Ash of Gods: Redemption
Steam Page
Released: March 23
Developer: AurumDust
Publisher: AurumDust, WhisperGames
Price: $24.99
A turn-based RPG with some light CCG dressing, Ash of Gods is set in the ancient world of Terminum, where, rather unfortunately, “reapers have returned and intend to drown the world in blood”. Not good! Ash of Gods has a beautiful art style, reminiscent of The Banner Saga series but inspired by the ye olde Lord of the Rings animation and Soviet studio Soyuzmultifilm. The tactics-centric combat shirks the randomised “chance-to-hit” system so prevalent in turn-based RPGs, with players instead required to “master the skills of their classes and harness the powers granted by their limited supplies of cards, or suffer the consequences.” It’s currently sitting on a “mostly positive” rating with nearly 200 reviews, and has been updated several times since launch last week.
Ostalgie: The Berlin Wall
Steam Page
Released: March 26
Developer: Kremlingames
Publisher: Kremlingames
Price: $5.99
Ostalgie is a strategy game which has you leading one of three former communist nations: East Germany, Bulgaria or Romania. Set in the period before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the objective is to prevent the coming storm by reforming the party, whether by keeping its values intact or casting them away. In addition to fighting with ‘Westalgia’, you can also “lead the country closer to the western neighbors”. It’s an interesting looking historical strategy game created by the studio responsible for Crisis in the Kremlin, a ye olde MicroProse game which released in 1991 but only made it to Steam last year.
The Mage’s Tale
Steam Page
Released: March 23
Developer: inXile Entertainment
Publisher: inXile Entertainment
Price: $39.99
Originally released as an Oculus exclusive in 2017, this VR-only RPG from the studio responsible for Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera is now available for HTC Vive users. “The corrupt wizard Gaufroi has kidnapped your master, Mage Alguin, and only you have any hope of saving him,” so reads the description. “You may be an apprentice now, but to save your master, you will need to explore ten deadly dungeons, decipher mind-bending puzzles, avoid terrifying traps, and vanquish hordes of vicious monsters.” That pretty much sums up what you’ll be doing in The Mage’s Tale, and it looks well worth a shot if you’ve been craving a fully-featured VR RPG.
Octahedron
Steam Page
Released: March 21
Developer: Demimonde
Publisher: Square Enix
Price: $12.99
Octahedron is a rhythm-oriented platformer with a beautiful retro-inspired neon aesthetic, where rather than leaping between static platforms, you’re actually spawning them beneath your feet. The game’s levels move upwards, which dovetails nicely with the meditative, momentum-oriented gameplay. “I did have some issues with the presentation, the checkpointing, and the sometimes crushing difficulty of later levels, [but] that never dampened the joy I felt in those precious moments when I finally clicked with a stage I'd been struggling with for hours and made it safely to the exit,” Jack Yarwood wrote in his review last week.
Super Knockoff! Vs
Steam Page
Released: March 24
Developer: Action Panel
Publisher: T.F.S. Entertainment LLC
Price: $11.99
This is a neat looking local multiplayer game which pits “the greatest manga icons of 1999” against each other. While the concept sounds similar to, say, Smash Bros, I’m put more in mind of Towerfall, because ranged weapons seem to be the focus, and each of the levels feature destructible terrain. The game supports between 2-to-4 players locally, and each of the playable characters are, for better or worse, voiced. The game is sitting on a “Mixed” rating at the moment but that’s mainly due to people griping about the lack of online multiplayer.
These games were released between 03/19-03/26. The first page of this list is updated every Sunday and previous weeks are archived on the following pages. Some online stores give us a small cut if you buy something through one of our links. Read our affiliate policy for more info.
