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Children of Zodiarcs
Released On: Jul 18, 2017
81
6.0
All Platforms
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 8 Critic Reviews
81
75% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
25% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 8 Critic Reviews
81
75% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
25% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Despite the sometimes unbalanced challenge it presents, Children of Zodiarcs is a brilliant tribute to tactical RPGs of old, with the tabletop elements adding a fresh and engaging twist to the beloved genre. [Oct 2017, p.95]
Children of Zodiarcs is a charming little tale that fits very comfortably in the Venn diagram between tactical RPG’s and games of luck.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 19 User Ratings
6.0
53% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
5% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
42% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 19 User Ratings
6.0
53% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
5% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
42% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
This is a fantastic turn-based combat game. In addition to card deck building, you also do dice deck building. Then when you play a card, you roll dice to see how effective or if any special bonuses can be added. Great characters and a surprisingly emotional story as well! There's nothing I would change about this game, which is why I gave it such a high rating!
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PlayStation 4
Could not get into this one. I tried to be patient and learn the battle style but I found it to be a bit overly complicated, making the battle pace really slow. Also, when you kill a bad guy, the death is way delayed from when he is actually struck. Leveling a character up doesn’t seem to do much. It was a little disappointing. And maybe it’s just me, but if I wanted that much dialogue I would be reading a book instead of playing video games.
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PlayStation 4
Children of Zodiarcs is a great example of passion and innovation. A kickstarter that succeeded in funding and rewarded everyone in the process. A great example of what a studio can achieve when the right people behind it.
This is a very good game, with interesting ideas and great execution. It's fun, challenging and deep, so we can't really ask much more.
Children of Zodiarcs is a bargain at $17.99, and has plenty of content to sink your teeth into.
As a story, Children of Zodiarcs is a little lacking, but if you don’t mind some grinding the mix of combat, card and dice system is a delight. Although some characters are less useful than others, the fights are enough to pull you through if a tactical RPG is what you are looking for.
Children of Zodiarcs is a noble effort at a fresh take on classic turn-based SRPGs. Although it doesn't quite live up to many of its genre predecessors, there is a solid enough foundation to satisfy strategy RPG fans looking for a new game to add to their collection.
Mixed mechanics of dice, card and tactical rpg games. Difficulty perhaps greater than it should. A good game!
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PlayStation 4
This is one of the more original and enjoyable strategy games I've played on the PS4. While there are some areas that could be improved upon, what this game does, it does well. The game ran well with very little bugs or issues.
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PlayStation 4
This game had a lot of cool features going for it but for the most part it feels unfinished. Did the developers give up? Not a well balanced, enjoyable game at all. Would STRONGLY not recommend.
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PlayStation 4
Complete disappointment. I had high hopes for this game, seeing the Square-Enix brand and the fact that it looked like something similar to Final Fantasy Tactics.
At first, you really enjoy it; the graphics and characters are charming and the mechanics seem fresh and interesting. But this lasts for about an hour or so; by the time you reach mission 5 or 6 there is a difficulty spike that shows how broken and messy this game really is...
From that point on you can grind for levels but it makes little difference, since the enemies always overwhelm you with numbers, bad game design and all sorts of ****. You are always in disadvantage; it's always your small party against waves and waves of enemies, sometimes on maps that you have to escape in other to beat the level, which becomes virtually impossible, without getting completely trashed with new enemies that pop after 2 turns.
This game got me angry and frustrated; and not because of the difficulty spike. I have no problem with challenge, if the game gives you fair opportunities to turn things around. This game does not offer the opportunities. It's a very cheap, messy and broken game that I regret buying without reading more reviews.
THIS GAME DOES NOT DESERVE YOUR MONEY.
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PlayStation 4
The game has several interesting elements that are pretty fun. Using cards drawn from a deck as your abilities and dice rolls to augment the abilities is a fun idea. However the execution is just extremely poor. At first the battles are fun, but as you progress it becomes more and more of a chore to play. The battles are either easy and last WAY too long, or they are far too difficult with no reasonable way to overcome them. The easy battles have your 3 party members FAR outnumbered by weak enemies that always seem just barely out of reach from killing with one hit, while a healer comes in behind and heals up to full. Its just plain annoying, its not fun. The difficult battles, again have way too many enemy units against your 3, and just simply overwhelm you. I tried to go grind and get stronger like you normally may do in this situation, but again, the battles last far too long, are not fun, and the experience gain is so low it would take multiple of these battles to get even a single level.
3 player controlled characters isn't enough. You are often put up against a ton of enemies with just three characters. So far my only strategy is just using whatever my highest attack card is. I rarely need to heal and rarely use any of the support cards. I haven't found any of the normal battle particularly difficult, but I also don't see how they could make them any more difficult with only 3 characters and no real opportunity to make interesting strategies. I believe even one more character would help tremendously here, with a bit more varied abilities across them.
Somewhat mentioned in my first point, but it really needs a "speed up" button to quickly get through enemies turns. With most maps having a lot of enemy units, it gets really old watching them go through their turn completely.
Apart from gameplay, the story is good but not great. Its nothing new but its not boring either. Its interesting enough to break up battle after battle. The game doesn't feel buggy, i haven't ran into any crashes, poor framerate, or any other annoyances either. So they have done a good job making everything pretty solid.
I do believe there is a real chance here to make a much improved game as a follow up. Its a great start at something I haven't played before (at least, i've not experienced all the gameplay elements packaged into a single game before). Correcting the issues I mentioned above, adding more playable characters, more varied strategies in battle, and more varied abilities would give an easily improved follow up.
Oh and also, I would love to see a card crafting system. Keep the cards that are unlocked via leveling, however add in booster packs you can obtain through various methods as another way to obtain interesting and rare cards as well as provide cards to turn into material to craft new cards (or maybe even dice).
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PlayStation 4
Summary A single-player Tactical JRPG with collectible cards and craftable dice combined with classic tactical gameplay, rich story, and memorable music.
Rated T
for Teen
Platforms:
- PC
- PlayStation 4
- Nintendo Switch
- Xbox One
Initial Release Date: Jul 18, 2017
Developer:
- Cardboard Utopia
Publisher: Cardboard Utopia
Genres:
