pax west

More games from PAX West!

Soundfall

Like I mentioned with Spin Rhythm, rhythm games are kind of my thing. This one is a top-down style action-RPG where your actions are much stronger if you do them on the beat. This resembles Crypt of the Necrodancer in practice, but you aren’t punished quite so hard for failing to get the timing correct and you have free movement. The game looks really nice with a lot of neon, but manages to avoid the frequent problem that games with a lot going on tend to have with attacks that are hard to see. This should be coming out for everything under the sun next year (yes, including Switch) so we’ll find out how all of these ideas hold up.

Star Renegades

This is a somewhat non-traditional entry into the roguelite category. This is a sci-fi party-based RPG about a rebellion, and you play as a group of heroes fighting to dethrone the Tyrant. A big selling point is the battle system, which bears a very strong resemblance to Grandia. (If you’re unfamiliar with Grandia, Child of Light also uses a very similar system.) the idea is that actions take different amounts of time, and by choosing your actions and targets properly you can do the things you want while disrupting what the enemy is trying to do to you. The roguelike structure discourages you from getting too attached to your team members, but it still seems like you can have a sense of progression even if your party meets a horrible death.

Summoners Fate

I feel like that title needs an apostrophe somewhere, but there isn’t one to be seen. Summoners Fate is a top-sown tactical RPG-like game featuring deck building. In many ways this reminds me of Hero Academy, but with more of a focus on interesting single-player. It also features a primary character (your Summoner) that is both the source of all of your cards and your loss condition if they’re defeated. This one definitely looks like it’s developed for mobile first, but it was a lot of fun to play and should also be coming to PC at some point.

This game also earns lots of bonus points for having a ranged attack that spawns a squirrel on hit.

Honorable Mentions

I saw a lot more games at PAX: Party Golf/Party Crashers was a set of fun and highly customizable party games from the same studio. They’re on Steam now and should be hitting the Switch shortly. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a CRPG rendition of Pathfinder’s most popular adventure module, and it should be out very soon. Indivisible is a party-based RPG from the studio that made Skullgirls, and it brings that same level of incredible 2D animation to a very different type of game. All of these look like they’ll be interesting, and the future of indie games looks very bright indeed.