Summary
When it comes to the RPG genre, it can be difficult for indie games likeZoria: Age of Shatteringto stand out among the countless legendary titles that have defined the genre over the decades. Nevertheless, the small Romanian team at Tiny Trinket Games has managed to craft an RPG that stands on its own thanks to a combination of systems that come together into a familiar but altogether refreshing experience for fans of tacticalRPGs.
In an interview with Game Rant,Zoria: Age of Shatteringproducer Stefan Nitescu talked about how the game manages to distinguish itself from similar titles thanks to the way its various systems encourage new approaches to gameplay. In particular, the game’s outpost system gives players a sizeable number of characters to play around with, and these can each be used to revisit previous locations to open up secret paths in a Metroid-like fashion. He also talked about the game’s surprisingly deep crafting system that helps players customize their gear more thoroughly than is typical of the genre.
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Zoria: Age of Shattering’s Combination of Systems Makes for a Unique Experience
Tactics-based RPGstend to focus most of the player’s moment-to-moment decision-making on tactical considerations during combat encounters, and althoughZoria: Age of Shatteringhas no shortage of that, players have plenty of other ways to thoughtfully approach the game’s expansive and content-rich world.
I think it’s the mix of mechanics. You got this demo and you would say it’s a smallerBaldur’s Gate. It kind of works the same way. It’s got turn-based combat, it’s got exploration quests, all the RPG elements, but then you go into the system where you have your own base, and you switch around followers, so already the approach you have to the world is completely different. you’re able to go to a place multiple times and see the secrets and hidden places and stuff like that. This completely changes the way you play the game.
What I like to call the “decision space,” in all these super tactical RPGs, most of the decision space is built around combat. You don’t have a lot of choice in terms of companions. The story in itself has a pretty clear flow, so most of your decision-making happens in the combat. We’re splitting up this decision space. By the time you get to combat, you’ve decided on the party composition, you’ve decided whether or not you engage with the outpost upgrades mechanic, and you already decided on the crafting.
The inclusion ofMetroid-style gated areasencourages players to think about their party composition not only in terms of combat effectiveness but also when it comes to exploration and other nuanced systems like the game’s class-based rest bonuses when the party makes camp. Turn-based RPGs don’t often give players a reason to revisit previous areas, so this is a great way to encourage players to thoroughly explore the world and utilize party members they otherwise might have overlooked.
Zoria: Age of Shattering’s Crafting Systems Are A Step Up for the Genre
A common complaint among RPG fans is the often tedious or seemingly tacked-on crafting mechanics, andZoria: Age of Shatteringaddresses some of these shortcomings by including animpactful crafting systemthat affords players lots of freedom with the materials they use and the gear attributes of the final product. A crafting recipe might call for three metals, but players can decide which metals to use and this affects the stat bonuses the gear will provide.
The crafting in itself is also a hybrid system. Usually, you get the blueprint, and you need the materials and you make the blueprint. It kind of works the same way with us but not really. You have the blueprint, but the blueprint says “two metals, three stones,” but it doesn’t say which metal and doesn’t say which stone. So you have the base stats that are given by the blueprint, and then depending on what metal and what stones you put in it, you can get multiple items out of a single blueprint, with variations based on what you use.
This system is a major step up from otherRPG crafting mechanics, but Nitescu also stresses that it’s not completely necessary to engage with it or indeed several of the game’s systems if players prefer not to. Although combat may be a bit more challenging if players don’t fully utilize every system, the game is designed to be winnable either way. At the end of the day,Zoria: Age of Shattering’s developers want players to explore the RPG in whatever way they see fit.
Zoria: Age of Shatteringis set to release for PC in Q4 2023.
