Shadow era draw engines Patch#
Shadow era draw engines full#
Shadow era draw engines series#

It just felt like I didn’t have much control over how battles play out the random nature of drawing cards meant I was forced to play how the game forced me to, which isn’t something I’m a fan of in an RPG where I like to sculpt teams around my play style. Using a card discards it from your pile too, so you can’t rely on using it again in the same battle.

You can customise decks and set them up to suit your play style, but with a demand for a balance of offensive and defensive cards you can quickly find yourself running short of one or the other when you really need them the most. You could be faced up against a fairly standard opponent, but if you don’t draw the correct cards you could find yourself meeting a quick end. There were plenty of cards on offer in the game and their effects were well balanced, but the random nature of how you draw them left battles a bit too unpredictable. I’ve always found card battle systems in games a bit hit and miss, but Trulon: The Shadow Engine falls somewhere in between. You start off with a set of basic cards made up of simple commands, but you’re constantly expanding your collection by finding cards in the environment or by earning them when you defeat enemies. You don’t have traditional commands such as ‘attack’, ‘defend’, or ‘magic’, but rather use a set of cards with a variety of different actions on them.

Shadow era draw engines series#

Trulon: The Shadow Engine’s battling plays out as a turn-based RPG, but with a series of cards dictating the action. It’s a good look – whilst there were two different art styles on show in the world, they flowed together perfectly and really complimented each other.

Shadow era draw engines full#

It really felt like I was playing a modernised version of the classic RPGs of the 16-bit era, with an array of fantasy locations that whilst a little confined and linear are absolutely full to the brim with personality.Ĭharacter and enemy design is great too, offering a hand-drawn aesthetic that keeps characters looking different from the environments they inhabit. Even the more gloomier areas are perfectly portrayed, with ambient lighting keeping even these downtrodden locales looking fantastic. Heading from town to town and exploring the perilous dungeons is an absolute treat thanks to the whimsical and vibrant look of the game’s world.

My favourite aspect of Trulon: The Shadow Engine by far is the game’s visual style. Even the opening is presented through a series of static images that leave you with no real clue as to what’s going on – I wasn’t even sure if it was actually an intro or just images that relate to events that are going to occur in the game. It just felt like a series of typical RPG events that unfold, with a lot of the character’s back stories and the world around them feeling a little undeveloped. It’s not that the story is bad, but rather it never really broadened itself to hook you in. It’s a competent tale, but one that felt a little underdeveloped given the game’s roots as a novel.

This sees her go on a journey through both peaceful and perilous lands as she and her companions take down countless foes and find out who exactly is behind this harmful plague. You play as Gladia, a young adventurer who seeks a cure for the mysterious disease that is infecting her home land of Tripudia. I haven’t read the book nor had I even heard of it before playing the game though, so I had absolutely no experience with it other than being a bit interested when it first launched on mobile devices in 2015. Trulon: The Shadow Engine is actually based on a book called ‘Shadow Gears’ from authors Johan Lillbacka and Jak Koke. I managed to play through again, finish it, and enjoy Trulon: The Shadow Engine for what it really is – a charming old-school RPG that doesn’t hit levels of greatness, but does enough to provide a fairly competent adventure.

Shadow era draw engines Patch#

Thankfully the developers have been on the ball and released a new patch that rectifies most of these issues, allowing players to actually complete the game. There’s nothing more terrifying to gamers than a game-breaking bug which puts the hours you’ve spent with a title to waste, and unfortunately Trulon: The Shadow Engine was riddled with them. It’s probably worth mentioning to begin with that I’d already written one review for Trulon: The Shadow Engine before this where I really let rip into the game for having so many bugs – one in particular which completely halted my progression and left my save file redundant.