Operencia: The Stolen Sun
Zen Studios’ modern homage to classic first-person dungeon-crawlers takes you to the land of Operencia, an unconventional fantasy world inspired by a faraway land referenced in countless Central European folktales. An old-school turn-based battle system combines with inspiration from unexplored mythology to offer an RPG experience that feels unique yet also familiar. An unknown force has abducted the Sun King Napkiraly, leaving Operencia in a state of perpetual darkness – and eventual doom. From hidden royal tombs and cursed castles to an ascent up the World Tree to reach the Copper Forest of the Land of the Gods, explore diverse settings throughout the far reaches of the land…and beyond. Each location boasts its own unique atmosphere, visual style, level design and puzzles, and many take place entirely outdoors. Operencia is home to an intriguing mix of unexplored mythology and fantastical versions of actual historical locations (e.g., Deva Fortress, Balvanyos) and characters (e.g., Attila, Seven Chieftains of the Magyars), all coming together to form one cohesive new gaming universe. Several of your own seven party members take influence from heroes of forgotten tales told hundreds of years ago, such as the brave knight Mezey and Sebastian the Dragon Slayer.
Steam User 5
This game is an absolute gem. I haven't seen a REALLY good dungeon crawler since Grimrocks - and this is it. Finally!
However, the "mandatory" Grimrock comparison isn't really valid. In fact, tile-based movement is just about the only thing Operencia has in common with these two masterpieces. Which doesn't stop it from being a masterpiece in its own right, as far as I'm concerned.
So, what do we have here?
Exploration and looks.
So, movement is tile-based. But the camera is completely free: you can look around as much as you like, and sometimes, something gets placed in a "special" way. Don't panic: the game doesn't abuse it (or provides hints).
Locations are 3D and have multiple floors as well as different heights within a single "floor". Pits also exist, but they are few and never used to access anything that you can't reach otherwise. Occasionally there are elevators and other means of vertical travel.
All of it looks gorgeous and diverse. Music is awesome too, with a unique theme for each location - if a bit repetitive at times, since it plays constantly without pauses.
Party.
In Operencia, you only create your main character. The rest of your party consists of unique characters who join you as the story progresses. There are 6 companions in total, and max party size is 4 (main + 3 others). You can change party at campfires (universal "hubs" for everything from saving to alchemy and trading), but the story and narrative assumes that they all travel together. So, inactive characters get full experience and participate in dialogue.
There are no classes as such. Instead, everyone has a skill tree with 3 branches. Most (not all) of these are unique. What's NOT obvious about skills is that they do get more effective as you level up (e.g. get better success rates). There are also 6 attributes (strength etc). You get 3 points per level, but bonuses can also be gained via skill trees and, of course, items (up to +10 bonus).
There are also FREE redistribute buttons! Yes, you can respec your characters anytime, as many times as you like. If you play with hard combat, you'll probably have to do it multiple times. Leveling up "correctly" doesn't matter that much in the first half of the game, but things get a lot more painful later, and not everything can be "fixed" by items (especially if you can't even wear them).
Setting, story and dialogue.
Operencia has a mildly intriguing setting based on Hungarian (and other) folklore, with a tiny bit of history in the mix. Three worlds, World Tree, Sun God, dragons, griffins, fairy curses, stars from heaven in human form, Attila the Hun - you have it all. The story has most of the standard "unexpected" turns and revelations. But it's neither dull, nor confusing. Constant lighthearted party banter helps too (there's a lot of it).
Secrets.
If you are one of those taught by Grimrock to walk around wall-hugging, looking for hidden buttons - relax. There are just 3 buttons in the whole game, and they are hard to miss. There are some illusionary walls, which can also be noticed with relative ease because they are semi-transparent. Light sources located nearby make it even easier. Other secrets are either puzzle-based, item-based or artifact-based.
ARTIFACTS!
This is one of the best features of Operencia! As you progress, you'll find unique items which give you new abilities. You'll need them to progress, but they are also used for secrets. And a lot of these require artifacts which are obtained later in the story (sometimes MUCH later), so you'll have to backtrack to find them all. This adds a bit of a "metroidvanic" vibe to the game, which adds a lot to the fun, so I won't spoil any details.
Backtracking.
Old locations can be revisited once you finish the first 3. Then, you are completely free to backtrack, with just one obvious (and temporary) exception. The game does give you a lot of "no-return" warnings, but really, you can just ignore them. No matter what it says, you CAN go back. Only the final battle is, well, FINAL: once your start it, you win the game or you die (no post-gameplay).
Puzzles.
Puzzles are there. Not nearly as much in Grimrock and not nearly as challenging. There are standard ones which you've seen a hundred times and probably hate by now. There are unique ones. Some rely on artifacts. None are particularly hard, and the worst part is that the devs somehow managed to make a great old-school game without respecting their players' brains - so they made your companions give lots of unwanted hints, ruining about 90% puzzles which were easy to begin with...
Alchemy.
Alchemy is... weird. When you find a "recipe", instead you get a riddle describing various properties of the ingredients. You need to solve it by arranging these properties correctly. You don't have to collect the actual ingredients. You just get the potion with a limited number of "charges" (yeah, I know it should be "doses" - go tell the devs), which can be replenished by resting. Oh, and you'll need a cauldron first.
Saving and resting.
There are some autosaves (depending on your difficulty settings). To save manually, you have to visit a campfire. There, you can also do other things (more unlock as you progress), but primarily - rest by spending "firewood" (limited resource) to replenish your HP, energy and potions. Contrary to some of the game's wording, you DO NOT need to spend firewood to save!
Combat.
Unlike Grimrock, where you kite monsters in real-time on the same maps you are exploring, Operencia uses a classic turn-based system. You see a monster on the map, you approach, you switch into combat mode and the monster becomes 3-5 monsters... The only thing that matters before the combat is whether you approach from behind to ambush, or get ambushed yourself. Ambushing side gets an initiative bonus for the first turn.
In battle, enemies are positioned in 3 lines by distance: close, medium, far. This is unchangeable: killing the frontliners does NOT move the rest closer! You can attack anyone with any weapon (e.g. far line with a dagger), unless someone *taunted* you. The distance just scales the attack's damage according to its own "efficiency graph" (visible in UI).
Your party does NOT have front/back lines. The enemies attack whoever they want, the best way to prevent it (well, except AOE) is the infamous Taunt ability... Problem is - for the most of the game it is YOUR ENEMIES who spam Taunt against you! Only a couple of skills can counter it, and they have ridiculously high energy cost and cooldown, making a lot of fights infuriatingly hard, sometimes impossible without just the right setup. Hello unlimited respecs...
There are also rechargeable "party skills", but they are unlocked gradually as you progress.
Combat UI is severely lacking in terms of giving information. Tooltips mention "weapon damage" without ever saying what it is. Enemies are labeled "Elite" without telling you what it means (hint: you can't instakill them). Attack animations mix with idle animations, damage/immunity flyouts are quick and color-coded, so it's easy to miss what happens and hard to understand why: there is no combat log whatsoever!
Still, somehow, the combat manages to be quite fun between all the frustrations. I played with "hard" combat and had a good challenge, but never really got stuck. I even managed to clear out the final location with just one rest (right before the final battle), and I still had 8 spare units of firewood. There really are more than enough other ways to conserve and replenish your resources if you pay attention to all of the game's features. But if you just rest after each battle or two, I guess you'll run out quickly...
Good news: mobs don't respawn!
To sum it up: if you love dungeon crawlers, you should definitely play this. Operencia can be very frustrating at times, but it is totally worth it!
Steam User 1
Fantastic 1st person dungeon crawler. It's not possible to grind, once you kill an enemy it stays dead, but you also don't need to as long as you explore and try to find all secrets.
Speaking of secrets, for the most part you can't find all secrets in an area the first time around, so you need to make use of the fast travel system that opens up after a while to go back with new abilities to find new secrets and treasure. That's really nice.
It's also really nice to see a dungeon crawler with heavy focus on story, it's been a while since we had one of those. The story is good, the characters are phenomenal, and the exploration and combat is great.
There are however some weird quirks, such as digging up a secret treasure pops up the message "Alas! Treasure!"... it should probably be "Aha! Treasure!" or something that's not "Alas" since that's used to express pity.
Anyway, it's a solid experience. Anyone who enjoys dungeon crawlers will probably enjoy this one. 9/10
Steam User 1
a decent dungeon crawler, recommend for grimrock fans. final boss is really badly designed/balanced. everything else was ok
Steam User 1
This game is MUCH better than I expected. I was ready for a mildly-serious turn-based dungeoncrawler with decent fairy-tale graphics.
This game is actually one of the better classic dungeon-crawlers I have played. The story has much more emphasis than I expected and is decently well-told. Even better: The overall designs and ideas of this game seem to stem from folklore, the game is much bigger than is to be expected and the combat is actually decently challenging and fun. Just make sure to pick a mage on your very first playthrough to speed initial fights up as those can drag on a little.
This is a VERY competent game with snappy humour. Now let's just hope for an "Operancia 2" down the line.
Steam User 1
Was It Good? 3/5
Did I Like It? 3/5
Basically Might&Magic / Legend of Grimrock, just not quite on par. Polished game, functions well, only 1 map bug (returned to a locked chest icon to find the chest unlocked). These games never have a real story and Operencia runs a Hungarian folklore mixed with generic fairy tales, and it is fully voiced, but you have no choices to make. If you've ever played Might&Magic it comes as a shock that you have to stop listen to a story. The characters are also fleshed out, and the voice acting is 90% good (not you Mezey). Also not you Kampo, which is why I never used you in the game. There are Grimrock-type puzzles sprinkled on almost every level, and they are generally good at breaking up the sameness of dungeon-crawling. The 2 real downsides are unbalanced gameplay, and an uncomfortable inventory/skill page setup
Overall the game is relatively easy if you pay attention to your stats and skills. Quite a few skills are useless in certain situations (such as bringing fire spells to fire resistant enemies) but luckily you can reassign attributes and skills at no cost. I tweaked characters stats and skills on every level. Without doing this, enemy difficulty between levels can SEEM to be a massive step up. It helps that there are very few different enemy types per level, and there is no cohesion between different types either.
Bob (he has 10,000 hit points in a game where end level mobs had 250) was easy, but the end boss took me 12 hours over 6 days to defeat. It was the only battle that you had to slow down and plan each turn and hope you won the RNG battle. I only won because the Succubi didn't charm or silence me until halfway through the fight. The main game is fun - the end battle is bloated and so one-sided it was just not fun.
Every enemy group has the initiative on you. They attack first. That is, unless you get behind them to ambush you. Always ambush enemies if you can, it makes all battles 20% easier.
The inventory/skill page setup is unlike most RPGs, as if things are not intuitively in the right place on the screen. You press “I” on the keyboard and you go into a full party inventory system, while you really want to use the “character” screen so you can compare weapons & armour stats. You never use “I”. Pressing “C” doesn't go into the character screen, its “P”. If you press “I” and then press “P” it doesn't switch to the character screen. You have to click the “left” arrow button. Changing party members also gives you the option to strip all their gear. You always accidentally press YES, then realise and have to remember what combination of gear you had with the character. I stopped changing my party halfway through and used the same 4 characters.
In all, if you like these types of games this is must-buy. But expect Grimrock x 80%. Also, go with mage. Bob is weak to poison. Kampo is useless. Mezey is grim but your most important character. Every level is fun apart from the World Tree. F*** the World Tree.
Was it good? 3/5
Did I enjoy it? 3.5/5