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[Dostoevsky]

I'unno, Warsong's(/Langrisser's) stuff is pretty different from what I've seen of vids (haven't bought it, yet, but soon), and from what I've seen of stats and whatnot SoW is way more Fire Emblem than Warsong... basically all the design I've seen so far that's not Ogre Battle leans Fire Emblem instead of Langrisser, really (which is arguably disappointing, 'cause I actually enjoyed playing the Langrisser stuff I've played more than the FE, heh). Map aesthetics and design, character interactions, just... all of it has struck me very much as later age (GBA and beyond, basically) FE more than anything Langrisser.

It's closest to Soul Nomad, if anybody has played that one, with some FE thrown in. Though Ogre Battle / Fire Emblem mix also works. Not as much langrisser. It's a pretty good game, and probably the only of its ilk that I feel like perma-death actually works well in - between each chapter you can hire more generics (with various ways to make them less green), and there are also better-trained mercenaries to hire. Story characters can't die, and if a character does die in a chapter they're only dead-dead if you can't get them revived before the end of the map (generally via taking them to a church).

Teams are built up like Ogre Battle, with various units filling slots on a grid, though position does not affect what attacks a unit uses. On the other hand, positioning matters more and different ways to go for the back lines matter more.

It also has its own innovations beyond FE and Ogre Battle, though -- there's a morale system, squad size isn't static, there's an ambush system for certain unit types, and instead of a weapon triangle it's basically an armor / armor piercing / magic soft triangle. (And ranged v. melee.)

Only thing I've sorta' seen from SoW that points Langrisser way is maybe the kinda' thirsty character sprites, if you squint at it a bit. Not sure if SoW is quite the literally-hired-a-porn-artist tier that Langrisser was, though, ha.

The portraits in the game definitely lean that way, but the artist is actually someone at Riot games now (according to the lead dev). Granted one look at their art station shows you what they like to draw, hah.

[Il Palazzo]

I don't know. I found SoW boring. Didn't like the linearity of the campaign, which I felt undermined the whole management side. The difficulty (one above normal) provided at best middling challenge. But I felt that if I were to actually fuck up at some point and lose a couple high-level squads, recovery would be a pain - most likely consisting of slogging through a number of identical arena matches to bring the recruits up to speed. The part of the story I saw was kinda ugh too - very standard jrpg fare, slightly westernised. Kinda cringe, kinda bland.
The experience levels joyfully going up all the time was pretty much all the fun I managed to take from it.

I've never played any of those games it's supposed to be a homage/spiritual successor to, though. Maybe heavy dose of nostalgia is the whole point.

[Dostoevsky]

Eh, if you're more interested in grognard-y or otherwise crunchy stuff this is definitely not going to scratch your itch.

(The story is basically just a fire emblem one though, yeah - not terribly notable.)

[Frumple]

I've never played any of those games it's supposed to be a homage/spiritual successor to, though. Maybe heavy dose of nostalgia is the whole point.

Looking at the other games by the dev, that's likely a fairly strong component to their business plan, yeah. If it weren't for the homage part I never would have touched it, because outside of that basically everything about it is somewhere between meh and active turn off for me.

I'm not going through it very quickly (it's a'ight, but yeah, it doesn't scratch the same itches Ogre Battle did with nearly the degree of satisfaction), and it's definitely not particularly on par with Ogre Battle, mechanics wise, but, well. I will throw money at stuff using that general combat system just about every chance someone will give me, in probably vain hope someone will eventually one-up the OG Ogre Battle. This is one area where I absolutely am going to vote with my wallet until something good happens or I die/become too poor to do it and still eat.

[Mephansteras]

Going to drop in a rare plug for an early access game here, The Last Spell.

I'd call it a rogue-lite town defense game. You have 3 (later more) heroes that you get to move around to fight waves of monsters during the night and during the day you get more gear, build buildings to produce stuff as well as defensive structures.

Picked it up since at $15 it was cheap and piqued my interest and it's really good. Lots of solid mechanics, tons of content like weapons, enemies, perks, etc. It scratches my tactical turn-based combat itch quite well with a combat system that reminds me a good bit of Final Fantasy Tactics. The difficulty ramps up as you unlock stuff, so even the first map can provide a steady challenge until you beat it.

I've got over 40 hours into it already and am nowhere near finished with it.

[a1s]

Also, yeah, If you could convince someone to play any PnP or tabletop, you could convince them to play something from one of those bundles, my main issue is that playing on the forum is slow

There's always Discord. I had some really nice experiences recently, you can have dice rolling bots, session reminding bots and speech (if you're into that.) We used Owlbear Rodeo for maps.

Made a server just for that.

[Vector]

I'm REALLY looking forward to Rune Factory 5. Hope it's worth the anticipation!

Looks like Square-Enix have decided to step up and fill the gap left by Rune Factory's long-delayed and generally disappointing sequel.

Harvestella

It's coming out this year!

innnnnteresting ... I added a note on my calendar, but am kinda wondering if it's going to go a similar way to I Am Setsuna (knockoff of some other good stuff without the "zing").

I'm still excited LOL

[lemon10]

Going to drop in a rare plug for an early access game here, The Last Spell.

I'd call it a rogue-lite town defense game. You have 3 (later more) heroes that you get to move around to fight waves of monsters during the night and during the day you get more gear, build buildings to produce stuff as well as defensive structures.

Picked it up since at $15 it was cheap and piqued my interest and it's really good. Lots of solid mechanics, tons of content like weapons, enemies, perks, etc. It scratches my tactical turn-based combat itch quite well with a combat system that reminds me a good bit of Final Fantasy Tactics. The difficulty ramps up as you unlock stuff, so even the first map can provide a steady challenge until you beat it.

I've got over 40 hours into it already and am nowhere near finished with it.

Just got it before the sale ended, and with one issue (the fact that you get nothing on the last night if you die which usually means that like a hour of hectic slightly depressing gameplay where you slowly get ground down and die gives literally no rewards) am really loving it so far.
Obviously the sale is over, but I would recommend it from what I've played (~20 hours) assuming you have no issue with rougelites with slow meta-progression.

[Mephansteras]

Going to drop in a rare plug for an early access game here, The Last Spell.

I'd call it a rogue-lite town defense game. You have 3 (later more) heroes that you get to move around to fight waves of monsters during the night and during the day you get more gear, build buildings to produce stuff as well as defensive structures.

Picked it up since at $15 it was cheap and piqued my interest and it's really good. Lots of solid mechanics, tons of content like weapons, enemies, perks, etc. It scratches my tactical turn-based combat itch quite well with a combat system that reminds me a good bit of Final Fantasy Tactics. The difficulty ramps up as you unlock stuff, so even the first map can provide a steady challenge until you beat it.

I've got over 40 hours into it already and am nowhere near finished with it.

Just got it before the sale ended, and with one issue (the fact that you get nothing on the last night if you die which usually means that like a hour of hectic slightly depressing gameplay where you slowly get ground down and die gives literally no rewards) am really loving it so far.
Obviously the sale is over, but I would recommend it from what I've played (~20 hours) assuming you have no issue with rougelites with slow meta-progression.

Yeah, if I have one quibble with the game it is that. But it's not enough of an issue that it ruins the game for me.

[Nirur Torir]

Shadow Empire, a rare game mixing 4x and turn based wargames, is on flash sale for $10 for the next 20 hours. This is the first time I've seen it drop below $30.

[Il Palazzo]

^That's an excellent offer for an excellent game. Only suitable for the wargaming-tolerant folk, I'd say. Army counters, command structures, logistics - that kind of thing. In a procedural SF environment.

[E. Albright]

It's still getting major work done on it - slowly, b/c it's a one-person project and the dev also works on other games - but it's still evolving. I'd agree it's mostly geared to people who are grognardy and get off on moving squares on a map (or my favorite, developing small incremental improvements to a weapon system and rolling it out across your forces over several turns), but it also goes moderately heavy on the planet-generation (and weird alien critter) side of things. It's not perfect, but it's very much worth 10USD if any of that catches your interest.

[None]

GOG's doing a pretty decent sale and handing out Immortal Redneck for free for the next three days, as Robsoie has helpfully pointed out. Good time to get classics like Planescape- Torment Enhanced Edition/Neverwinter Nights EE, some of the Tomb Raider reboots are a buck a pop, most of the UFO series (Aftermath/Aftershock/Afterlight) also appear to be a buck per, the original F.E.A.R is a buck fifty, Deus Ex and Thief are cheapo, Dragon's Dogma is five, etc etc etc.

[heydude6]

A note on FEAR. The publisher did a very scummy move on Steam in which they made it no longer possible to buy the original classic on it's own. You can only buy it bundled with all of the shitty cash-cow sequels for $60 which is a shit deal.

GOG is best way to purchase the game standalone at a fair price.

[Micro102]

Shadow Empire, a rare game mixing 4x and turn based wargames, is on flash sale for $10 for the next 20 hours. This is the first time I've seen it drop below $30.

Dammit. If only I looked sooner. I actually have been eyeballing this game but that price tag is steep for what I see.