Masquerada: Songs and Shadows
Navigate the masked deceptions and deadly magic of a vividly Venetian city in this fully voiced pause-for-tactics RPG. In the turmoil-ridden Citte della Ombre, religion holds no sway. Only the songs sung of one’s deeds will carry an Ombrian’s legacy beyond death. Those who hold even the smallest morsel of power will make every effort to ensure their songs live on. Enter the Mascherines – masks that grant their wielders the power to channel the elements and cast destructive magic. The Mascherines have perpetuated a culture of inequality between the power-hungry guildsmen known as the Masquerada and the impoverished lower classes, the Contadani. A prolonged civil war, ignited by Contadani rebels who steal Mascherines from the Masquerada, has only drawn scars of mistrust across the Citte since.
Game Discussion
Steam User 0
Honestly the gameplay at first is a little meh but does get better and in the end is a great vessel for an amazing a touching story. Also the world is actually really interesting.
Steam User 0
Great art, fun gameplay, great VA, and a fantastic soundtrack
Steam User 0
This game is a must have. The battle system is like Dragon Age, except the field of view is from above. Together with and incredible story line, interesting characters with intriguing different stories (none woke for what I've seen), and perfect music, this game has the perfect combination for a thrilling experience.
Steam User 1
This is actually high art - the visuals, the music and sound design, the voice acting, the writing, how the gameplay mechanics all tie together. I cannot say this about most games.
Steam User 0
Want a Renaissance ARPG where you use magic masks to cast elemental magic? Then check out this Cheapness affordable gaming review of Masquerada: Songs and Shadows
Text Review:
-Good visuals (Nice cel shading and faction colour-coding, hand drawn backgrounds, better than average comic cutscenes and thumbnail facial animations, if they show little emotional range. Some details look blurry and some areas can look lifeless and too clean but some can look brilliant and overall it looks very good)
-Great music, if not that memorable (Nice operatic, choral singing and lilting music that's somber yet hopeful. A heart racing, blistering, combat track too)
-Great, extensive voice acting that breathes life into everything (Very beefy cast in voice acting circles but it doesn't handle the codex)
-Very good story (OK plot, good world-building, good interactions with the characters and great internal monologue from Cicero in the codex. The codex is where the most profound thoughts will be contained. Cicero is a lovely, morally compromised, yet understanding character but there are occasions where he behaves irrationally, where dialogue feels cut short to set up talking about it later and maybe some obvious reveals)
-It's a story based game, that's the main draw, it's most of what the game is and since the codex is not voiced over you will have to read a lot to fully appreciate it
-The gameplay isn't great and on normal difficulty it did not require much tactical thought, maybe it's harsh to put this here as a con but it's busy work adjacent. The systems aren't that deep, it's very linear, finding the engravings, inks and codex entries isn't hard. I'm really trying to find a con because I really like this game but the gameplay breaks up the story so that it feels less like a movie and an appreciation of the story is probably needed to buy this game!
Practical Applications:
-Great Value for money (R1.30/ $0.20/ £0.16 per hour for me)
-Fairly big at 11.03 Gb
-Almost easy to run (Can play on the warhorse well enough at decreased graphical settings)
Steam User 0
it was fun, good story too
Steam User 1
Short linear simplex great.