Developer: Psychic Software
Publisher: Psychic Software
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“An Exceptionally Crafted Story”
About The Game
A story-rich gothic RPG. Master the rituals of an ancient spellbook. Raise an undead army to march against your enemies. Commune with the realm of the dead & struggle with your descent into madness. Progress through secrecy, diplomacy, blackmail, coercion & seduction until ready to reveal yourself.
Character Creation
The Necromancer’s Tale does not have character creation as such but the whole opening 30 minutes of the game are dedicated to your character backstory and skill allocations. Skill allocation in this game has to be some of the most intricately crafted skill allocation I have ever had the pleasure of seeing in a video game, most game will give you a screen and get you to choose where you want to allocate your point and while this is available in The Necromancer’s Tale I would advise against using it and actually listening to the beautifully told story.
The story is told in the form of a book in which a narrator reads through wonderfully may I add, Starting from when your character is a child and ending when he is an adult. Through the story you will need to make choices which I assume changes the direction of the story too, each decision you make will change your skill point allocation ultimately giving you a fully decked out skill allocation by the end of it.
I can only hope we see more of this in future CRPG games because I could have honestly sat through an entire hour of the in-depth world building and story that is blessed upon us at the start of this game.
The World and World Building
Once we finish the stat allocation within The Necromancer’s Tale we find ourselves back at home, now I wont say why because I don’t want to spoil anything within the title. This is the first time we actually get to see the world and get a feel for how the game plays, within the game you can move your character around via WASD or point and click which is wonderful as it allows people to choose which style of play they prefer.
Once inside your home, you really get a scope for just how deep the world building is here its almost overwhelming at just how much detail has gone into the world. exploring the manor we can interact with items such as paintings for more story on how they where acquired, books on the shelve have been fully written and you can spend hours in the library just reading different books on the shelves, heading to the kitchen and you can pick up all the cutlery, bowls and objects individually as long as your inventory can handle it.
Talking to the people around the world feels very thought out by the development team everyone has there own story and or a quest to give, we can even get a further little bit of lore from the character by hovering over there character icon.
Below is an encounter with Ramon who is pushed down during some kind of work altercation this is just part of that convocation.
Quests And Romance
The Necromancer’s Tale has a fair few quests to get stuck into and they are not your typical quests, one thing will lead to another which will lead to another, for example we go to get a job at the tavern but the lady who runs the tavern wants us to go and fetch a cart that is stuck at the east gate. Upon arriving at the east gate we are told by the guard that the carts wheel is broken and he is not letting it past the gate unless we have able bodies to move the cart. The game has a fair few quests like this which adds depth to each quest allowing for more than just your generic fetch quest.
Along side the questing The Necromancer’s Tale allows players to have 1 major romantic arc per male or female character I personally did not experience the romantic arc however this has been confirmed to be in the game.
Combat
The combat withing the game is turn based, your character becomes outlined in a blue ring which I found to be useful for locating your character in darker area of the game. Now obviously your wondering where the necromancer part really shines and that is of course within the combat at around chapter 5 – 6 of the game you are able to summon monsters at the cost of a turn. I assume this decision was made as free summoning monsters made it unfair or combat to easy and while I would love to summon to my hearts content I get why the choice was made. I have no issues with the combat other than I wish there was more of it.
Our thoughts
We really liked the games opening hours with a very well written skill allocation and back story to the character, we also love the in-depth world build and found that even though I personally do not like reading I managed to just get engrossed in the story easily. I did find that there is an unbalance in dialog to combat meaning there is more dialog than there is combat and would have preferred more of a balanced mix. I wish you could earn money a little easier within the game however I do understand the reasons that you can only work 1 day per chapter and there are more ways to make money other than working its just working is the better way to earn money.
Overall I really enjoyed my time with the game and I would Recommend this product to anyone that likes games like Baldur’s Gate. While not the same as Baldur’s Gate it has a very in-depth story and I feel fans of that genre would enjoy this title too.
