moving along, outside the tutorial you can spend the Power you've collected from enemies (think Souls from Dark Souls or Amrita from Nioh) to gain an attribute point, but you only get 1 each time, and you get several from gear pieces, so it feels pretty unsatisfying.
I move into the next area, Forgotten Forest. I've got about ~150 HP, and enemies are spawning in groups of 2-4, each hitting for 15-20 damage, and introducing rage and poison mechanics, resulting in more damage taken. At this point I also notice that gear durability declines over time, so even if you find a really nice item drop, it doesn't last you terribly long before the item seems to just disappear. I'm out of Potions now, and die in 1-2 fights with no other way to heal myself, and no Potions dropping.
I should also mention; you can miss, and I believe enemies can dodge too? I have a 97% chance to hit, but during my time playing, it definitely felt more like 80%.
I had this game on my Wishlist for a while, was really excited about it, but between getting destroyed by bad item drop RNG, bad enemy spawn RNG, chance to hit/miss, and durability mechanics, it just doesn't feel very balanced or fun. It's not enjoyable to just be at the whim of RNG.
I should point out that I made a Discussion post that I'm waiting to see if the Dev responds, or has any explanations. If it happens to be something I missed somehow, or a game balance issue, whatever it is, I'm more than happy to update my review.
OVERALL RATING: 6/10

This review is mixed. The game isn't bad but it feels lacking.
The way you customize characters and level them is pretty straight forward. You get souls which = exp. You get levels from that. Loot is almost all stat changes but feels a bit underwhelming. The skill tree is linear. The game looks pretty. Story is background and not very exciting. even after 3 hours. Imo it cost too much for the lack of mechanical depth. Needs a lower price point.

Very fun combination of a lot of fun concepts from different games rolled into one. The monotony of random encounters is toned down by the fact that any monster could possibly drop your next big item. Every piece of equipment you find has a durability and will break (unless you get one of the highest rarity, then it doesn't break.) It may seem frustrating, but with the diversity of items has you cycling in and out different types of armor/weapons with different abilities and random stat bonuses which keeps the random encounters interesting.

ET has been an experience that surprised me more than anything. It looks like your typical Super Nintendo RPG, but these are mostly optics. The gameplay is described as having some Diablo in it. I haven’t played a Diablo game to make that comparison but don’t expect anything hardcore with these claims. There is heavy emphasis on loot of varying rarities and equipments with durability. However, the fights are usually a breeze and durability is not much of a factor. Enemies drop tons of equipment that you’ll never really feel a threat and the longer you play the game, the more you’ll have a chance to find gold/legendary rarity equipment with permanent durability. Challenge can be increased or decreased with specific things in the options menu further. So you can play the game however you want in a sense and that’s a good thing!
What makes the game so good is mostly the secrets/exploration and the game’s charm. A lot of what you can do in the game is optional. You can think of recruiting party members, having a blacksmith in the game’s only town or even dungeons that you can completely miss. It’s so much fun trying to figure out how to find everything. The charm comes from the graphics, soundtrack and some of the writing. Like mentioned before, it feels like a Super Nintendo game in the best way possible with some extra modern technology added such as the heat effects when you’re in a fire dungeon or light shining more brightly in the forest. The soundtrack is also catchy and makes me nostalgic. When I think of the writing, I’m mostly talking about some character interactions or descriptions of the equipment/items. There isn’t a lot of story (some of it is optional too) which can be seen as a good thing. You go straight to the action with nothing getting in the way. I like how you can save anywhere and how you can decrease/increase random battles when you’re focused on something. The pacing is pretty excellent with no real filler and the game is not unnecessarily long. My first run might have taken between 12 and 16 hours. Most of the achievements are very fun and they also can help you figure out some of the secrets :)
I say mostly because 2 are excluded from the praise. One is for fighting an optional boss and the other is reaching level 50. With the optional boss, it’s only a problem if you want to find it without outside help. It involves coincidence instead of figuring out how to find it mostly. I had more issues with the level 50 achievement. Basically, the game becomes too grindy. My first run with default XP got me to level 36-37. New game plus with +50% XP (max possible) got me up to level 44 and that’s with around 70% complete. It was impossible to get level 50 even with new game plus fully complete and max XP. Luckily this got patched, a default first run should be between level 35 and 40 now. I advise turning max XP on with the first run if you’re only planning on playing the game once or with minimal grind in new game plus. Other flaws are the main story and battle system. Mind you, those are very minor. The little story there is seemed typical and unimpressive but you don’t really play ET for that. And the battle system is a bit simplified. There are few spells which means you’ll default to certain ones similar to spamming attack in certain RPG. The variety comes from taking one of the companions with you who all have 4 magic spells each and combining that with what you have. I didn’t mind though, the game is about the secrets, loot and atmosphere. It was relaxing and therapeutic not having a demanding game on default at least.
I had a great time playing ET. It reminds me of my childhood memories of feeling adventurous. Exploring the unknown and being happy with discovering things for the first time. I’m glad to have discovered ET through a bundle. The normal price of €12,49 also feels appropriate. The developer is wonderful btw. If you want to support an indie developer, then he belongs there on that list. We had many great conversations on discord and he pretty much fixed every single bug I threw at him. And I didn’t hold back! In fact, the Mask of Nour equipment got added in patch 1.50.7 is inspired by the many reports I made. It was a complete surprise and very sweet to use my name. I’m looking forward to Ephemeral Legend and whatever he comes up with really.

Fun little loot JRPG. New game + so you can playthough over and over while retaining your skills/gear. At least for me, the metagame meant grinding for orange gear, which have infinite durability unlike the lower tiers of gear. Most of the loot drops off many different types of enemies, however some loot only drops off specific monsters, for example "Sassy's Murder Mitts" only seem to drop off the Tigeuxrs in the Bayou. The chances of getting an orange Sassy is pretty low so eventually its just grinding. There was a faint glimmer of hope delivered in the form of a witch NPC who can take 4 pieces of your unwanted gear and combine them into one piece of gear. However, there is no reliable way to use the witch to produce orange gear, and the gear she produces is also completely random, even though she hints that the fourth piece of gear you supply will somehow determine what you get. Also her dialogue for combining is WAYYYYY too long and I spent hours with her emptying my inventory and didn't get any orange.
It's a good game to play for a while, but after two playthroughs and still having no way to reliably farm orange it gets tedious.

It's fun, it has some flaws, but that doesn't ruin the game and the best part is that the developers respond right away and collect information to fix the bugs.
It seems to have some missing content for 2 places that may be added soon. I would also like to see some "fillings" there are some bare places in the dungeons that can have a chest or something to see/read.
Overall i give it 8/10 for the genre. Should be tried as a game, it doesn't cost much and it will stimulate the developers to continue working on this and new projects.

Fairly cliche but I found myself sucked in regardless. A faithful love-letter, it includes every JRPG trope in the book. It's beautifully presented, modern, and is a solid JRPG in its own right.
I'm still in my "reluctant to play RPGMaker games" phase so was surprised at how much I found myself enjoying Ephemeral Tale. Favourite feature was the level design and range of biomes. If you're hungry for an oldschool (but modern) JRPG, it's decent.
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