anyone tried life and suffering of prince jerian

didn't remember much about the last game

not sure if the new one will be better

For those people who want more from ToEE after completing the main quest I highly recommend the Co8 mod and its quests

Firstly you can go up to level 20 and you need those higher levels for the most exciting and challenging battles in quests this mod creates

There is this one battle with Slavers that makes the Zuggtmoy battle seem like a cake walk. Every time I think my strategy is solid I end up having to rethink and that type of risk in combat always enhances the experience

But there one is quest called War of the Golden Skull: Defender where you have to defend Hommlet from waves of Hextorites. So you fight several really hard battles. The first time I tried it I finally won all the battles by resting but then I was told I failed the quest because I rested and the Hextorites have kidnapped all the villagers and you cant leave the map so your game ends at the point because you cant progress

I am now trying it again without resting but this obviously makes it incredibly hard. The key objective now for me will be focusing on the enemy mages and clerics because they wreck the most damage with spells like fireball and flame strike and they start off at the back of the combat area so its hard to get to them quickly

I basically relearnt spells to include almost all AOE and stocked up on every healing scroll and potion I could buy and I dropped Furnok to include another tank that is part of this quest

Lets see if I am able to succeed but its going to be really tough

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

For those people who want more from ToEE after completing the main quest I highly recommend the Co8 mod and its quests

Firstly you can go up to level 20 and you need those higher levels for the most exciting and challenging battles in quests this mod creates

There is this one battle with Slavers that makes the Zuggtmoy battle seem like a cake walk. Every time I think my strategy is solid I end up having to rethink and that type of risk in combat always enhances the experience

But there one is quest called War of the Golden Skull: Defender where you have to defend Hommlet from waves of Hextorites. So you fight several really hard battles. The first time I tried it I finally won all the battles by resting but then I was told I failed the quest because I rested and the Hextorites have kidnapped all the villagers and you cant leave the map so your game ends at the point because you cant progress

I am now trying it again without resting but this obviously makes it incredibly hard. The key objective now for me will be focusing on the enemy mages and clerics because they wreck the most damage with spells like fireball and flame strike and they start off at the back of the combat area so its hard to get to them quickly

I basically relearnt spells to include almost all AOE and stocked up on every healing scroll and potion I could buy and I dropped Furnok to include another tank that is part of this quest

Lets see if I am able to succeed but its going to be really tough

But this is going to be exactly my dilemma when I play this game. I want all the bug fixes and gameplay improvements from mods such Co8 and Temple+, including especially such things as the level cap increase. But I'm really, really, really not interested in the additional challenging battles as someone who doesn't care for the combat parts of my RPG-playing experiences. The challenging battles in the base ToEE game sound bad enough, especially because that game does not come with an "easy" or "story" difficulty setting. 😟

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

But this is going to be exactly my dilemma when I play this game. I want all the bug fixes and gameplay improvements from mods such Co8 and Temple+, including especially such things as the level cap increase. But I'm really, really, really not interested in the additional challenging battles as someone who doesn't care for the combat parts of my RPG-playing experiences. The challenging battles in the base ToEE game sound bad enough, especially because that game does not come with an "easy" or "story" difficulty setting. 😟

Oh no need to worry, these hard quests Im on now come after the main quest and they all optional

So you can get the benefits of Co8 and Temple+ including the level cap increase just in the main narrative. I think I was on level 11 by the time I got to the end of the normal game

And not all the new quests are this hard, there probably about 6-8 news ones that get added and 2 are very hard so far. The Slavers and this one Im busy with. But the whole access to Verbobonc only comes once you finish the temple. And when I say hard, its all about the final battle. Not every part of the quest

Edited July 21Jul 21 by BruceVC

@kanisatha

Will this be the first time you playing ToEE?

If so I need to share some important tips and considerations so your expectations aren't disappointed

Goal nr.5/2026 achieved:

July 21, 17:45 – After short vacation, I've decided to play another game from Hero of the Kingdom series. Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 2 from GOG. This time, the hero was a princess. When compared to previous games, I put my enjoyment of it in between part III and Lost Tales 1. From start it was on the level of first Lost Tales, but soon, it slowly started to show its flaws. The quests seemed to me to have a little bit less of variety, and also I find the writing to be the weakest in the series so far. On the other hand, there was absolutely no grind, and I had to start shop runs for money only in the last hour of the game, after encountering the first undead. Up until then, the money and items, which I've found during the course of the game, were enough for moving forward through the story without any worry. So after 6 hours, I've unlocked all achievements and defeated another villain.

1000xRESIST: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1675830/1000xRESIST/

It looks like a game, you move around in it like it's a game, there's a little gameplay here and there...but it's really actually a book - just one where you get to decide how much of the world-building and side-character text you get to indulge in (or not). And as it is a book, you the player have no agency - you are simply along for the ride of story of this world and the characters in it. When I first took a look at it, I did not have a good impression...but I ended up falling in love with it. I think it's one of those things where either you're gonna get into it and it'll be incredibly engrossing...or it'll be too odd and it won't click, and you'll just bounce off of it without understanding the love for it one bit. And that's okay.

Something that this game helped me realize? I really hate mouth movements in 3D games. This game does not bother trying to animate characters' mouths, and instead is much more concerned about just expressions and characters being postured correctly for the moment with no regard for that sort of thing, and while it took just a little bit to get used to it in a highly detailed graphical style like this, HOO BOY, I like that so much than all those ugly-ass uncanny mouth and face expressions in other games that are trying to do their best (and failing miserably) to stay synced to voice-acting. I've never gotten used to how bad face-syncing is even decades into full voice-acting being a thing - face animations just aren't there yet to passably mimic actual human faces, and I'm really not sure if I'll ever be able to do anything except for looking away from the screen when I see it in action.

22 hours ago, BruceVC said:

@kanisatha

Will this be the first time you playing ToEE?

If so I need to share some important tips and considerations so your expectations aren't disappointed

Yes. I've had my eye on the game for decades, but kept putting it off until it got to the point where I found it too dated for my tastes. So when the remake came out, I finally bought it. But I was intending to send you a PM just before whenever I get around to playing it, especially about how best to go about adding in the mods, so no need to post anything here for now. Thanks! ☺️

On 7/20/2026 at 11:57 PM, uuuhhii said:

anyone tried life and suffering of prince jerian

didn't remember much about the last game

not sure if the new one will be better

I have tried it, since I have access to it through Steam Family Sharing (i.e. I did not and would not purchase it purposefully as it is not exactly my genre, so I am not the target audience), but bounced off after the first session, before finishing the first chapter, Childhood/Obscurity. I guess, if you like the setting, it should be fine. The art is a bit worse, the animations are a bit faster. I think something has changed with the writing style but might be misremembering. I have not progressed far enough to see how hard the stat requirements are, but there are 2 extra currencies (Sanity and the blue one) to get around alignment-locked choices (3 pairs of axes).

---

Tried Thirsty Suitors. Liked the music, aesthetic, and the system requirements. Strongly disliked all gameplay systems I've come into contact with - the RPGMaker-style combat, the QTEs, and the wooden controls for skating.

---

Finished Code Zodiac. It was an enjoyable boss rush game in a sci-fi setting. The controls, unfortunately, were unrebindable.

---

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. I've spent ~10 minutes turning a boss into a pincushion while sitting on a cliff outside of the arena. The controls are rebindable and the movement is quite satisfying. Naturally, I was mostly sneaking or sprinting (and, surprisingly, swimming). That is, the first post-demo session was fairly story-free.

Edited July 22Jul 22 by Hawke64

17 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Yes. I've had my eye on the game for decades, but kept putting it off until it got to the point where I found it too dated for my tastes. So when the remake came out, I finally bought it. But I was intending to send you a PM just before whenever I get around to playing it, especially about how best to go about adding in the mods, so no need to post anything here for now. Thanks! ☺️

Yes, do that when you ready. There are only the 2 mods you need to install and you can use this Steam guide which is incredibly helpful . But send me the PM anyway so we can discuss other things

Steam Community :: Guide :: Modding Steam ToEE

A guide for customizing your gameplay experience on the new Steam re-release of the Troika classic Temple of Elemental Evil....

--Borderlands 4 - supposedly about 30 hours played. I think the first large region is the best thing - going into the other two regions the MQ sends you on are a snooze. Gunplay is even better than BL3, exploration ok, they tamed the "loot explosions" a lot (a good thing) and other positives, but it feels more repetitive for some reason (all the fight areas feel the same), loot hunting is meh. The "story" chrs are at least better than BL3 but not by much.

--7 Days to Die - 3.0 is now my favorite 1.0+ version. Although the pure cheese of stealth in early 1.0 is still a fave mechanic, ha. But overall, all the options = easy to make the combat/gameplay feel more like A10-A12. More Walking Dead, less sci-fi looter-shooter/zombie-Skyrim wannabe. It was getting to the point where I turned zombies entirely off half the time, and 3.0 (after fiddling) is the first time I like having them on all the time, again, and I play a map far longer. I keep the zombie spawn level to "strongs", increase density of spawns, and none of the sci-fi/weird, bee-spitting, acid-exploding/spitting, bomb tossing or whatever else zombies are allowed to spawn. And no zombie digging. I've been playing it way more than BL4, still.

I completed the Co8 quests after about 40 hours so Im sadly finished with my ToEE adventures but all good things have to come to an end

Total game time was 135 hours

I wont repeat in detail what is fantastic about this game. Its the best adaptation of D&D ruleset and combat mechanics of any party based D&D game I have ever played and that creates the most exciting and challenging combat

I highly recommend both Co8 and Temple + mods. Its not just the increased level cap and extra quests. Its the stability and how you can make rule changes that matter, for example you can remove Fog of War which I did for one hard battle

As far as bugs were concerned, nothing significant except where I suddenly lost 80% of my XP for 2 party members after a hard battle on level 2. But I used console commands to restore this XP which was really simple

I had a very frustrating battle during the Hickory Branch quest where you face 50 enemies. The problem was every turn you get hit by explosive runes that do force damage to your entire party and I assumed the enemy archers were responsible. I spent about 6-7 hours until I finally won this battle and tried about 6 times. I nearly raged quit. Afterwards I read a guide that mentioned the explosive runes are buried in the ground and its advisable to attack all the enemies from the left and not the normal right side of the field. I wish I knew about this prudent strategy before I spent all that time trying to avoid the rune damage

The only criticism I have of this game is it doesn't have a complex or thought provoking narrative like PoE or any companion interaction and side-quests which I always enjoy because it adds depth to my RPG experience. So you dont really need to make any serious choices.

But that's not enough to detract from its strengths

ToEE gets a solid 78/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system " and its highly recommended for anyone who wants to play a party based RPG where combat is its greatest strength

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

The only criticism I have of this game is it doesn't have a complex or thought provoking narrative like PoE or any companion interaction and side-quests which I always enjoy because it adds depth to my RPG experience. So you dont really need to make any serious choices.

This is the concern for me with these old games, and very likely the reason why I passed on playing them back in the day when they first came out, because for me this is expectation #1 even while combat is not even on my list.

16 hours ago, kanisatha said:

This is the concern for me with these old games, and very likely the reason why I passed on playing them back in the day when they first came out, because for me this is expectation #1 even while combat is not even on my list.

Yes and this was one of the considerations I was going to raise with you

It has no real narrative and how you can influence the outcomes even if its superficial and more about choice summaries at the end

Its basically an incredibly exciting dungeon crawl where you dont need to think about any choices. I absolutely recommend this game for its combat mechanics but I dont think its the right game for you

And thats also why I didn't give it a higher score, I feel an RPG has to have an overarching narrative with choices to be complete around the RP aspect

In PoE you get to make these huge choices in the background of this cosmic narrative about the future of gods

In Pathfinder you interact with powerful entities and you can influence who ascends to divinity

Anyway I dont want to put you off ToEE but Im just trying to be objective about its strengths and what it isn't

I just finished Botany Manor. It's a pretty nice puzzle and exploration game set in an English manor. The premise is to search rooms and follow clues to figure out how to grow various strange plants. It's quite relaxing and well-made. A good little experience if you like the genre, and it's rather short at around 4 hours.

A rare and great touch: the options include a dedicated motion sickness menu that groups together settings like FOV etc... to help prevent it. My only real gripe is that once you discover clues, you can't view them directly from your inventory, you have to physically go back to where the clues are located to re-read them. Overall, though, still worth a look!

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Yes and this was one of the considerations I was going to raise with you

It has no real narrative and how you can influence the outcomes even if its superficial and more about choice summaries at the end

Its basically an incredibly exciting dungeon crawl where you dont need to think about any choices. I absolutely recommend this game for its combat mechanics but I dont think its the right game for you

And thats also why I didn't give it a higher score, I feel an RPG has to have an overarching narrative with choices to be complete around the RP aspect

In PoE you get to make these huge choices in the background of this cosmic narrative about the future of gods

In Pathfinder you interact with powerful entities and you can influence who ascends to divinity

Anyway I dont want to put you off ToEE but Im just trying to be objective about its strengths and what it isn't

Thanks very much for the honest appraisal, Bruce!

And prolly a good thing for you to post it here than in a PM so it benefits not just me but others as well.

15 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Thanks very much for the honest appraisal, Bruce!

And prolly a good thing for you to post it here than in a PM so it benefits not just me but others as well.

Lots of people will say the narrative doesn't matter or the RP choices are basically irrelevant because you still end up finishing any RPG in a similar way and you only see your outcomes around choices at the end where you see a 1 page summary screen of each serious decision or what happens to various NPC or party members

And they believe combat is much more relevant than party interaction or narrative choices. And its a perfectly reasonable difference in opinions because we all different people and our definition of an RPG will always be relevant to our own sense of fun and fulfillment

But for me I fall firmly into the camp of narrative choices, party interaction and side-quests. Because my favorite outcome of RPG is the RP choices that get presented even if they dont change anything significant. Its the option of deciding and then thinking " what will happen if I choose this path " even if the game doesn't go into detail. I use my imagination for this

Combat mechanics definitely matter, its a huge part of the experience but most games deliver on both more or less

So ToEE provides exceptional combat but a very simple narrative where its really a linear dungeon crawl. Still highly recommended for what the game delivers on

17 hours ago, Mizio said:

I just finished Botany Manor. It's a pretty nice puzzle and exploration game set in an English manor. The premise is to search rooms and follow clues to figure out how to grow various strange plants. It's quite relaxing and well-made. A good little experience if you like the genre, and it's rather short at around 4 hours.

A rare and great touch: the options include a dedicated motion sickness menu that groups together settings like FOV etc... to help prevent it. My only real gripe is that once you discover clues, you can't view them directly from your inventory, you have to physically go back to where the clues are located to re-read them. Overall, though, still worth a look!

I remember reading up on this adventure game and it looked very interesting and I see they have other similar games. I like playing adventure games as a break from my favorite genre, RPG. Im currently playing Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers

Escape From Mystwood Mansion on Steam

In this first-person puzzle escape room game, you are trapped in the mysterious Mystwood mansion. Explore the mansion and find hidden compartments while solving puzzles and deciphering codes to find a

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Lots of people will say the narrative doesn't matter or the RP choices are basically irrelevant because you still end up finishing any RPG in a similar way and you only see your outcomes around choices at the end where you see a 1 page summary screen of each serious decision or what happens to various NPC or party members

And they believe combat is much more relevant than party interaction or narrative choices. And its a perfectly reasonable difference in opinions because we all different people and our definition of an RPG will always be relevant to our own sense of fun and fulfillment

But for me I fall firmly into the camp of narrative choices, party interaction and side-quests. Because my favorite outcome of RPG is the RP choices that get presented even if they dont change anything significant. Its the option of deciding and then thinking " what will happen if I choose this path " even if the game doesn't go into detail. I use my imagination for this

Combat mechanics definitely matter, its a huge part of the experience but most games deliver on both more or less

So ToEE provides exceptional combat but a very simple narrative where its really a linear dungeon crawl. Still highly recommended for what the game delivers on

Agree 100%. For me as well, it's my single-player game, and even when the game itself doesn't acknowledge my RP choices and decisions, they matter greatly to me just to be able to make them within my game (including with character creation and development/leveling). So that's why, even when there are no consequences whatsoever, I won't rob from ordinary people and only from the elites, won't harm innocents, am happy to accept a fair price from merchants and won't steal from them, etc. It's why playing BG3 I refused to ever use the tadpoles or their powers even though there were no meaningful negative consequences and only powerful beneficial consequences. The whole point of playing an RPG, and why that genre of games is my thing, is to be able to play my game my way. And that's why I get really pissed off when developers won't give me certain freedoms or options within their game for me to be able to play the game my way.

I suppose ToEE will now end up just sitting in my Steam library as a never-played game. I did do my due diligence looking at various youtube videos before I bought it. But I should've waited until someone here in this forum provided an honest and trustworthy appraisal. And now, that's exactly what I'll be doing with the PoR remake.

50 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Agree 100%. For me as well, it's my single-player game, and even when the game itself doesn't acknowledge my RP choices and decisions, they matter greatly to me just to be able to make them within my game (including with character creation and development/leveling). So that's why, even when there are no consequences whatsoever, I won't rob from ordinary people and only from the elites, won't harm innocents, am happy to accept a fair price from merchants and won't steal from them, etc. It's why playing BG3 I refused to ever use the tadpoles or their powers even though there were no meaningful negative consequences and only powerful beneficial consequences. The whole point of playing an RPG, and why that genre of games is my thing, is to be able to play my game my way. And that's why I get really pissed off when developers won't give me certain freedoms or options within their game for me to be able to play the game my way.

I suppose ToEE will now end up just sitting in my Steam library as a never-played game. I did do my due diligence looking at various youtube videos before I bought it. But I should've waited until someone here in this forum provided an honest and trustworthy appraisal. And now, that's exactly what I'll be doing with the PoR remake.

Its really interesting reading this post because Im exactly the same but you have explained it better

I want choices even if its not about any significant gameplay change and that tadpole example is an excellent example even though I haven't played BG3 yet

I always try to RP like Conan. He is at heart an honorable man, he will always save a damsel in distress but he also wants wealth so he often goes on quests and missions for the money. But he wont abandon his principles and integrity

Started playing Parkside: Decayed Soul Manipulation.
TL;DR: It's Deus Ex, had Deus Ex been a launch smash on PSX.

When I first tried the demo a couple weeks or so ago, the game didn't win my heart immediately over. As basically a solo take on huge ideas, there's naturally bit of jank. But then I appreciated the openness of the levels. The varied mission goals. Some non-violent solutions (which also involve dialogue choice or environmental interactions).

And lately the game "shocked" me also with making a decision of mine permanent, influencing my gameplay experience from now on... (There's no auto or quick saves, and now I understand why). What needs tuning a little is the aggro of the AI (you're weirdly frequently attacked by security/police force when you didn't even open the aggro, e.g. a bunch of druggies starts coming after you). And it seems a little inconsistent what "theft" NPCs react to. Otherwise, it's fun. And just my type. When there's no more ImmSim in triple-A hell, the indies will make your day.

Oh, and you can drive cars and put rats on peoples' plates too.
Rats on the table -- probably the last ever feature in the milky way that Ubisoft has yet to paste+copy for its checklists.

Edited yesterday at 11:32 AM1 day by Sven_

I'm almost at the end of my run through Black Geyser, but I needed a break so I fired up Humankind again. For any of you who have played that game through to the end, how do you keep city management interesting in the mid-game? It just feels like you have to keep building more and more districts in a never ending tedious cycle.

Finished Stellar Blade, not quite sure how I feel about it to be honest, and not sure whether I even want to go through NG+, or try to get the other, presumably worse, endings.

It doesn't really resolve much of anything near the end (imho), and most of the things EVE finally figures out in the last few areas were likely obvious to most people rather early in the game. Can´t quite put my finger on it, but the story felt a lot like

Background Spoilers

Horizon Zero Dawn, but with androids, and then with NieR's existential dread mixed in. Not helped any by the city music having some serious NieR vibes.

The cliché villain monologue of a certain character also felt...misplaced...after the buildup.

The world building was generally enjoyable, though both open word regions being deserts sure was a choice. That said I did not mind quite as much as I expected to when I arrived in the second one (note: deserts are generally my second least favourite map type in games, a close second to "ice/snow-deserts").

Lots of backtracking, and a lot of the camp locations feel like they are chosen to drag out play time. Not something that particularly bothered me first time around, but the idea of having to deal with some of it again in NG+ is kinda offputting to be honest.

Combat felt kinda "meh", and, to me at least, very unnatural, and counter-intuitive. I should note I'm not a "Soulslike" player, but I did finish NieR: Automata and mostly enjoyed that.

Dodge timing just felt extremely inconsistent to the point I mostly stopped bothering, instead relying on interrupting the attacks that required dodging.

Didn´t have such a problem with parrying, at least until the final boss at least ("Providence").

There's also the blue (or purple, can't tell: colourblind) abilities where you need to do a two button thing that I just never could get the hang off, it's such an unnatural combination for me, and it's just way too easy to trigger this one "wrong" and get slapped. I think I only pulled it off by accident, really. Likely a "skill issue", but I sure hope they improve upon it, because I tried getting a hang of it and I didn´t manage over the course of...well the entire game.

Until the final boss the hardest boss for me was easily the Juggernaut, likely because he's basically all about dodging...

Last few bosses (aka "the boss gauntlet", because there's like no downtime between them) were not particularly enjoyable for me, even though I mostly got through all (except the final one) in a few tries. The difficulty at the end ramps up extremely quickly and they are so unforgiving I ended up having to play extremely defensively dodging/parrying/interrupting until I got them stunned, and then repeated that until they die. Any attempt at aggression just got me killed, so the fights ended up being long, sloggy burns, not really my idea of a good time.

The last boss probably should have been reserved for a challenge mode or something (imho, of course). Most of his attacks are fakeouts, so everything timing-wise you learned up to now you can basically throw out, he is stupid fast, does stupid amounts of damage, and has a ridiculous health pool. He also has some QTE-attack that I still don't know what the correct thing to do is, because whatever I tried I always seem to fail it (a general problem with in-fight boss QTEs I found)

You now suddenly have to combine multiple evasive manoeuvres in extremely quick succession, or get absolutely murdered. I ended up deciding the juice just was not worth the squeeze for this fight and put it on story mode to get it over with after getting through the entire game on normal so far.

I'd probably give the game a 6.5/10. I finished it, it's decent, no real regrets, but there is, in my scrub-tier opinion, some serious room for improvement.

Edited 23 hours ago23 hr by marelooke

I played the latest Fighting Fantasy PC game book, Return to Firetop Mountain. These games are all PC versions of the iconic Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone RP gamebooks and the PC versions are not only nostalgic but they create a better experience than the books because of certain mechanics and design. If you die you dont need to start the whole story again, you can restore

Tin Man games has created about 23 of these original games and I have played about 80% of them. Highly recommended if you enjoy the books, they dont take long. Maybe 4-6 hours to complete

Now Im busy with Far Cry Primal. Its your typical Ubisoft successful and tried and tested design, a large open-world map with lots of repetitive activities and then main quests to progress the game. You also need to build a village and find resources

But this is obviously set in 10,000 BC and this unique time period is very entertaining. I'm having lots of fun taming beasts and interacting with the animals and enemies of that era

I am also playing on Survival Mode to make the game harder so you have to rest to regain stamina and animals are harder to fight at night

Im about 15 hours in and so far Im not experiencing any of the inevitable fatigue with mechanics around this type of Ubisoft game. That normally happens to me after 40-60 hours or so because you can only do the same types of activities so many times before boredom sets in

Few years ago, I have bought second hand PS Vita TV, just to play Tales of Hearts R, just to be discouraged about the bad localization, and Vita TV having some stupid ass HDCP DRM which does not allow streaming the game (I solved the latter, still hate the former). This weekend I decided to give it another try. I got through my issues with localization, and slowly starting to get into the game, despite being clumsy playing it. You can feel, that the controls were made for handheld Vita, so there are some shortcomings when playing with the controller. Yesterday, I have defeated the first boss. Pretty easy and straightforward fight, he just hit like a truck. Anyway, I still have issues with the localization, despite not understanding Japanese. The worst culprits are, when the party talks for 20 or more seconds, but the English text is just few words. All other Tales games, even the older lower budget games tried as much as possible that this would not be a case, even though the localization was not 100% true to original. Not in this game... And this can ruin my immersion...