Trulon: The Shadow Engine Review – This Engine Needs Some Serious Tuning

<p>A good roleplaying game is generally made up out of a number of important parts&period; Firstly&comma; there should be interesting characters&comma; and a great story that drives the player to accomplishing whatever quest they are tasked with&period; Secondly&comma; combat plays an integral role in most RPGs and so one should expect something that is stock&comma; or hopefully groundbreaking&period; Lastly&comma; interesting antagonists and enemies that you need to take on&semi; fighting the same four or five enemy types gets boring after a while&period; I bring all of these up because after playing <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;trulon&period;net">T<em>rulon&colon; the Shadow Engine<&sol;em><&sol;a> I feel like it fell short on basically all aspects of what constitute a good RPG&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><amp-youtube layout&equals;"responsive" width&equals;"500" height&equals;"281" data-videoid&equals;"pSTK2Slph&lowbar;k" title&equals;"Trulon&colon; The Shadow Engine - Official Trailer"><a placeholder href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;watch&quest;v&equals;pSTK2Slph&lowbar;k"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;ytimg&period;com&sol;vi&sol;pSTK2Slph&lowbar;k&sol;hqdefault&period;jpg" layout&equals;"fill" object-fit&equals;"cover" alt&equals;"Trulon&colon; The Shadow Engine - Official Trailer"><&sol;a><&sol;amp-youtube><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>When you first start up <em>Trulon<&sol;em>&comma; you are introduced to Gladia&comma; a young monster hunter&period; You first head out into your town to chat with local villagers and then are sent on some little tasks&comma; mostly to just kill some monsters and learn the combat system&period; As the story progresses&comma; Gladia is tasked with saving her kingdom&comma; as two nations do battle with each other&period; She eventually will add a few more people to her party&comma; each having a different role to take on&period; Basically each one of the four plays a set role in the party&semi; there&&num;8217&semi;s your attacker&comma; your tank&comma; magic user and someone who deals in status effects&period; Sadly there are no jobs&comma; and no way to change roles&semi; what you get is what you get&period; Sadly&comma; each character that joins you just kind of exists&comma; and there is a wasted opportunity to explore more of the kingdoms through character relations with it&period; In the end though&comma; the story is really just generic&comma; and the characters&comma; even the hero Gladia&comma; are flat and uninspired&comma; offering little to the background of the colorful world&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129885" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129885" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-129885" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;09&sol;24143447&sol;1279340958-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129885" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Trulon&colon; the Shadow Engine&comma; Headup Games<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>It&&num;8217&semi;s a real shame that these flat and uninspired characters live in a world that seems very interesting&period; The two nations&comma; Tripudia and Maelon&comma; are both vastly different and constantly are at odds with each other&period; The world also has a very strong steampunk aesthetic&comma; which seems cute&comma; and doesn&&num;8217&semi;t feel too overdone&period; <em>Trulon&colon; The Shadow Engine<&sol;em> is essentially a spinoff tale from a Trulon novel&comma; by author Jak Koke &lpar;who has worked on some <em>Shadowrun<&sol;em> novels&comma; so he seems to be familiar with the mixing fantasy and technology&rpar;&period; The towns and cities do look pretty and colorful despite its fairly simple graphics &lpar;and it shows it&&num;8217&semi;s a port of a mobile game&rpar;&period;  The character designs are a little cute but feel about as generic as the characters themselves&period; The enemies and monsters&comma; an integral part of an RPG&comma; also seem pretty bland and there just isn&&num;8217&semi;t enough variety in them&period; The music however is pretty good overall&comma; and is about on par for a JRPG type game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>When it all comes down to it&comma; <em>Trulon<&sol;em> really should be about the combat&comma; and in some ways it works&comma; and some ways it really doesn&&num;8217&semi;t&period; <em>Trulon<&sol;em> uses a card based combat system&comma; similar to a game like <em>Baiten Katos<&sol;em>&comma; for those that remember this RPG gem&period; You have a deck that you put together with cards that you unlock through playing the game&comma; from combat or in chests&comma; and so forth&period; When you are battling&comma; you will draw cards from your deck&comma; randomly of course&comma; as well as a couple of wild cards&period; When you play your cards&comma; they can only be used once per battle&comma; but the wild cards can be used repeatedly&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129886" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129886" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-129886" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;09&sol;24143725&sol;TrulonXbox&lowbar;Logo&lowbar;screen&lowbar;06-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129886" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Trulon&colon; the Shadow Engine&comma; Headup Games<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>When making your deck you need to think about how often you want to be drawing certain cards but also you want to able to have cards to handle a variety of situations&period; I did kind of like this aspect&comma; as I&&num;8217&semi;m a big fan of building decks in games like <em>Magic&colon; the Gathering<&sol;em> and other similar tabletop varieties&period; However&comma; too often I would have a brutal draw and eventually lose a battle due to a bad hand&period; The game autosaves so if you have to redo a battle&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s not too bad&comma; but a better way to mulligan&comma; or discard and redraw at the beginning of a battle would have been nice&period; Also&comma; the game bumps up enemies as you progress and gain more members&period; By the end of the game&comma; the fights became pretty annoying due to some overpowered enemies&period; It seemed like bad design&comma; especially in a game that can already punish you by having bad draws before combat even starts&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In the end&comma; there are some interesting things going on in <em>Trulon<&sol;em>&comma; but there are a lot more aspects going against it&period; The generic characters whom I barely recall&comma; the sometimes broken combat system&comma; the slow as molasses movement of the characters&comma; and so forth&period; Thankfully the game is only about seven hours long&comma; so you can get through the story quickly if you have some interest in it&period; <em>Trulon&colon; the Shadow Engine<&sol;em> is a below average RPG however&comma; and really should be avoided unless you have some interest in the novel and setting&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>A PlayStation 4 code for <em>Trulon&colon; the Shadow Engine<&sol;em> was provided by Headup Games for the purpose of this review&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;