Francesco De Meo
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WCCFtechLatest Reviews
Ever since FromSoftware's Souls series started rising in popularity, the vast majority of action role-playing games developed by smaller and more established studios have been inspired in some capacity by the Japanese developer's franchise. While many of these games are great experiences on their own, they highlighted how the genre is suffering from some homogenization, where very few are the games that try to break from the mould and offer something different. For this reason, I could not help but appreciate Empyreal's approach to the genre when I first tried it in February.
When Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was announced last year, it came out of nowhere and immediately captured the attention of role-playing game enthusiasts. With traditional party-based role-playing games finding less and less representation in the AAA space, the debut game from Sandfall Interactive looked like the game that could bring the genre into the spotlight without being a nostalgia-fueled experience, as the setting, story and main cast of characters looked very unique, and far removed from those we are now used to see in similar games. In the end, the game's dark fantasy Belle Époque setting, the members of Expedition 33, and the turn-based combat system with a twist weren't just a fluke meant to lure in jaded fans of classic RPGs. They are the well-developed elements that make up one of the best role-playing games released recently.
No matter how it is looked at, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is one of the few video games released to date that can be described as magical. Launching at a time when the medium was about to blow up like it never managed to do before, the fourth entry in the series by Bethesda took everything its predecessor did right, and brought it up to eleven in such a way that no one who happened to get acquainted with Emperor Uriel Septim VII in the dungeons of the Imperial Prison could ever forget the journey through Cyrodiil to prevent the forces of Oblivion from ravaging Tamriel.
In the recent past, we have seen the rise of titles heavily inspired by gaming greats that offer an enjoyable time thanks to the high quality of their experiences, which makes it easy to see past the almost complete lack of innovation. At the same time, some of these games allow fans of genres that don't see much representation nowadays to experience more of what they love. This is exactly what Storm in a Teacup's Steel Seed is: a very solid action-adventure game that immediately brings the Uncharted series, and in turn, other games that have been heavily inspired by it, like the Star Wars Jedi series, to mind that delivers a solid action-adventure experience that all fans of the genre will surely like.