I found Overfall to be a bit of a deceptive title for a few reasons. First and foremost, it’s labelling as a ‘rogue-like’. While yes, it does contain elements that would be considered ‘rogue-esque’ (what with perma-death and such), my preconceptions about games in this broad genre convinced me that Overfall would be really, really hard. It isn’t (at least not for the reasons you might think, there are the odd frustrations, which I will delve into later). Secondly, Overfall initially comes across as quite a simplistic title, when in actual fact it is more complex, and surprisingly deep. But perhaps most importantly, for a rogue-like, turn based RPG at a time when every other game also seems to be one (a bit of an exaggeration, but there are quite a few), Overfall is actually quite unique, and its blend of genres and adventure stylings prove to be rather interesting.
Overfall starts simply at a character screen. You can choose two characters to start your journey with, choosing from a mixture of classes, from warriors to wizards, covering a huge range of abilities and perks. You can also equip your heroes with trinkets and other such items that give specific buffs and advantages. You will gradually unlock more of these options as you play the game, but for your first play-though, a standard pairing will be the warrior and a clerk – so a strong melee character, and a magic user with buffing and healing abilities.
Once you’ve made your adjustments and selections, it’s time to start your journey. Your two heroes will be teleported to an island where an old man tells you that centuries have past since you last set foot in these lands. The world you were once used to has changed, races are warring, your king has disappeared, and an ever increasing threat of Vorn soldiers (basically Vikings) is worrying the land. You’re told that you need to uncover some ‘beacons’ in order to find your missing king, and the pressure is on to get there before the Vorn do.
To be honest, there’s not a lot of explanation after this point. You’re plopped into the sea (with a ship, of course) and pretty much need to work it all out on your own. After you’ve had a bit of a sail around and landed on the odd island…or died because you went into battle immediately without knowing what you were doing and now have to restart the game…you should figure out shortly that in order to progress in Overfall, you need to visit the various islands in this archipelago world and ingratiate the local races.
You’ll find, orcs, dwarves, elves, hollows (which are were-people, animals and such), goblins, and forsaken (which are undead). In order to raise your standing with these races, you simply need to visit an island which they inhabit and help them with tasks and do quests for them. Rocking up and killing the locals for no good reason is a bad way to start, though as the game progresses you will discover that some races are at war with each other. Want to max out your relationship with the elves? Well, the hollows aren’t going to like that much and you’ll eventually find yourself pursued by hollow ships looking to kill you.
It’s not really that complicated at all, but the challenge comes from weighing up how much time you want to invest in helping a race vs gathering resources and doing optional tasks. In doing other quests, battling and hunting for resources and companions, your team may be better prepared for battle, however by the time you get to the end game there may be more Vorn activity than you are able to deal with. Basically how this works is you have a constantly increasing day/night cycle and a bar showing Vorn activity. As the bar increases, more of the Vorn will appear, and eventually overwhelm you. As such, the whole game is effectively a race against time.
This is a bit of a mixed mechanic for me. On the one hand, the increasing Vorn presence and looming threat adds a great deal of tension, and is a driving force to get you to your objective, but on the other hand, the game has randomly generated encounters which can end up working against you. It’s both a charming feature and a frustrating one. When you disembark onto an island there’s a chance you will be faced with hostile encounters, troubled citizens and quest starters. Only some of these will result in improving your relations with a race, while the rest will result in rewards. If, for example, time is running low and you desperately need to get your relations with a race to improve quickly, it can be very frustrating if your next few visits to islands result in nothing but resource based tasks. There are ways around it, such as sticking to one area and only visiting the few islands of a specific race, but that ends up making the game feel a bit one note and shallow (only doing quests for elves, for example, and sticking to the same area for most of your play-through). I think if the game time was extended this issue might have been solved (one play-through might take you around 2 hours to finish).
On harder difficulty modes, these resource quests are a bit more essential, however. There are a few types of resources that can be gathered, each with multiple uses. Frags are a currency that can be used to buy upgrades and perks such as extra chance to bleed foes on striking and so on. Dust can be used to upgrade your heroes’ skills, making them more effective, or increasing their chance of causing de-buffs on foes; and can also be used to give your ship a temporary speed boost, useful if you are being pursued and want to avoid conflict. Runes are much more valuable than any other resource, and can be used to resurrect your main heroes if they are defeated in battle (you will need to visit an altar in order to do so, however companions cannot be resurrected), and can also be offered at altars to gain protection in fights. And lastly, food which is the most important resource as it is used to heal your injured part members. All of these resources can be traded for one and other, and in some tasks you may be able to bribe characters and avoid confrontations by using them. The game doesn’t have an in depth economy system, and resources can feel a bit superfluous at times (especially on easy mode), but in specific encounters they can be the difference between life and death. As already intimated, they give more of a point to questing on higher difficulties.
I’ve mentioned randomly generate encounters, and insinuated that combat can be a challenge, but it’s the mixture of these two aspects that not only makes Overfall unique and engaging for multiple plays, but also highly tense and, on harder difficulties, quite the challenge. Because, ultimately, when you visit an island you have no idea what it’s going to throw at you, and if you are unprepared for it that could well be the end of your play-through. When I say “unprepared” I really mean that. There’s no conventional levelling system or exp to be earned in Overfall, as instead the game relies on a reward/punishment system where you gain traits, buffs and skills to utilise in battle – meaning you can’t simply over level, you need to acquire traits and use your heroes’ skills wisely. Once unlocked, you can use these various trinkets, abilities and companions in future play-throughs, meaning you can progress faster or attempt the game on a higher difficulty. This is where the initially simplistic seeming gameplay becomes deeper.
Combat in Overfall is grid based and turn based. During a a battle, there are three phases of action to take for each character. First is movement – walking a set distance, or using a special ability if your character has one (such as leaping, which will do damage to foes in adjacent spaces). Then comes the utility phase, which gives you the chance to buff your own character or an ally, or de-buff or inhibit an enemy – for example, applying healing to an ally, or inflicting an enemy with blind, etc. And lastly comes the action phase, where you will be able to use your hero’s attacks. If you don’t need to, or can’t use any of your abilities in each phase, you can skip – for example, if you don’t have a ranged attack and aren’t close enough to an enemy you will just need to skip and wait till your next opportunity. Once you’ve gone through all these phases, the turn switches to the next character – either yours or an enemy’s, it seemed to depend on the occasion during my play-throughs. Combat is very much reliant on this buffing and de-buffing system, and it can take good forethought and planning in order to get through tricky encounters.
Overall I found the combat to be quite enjoyable. The tactical elements are varied and pivotal enough to create some really satisfyingly challenging encounters, meaning there is a thrill to defeating your enemies. There’s a large number of potential companions to utilise in your party, and as such a good amount of interesting abilities to try out – my personal favourite being the pyromancer (a good combination to use with her is to teleport during the movement phase, thus setting alight the enemy you appear next to, using ‘absorb’ during the utility phase in order to lower any incoming damage in the next turn, and if you’ve positioned yourself right, you can use a blast of fire which damages anything in its path and can cause critical damage to enemies that already have burning applied to them – this being an example of using buffs and traits to do as much damage as you can). There’s a good pace to combat – quick and brutal – and enough tactical input that many conflicts you enter do not become tedious.
Despite all this, however, the game still garners some frustration and leaves a bit to be desired. As already mentioned, it’s impossible to really tell what encounters you will face on each island, and sometimes it will take a while for you to find the type of task you are looking for. This is particularly annoying as there’s no proper map (aside from a mini map) for you to guide your way to specific races – you can waste a lot of time trying to find your way around. This combined with the chance of encountering resource quests when you need relation ones can create a bit of a confined playstyle where you won’t explore further and you won’t risk varying your play. It does affect the enjoyment of the game somewhat, and while replaying Overfall is clearly a key feature in order to experience all it has to offer, doing so is essentially just a rinse and repeat with a slightly different hat on – if you stuck around elf areas the first time, the second time you will stick around dwarf areas, etc.
The Vorn themselves can also become problematic. They’re an ever rising threat from the beginning, which adds tension and a bit of extra challenge – running into a Vorn fleet can result in a few battles you might have hoped to avoid – but this goes a little too far towards the end of the game. If you’re unlucky enough to get caught in the middle of a massive Vorn invasion, it gives the impression that you might as well just give up. I’m not exaggerating when I say this either, because during the later Vorn invasion I found myself literally unable to move without instigating battle (I ended up quitting after the seventh fight as there was still a massive cluster surrounding me, waiting to attack). I don’t know if this is an intentional spike in difficulty, like you have reached the end and run out of time so just wait for death, or if this was an unforeseen consequence of ramping up the number of hostile ships that chase you on sight, but either way it was very annoying. This just adds to my previous criticism about ending up playing the game in a confined manner – it’s more hassle to allow the game to progress naturally.
Additionally, the actual presentation and writing of Overfall comes across as simplistic. It’s a colourful game, and reasonably pleasantly designed, but there’s not much in the way of animations and effects. The story telling is bare-bones, there’s no voice acting aside from the intro cutscene when you start up the game, and the quests themselves are incredibly basic in terms of writing – there’s the odd bit of humour and interesting activity, but mostly the dialogue is skippable.
I’d say overall, Overfall struggles to make a great lasting impression, but I think it’s enjoyable and deep enough to stand out, and despite its flaws is certainly worth a bash if you’re interested in this broad genre. The replayability factor is actually quite well done – more than I can say for a lot of games that boast this as a feature. There’s plenty to unlock with each play-through, and doing so opens up new characters to play with and even new ways of completing tasks (some characters will offer a bit of wisdom during a task which can send it in a different direction – having a peaceful conclusion to what was previously a conflict, etc). Also, developer Pera Games and Chris Avellone (of Planescape: Torment and Fallout: New Vegas fame), have created a writing guide for players to use alongside the game’s story editor, meaning you can create your own quests. It’s quite a nice feature to include – giving players the ability to expand their experience. It’s a shame about the frustrations and simplicities, but if you do decide to give Overfall a try, there’s also a lot to be enjoyed.