Prelude Dark Pain Alpha Impression

Even in the small number of battles shown, it demonstrates some strong variation in its encounter design, including a set piece fight taking place on top of travelling stagecoaches and a mission to destroy some bridge supports.

Developer Quickfire Games recently unveiled its dark fantasy tactical RPG Prelude Dark Pain, before beginning a currently-ongoing Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for the title. The game sees players taking the role of Soren, a warrior turned blacksmith, in the world of Statera. Soren ends up leading a group of heroes trying to save the world from an ancient evil lying beyond the world’s veil, which is being torn apart by the actions of the Order of the Ashen Crusade. RPGamer was able to check out a short alpha demo on PC containing its first three story battles, plus a pair of extra skirmishes.

Prelude Dark Pain is very quick about setting up its brutal setting and comic book graphical inspirations with its opening scenes and events. It also doesn’t go out of its way to explain what’s happening, getting players to put together the pieces from the short conversations and contextual information. It begins with Soren and his family being hunted down at their home by a nefarious group. He and his son are able to fight back and are swiftly joined by some allies, though his wife — a witch — ends up captured.

The demo is primarily focused on the combat experience, not lasting long enough to go through its story or include any of its wider campaign elements that include making story-altering decisions and character progression elements. However, even in the small number of battles shown, it demonstrates some strong variation in its encounter design, including a set piece fight taking place on top of travelling stagecoaches and a mission to destroy some bridge supports. It promises some very interesting battles for the full version.

The turn-based, grid-based tactical combat features a set character turn order, visible in the top-left of the screen. Each turn, a combatant can move once, attack once, and use multiple skills before defending or ending their turn. Two skill points are restored each turn, and players can unleash multiple skills per turn if they have the skill points available, but defending requires use of a skill point, adding an extra level to the risk versus reward. Character positioning and direction are important, as attacking from the side or rear will do extra damage, with players able to choose which way their character faces at the end of their turn.

Each character is quite distinct in how they attack and the skills available to them, and it’s also very easy to deal friendly-fire, giving players a fair amount to think about in combat. There look to be plenty of synergies to make use of, both within a single turn and across multiple turns, with numerous status effects also able to be applied. On the whole, the combat looks like it has a strong base to build upon and is easy to get the hang of, although the disconnect between the cardinal controller directions and diagonal map layout is a bit mind-screwing. The graphic style helps impress the brutal dark setting with plenty of darkness and crimson hues, but ensures there’s enough saturation and mixture of colours to keep it all visually interesting. The UI works well with customisable outlines helping players to differentiate allies, foes, and other important parts on the battlefield.

The music present in the alpha very much matches with the game’s visual theme, adding intensity to the combat with an evident focus on strings. Quickfire Games has enlisted the services of Japanese composer Kumi Tanioka (Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles) to work on the game’s score, and the musical backing feels like a strong point even at these early stages.

Althouh there wasn’t much to glean for the story and overall campaign features, the alpha build of Prelude Dark Pain shows plenty of promise. The combat works well, aided by strong and varied encounters to kick things off, and it sets out its overall style and mood well. With the Kickstarter campaign already passed its goal just a few days into it, Quickfire Games has set its stall out nicely so far.

Disclosure: This article is based on a build of the game provided by the publisher.