One mystic fights on the front lines with spear and shield, using a skill that deflects incoming attacks onto items she's interfused with. When she scores a kill she automatically re-enters stealth, and thanks to a second skill even gets to do two attacks per turn. One of my most lethal warriors is actually a hunter, who eschews knives in favour of slamming dudes with a gigantic hammer. Many are class-dependent, but cross-class skills are often strong, and add immensely to the variety of options. On levelling, everyone can pick one of four skills (initially three, but most existing ones can be upgraded), randomly chosen from a longer list. I've yet to see a useless skill in Wildermyth. or have your fire arrow guy hold back in case the enemy interfuse with his fires and use them against you. Some hostiles can interfuse too, making for moments where you'll seize an item just to keep them from using it, or destroy them so you can use your Ignite skill to set the rubble on fire. You can't just spam lightning, you have to pay attention to the map, be resourceful and flexible, and consider whether you should use that wall for ammunition, leave it intact to protect your teammates, or destroy it so the enemy can't use it as cover. Positioning is already vital thanks to flanking bonuses, cover, and multiple adjacency-dependent support skills, but the mystics really dial it up. Enemies in cover, unaware how easily a good mystic can turn that against a defender. Interfuse with an anvil to cast Shackle, pulling a heavy out of the fight for a while, or with a candlestick to lance fire all over the place. Magic is mostly the purview of the mystic class, who interfuse with scenery on battle maps to power a variety of spells based on what that scenery is. It's important, however, to spread skills and weapons around, as everyone eventually leaves, and focusing overmuch on a few overpowered champions can scupper an entire game.Įach fighter has a class, generally focused on melee and defence, stealth and archery, or magic. In most areas of its strategic map (revealed to you chunk by chunk as you progress through chapters) you'll fight monsters with a small band of adventurers, typically a core of five, with between two and four more rotating on the injury bench or pursuing secondary objectives. But while I will absolutely bang on about the writing and narrative design and various anecdotes Wildermyth generated, it's worth mentioning that the tactical battles are excellent. It would be accurate to describe Earth as 'a local planet'. To describe Wildermyth as 'a turn-based tactical RPG about taking a crew of homemade adventurers around a fantasy world, fighting monsters, and concocting your own stories' would be accurate. look, I'm not doing it on a technicality. Oh and for the record, when I said 'If this game doesn't take off like it deserves to in 2020 I will eat my own face', there was an implicit understanding there, see, between reader and writer that.

It brings you joy and drama, and it makes you want to share your stories. It was doing so many things so well that I couldn't stand waiting any longer to show it to people. Wildermyth was already one of the best games I'd ever played when I wrote about it during a week off in 2019. Publisher: Worldwalker Games LLC, WhisperGames.Wildermyth is a turn-based tactical RPG, but it's also a brilliant story factory, and one of the best games you'll play.

Buy wildermyth