![]() At this setting, I was able to stroll through the opening battles fairly easily – but was rocked back on my heals a bit by the occasional boss battle wiping my party of gelflings.Ĭharacters take turns in accordance to their speed stats. I played on Normal, the middle of the game’s three difficulty settings. The actual battles in TDC:ART are fairly solid and enjoyable. In the end, buying new gear is just an exercise in making the numbers go up, as the characters never look any different regardless of which robe or armor they are wearing. While I’m sure it saved a ton of money and time during the development cycle, the fact that character models in-game don’t change when they equip new gear is a bit of a bummer. There are moments when whiz-bang magical effects shine, but for the most part TDC:ART feels a little drab.Īn additional area where TDC:ART lacks flair is in equipping new gear. While this fits into the subdued dark fantasy universe of The Dark Crystal, it doesn’t exactly make for a visually stunning game. Symbols float around characters to indicate buffs or curses, for example, but they are small and unspectacular. While some of the abilities that come with each of these jobs are extremely powerful, they are not represented in-game with any particular graphical flare. ![]() This makes party planning and role assignment extremely flexible. Later in the game, characters are added with more advanced jobs, but any character can be toggled into a different starter job at the player’s whim – though they will still have to level up any assigned job to access the sweet higher-end skills. If players take the time to carefully plan, taking a mix of these secondary jobs to certain levels will eventually unlock super-powerful hybrid roles. For example, soldiers can choose between specializing in either offense and attacks, or defensive tanking. ![]() When a job reaches level ten, more jobs open in that category. This is the first time you encounter one in game, and it is best to run like hell. Also, that purple lump in the middle there is a Skeksi facing away from the camera. I just wish they were all quite so expressionless. I know that these characters are based on puppets. For my part, I made almost every fighter and scout take the mender job as their secondary, as having more healers on the field was extremely useful. At level five, players can add a secondary job to each character, allowing them to create hybrid characters. Though each job type has a number of great abilities, players can only choose three to equip, leading to some teeth gnashing decisions. Playing with these three jobs works about as expected – though I did find the scouts to be a little squishy early on, getting smoked way too easily if enemies ganged up on them.Īs battles are won, characters’ job levels go up, unlocking new and better powers. ![]() Early characters begin as one of three archetype jobs – soldier, mender (a healer/magic user hybrid), and scout (a ranged/DPS type). While slightly rudimentary, the jobs system in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics solidly does its job. Related Content – Best PS4 Indie Games – Excellent Games Everyone Should Play A Decent Tactics Jobs System Anchors Dark Crystal Everything works pretty much the way fans will expect it to, but over time, the seams inherent to a lower budget title begin to show. Characters level-up, find better loot to equip, and gain better skills the longer they stay in a particular job. All of the tenants of the genre are present, from a robust Final Fantasy-style job system to the grid-covered battlefield. While newcomers might feel a little lost at first, players familiar with tactics RPGs will feel right at home. Magic users become very powerful as the game wears on, able to attack multiple foes simultaneously. The fact that this developer developed something as complicated as TDC:ART shows that they respect both the property and its fans. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a fairly dark, adult television program, and fans of the series would not have been pleased with a “kiddie”-oriented offering. While it may have been more intuitive for En Masse to throw together a simple platformer, the fact that it chose to develop a full-fledged tactics game speaks to the developer’s understanding of the property they are adapting. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics PS4 Review A Tactics Game? Really?
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