Splintered Early Access Impression

Things all flow together quite nicely in Splintered, and every run can be successful provided players can adapt to the equipment and location placement given by the randomizer.

Randomizers have been popular as a way to continue enjoying a title after experiencing everything it originally had to offer.  These are typically brought into older RPGs to spruce up nostalgic classics.  There are few that embrace everything randomizer-oriented as a core gameplay mechanic.  That’s at the heart of dotMake Studios 8-bit, turn-based RPG Splintered as it takes the “save the world” mentality of classic RPGs and mixes in a randomizer to keep things fresh.  Each run is breezy, and the first time through capably sets players up by having a structured run to show how the mechanics and key items work together before testing player’s memories in future runs.

The king has been murdered by his brothers and the family heirlooms stolen.  The prince, who players name, was able to escape the coup as the uncles fled the capital, Havenroc Castle.  The king is now a spectre that gives helpful advice, as well as bringing the prince back from the brink of death when the prince loses all their health.  The king also provides a guidance crystal to the prince so he knows where to go next on the journey.  The prince collects all the key items and fights his way to the main villain, which, upon their defeat, tosses the world about, randomizing the geography, enemy locations, and contents of treasure chests while sending the prince back to level one.  Full runs are split into chapters, with chapter one being the basic playthrough to get players accustomed to the key locations, while the second chapter is a base randomizer run with the same gear and key items as the first.  The full version of Splintered is scheduled for five chapters in total.

There are a lot of possibilities when venturing out to a randomized world from Havenroc Castle.

Starting off, the prince receives a stipend of money he can use to buy equipment and consumables.  Beyond typical healing items, there are also torches, which are needed to see in the dungeons that are littered across this world.  Things are a little slow going at first since experience and gold are in short stock until players gain a few levels.  Combat sees use of attack, item, and spell options, with magic being learned at level-ups and at random intervals during shuffled campaigns.  Gold eventually becomes plentiful, particularly in the randomized settings, as chest placement doesn’t change but the gold amounts are greater than the first playthrough.  This is because the prince’s death results in losing half the gold that’s been gathered, with half of that available as a treasure chest where he fell.  Dying is easier in the randomized playthroughs because encounters are separated into grids and can factor in any enemy found in the game, so finding a spot to level reliably can be difficult.

Chests replenish when leaving a dungeon, which makes farming for gold pretty easy if there’s a bunch of treasure handily located in the game world.  There are not a ton of treasure chests overall, so remembering where most locations are is possible.  Luckily, the dungeons aren’t too deep, which enables blind searching as another option.  Key items not only appear in chests, but as rewards for boss fights, which typically leads to scouring everything to get the eight key items needed to successfully unlock the final dungeon.  Things all flow together quite nicely in Splintered, and every run can be successful provided players can adapt to the equipment and location placement given by the randomizer.

Two of the king’s treacherous uncles hiding out

Other than searching for treasure, Splintered also has an interesting equipment levelling system.  Essentially, equipped items gain passive abilities that make use of attributes gained from levelling up.  These attributes are HP, MP, Strength, and Dexterity, and they increase at a random rate from zero to twenty per level gained.  Some equipment can raise the totals of any of these attributes, but typically utilizing passive abilities or talents that draw out the highest totals will work best.  Beyond specializing in a type of gear, there are also some powerful pieces that are hard not to equip due to benefits like routine auto-healing or level-scaled attack power increases.

Splintered also has a number of set talents that are learned from defeating certain enemies.  Unlocking these talents can be from defeating every enemy of a sub-type, while some are locked behind randomized groupings of up to six enemies.  After unlocking these talents, only two can be equipped at the beginning, with opportunities to unlock another four occurring via game progression.  Talents typically provide stat boosts to either attributes, experience, or gold, but can also provide things like less damage from a dragon’s breath attack or an added boost to healing spells.  They are rather useful, but typically are less effective than boosts from equipment and their added passives.

Dragon Ducks are this world’s signature enemy

Visually, everything is basic, but has a nostalgic charm in how the sprites are shown on screen as well as in combat.  There are around a dozen enemy designs so far, using colour swaps primarily to differentiate stronger versions, that add to a total of about thirty enemies.  The world includes a bunch of terrain tiles, including ones that damage the player when walking across them, which can make movement cumbersome on the randomized overworld maps as the next town or dungeon could be anywhere.  Audio is a formulaic chip tune that evokes a lot of nostalgic feelings and is serviceable, complete with sound effects that match.

Splintered fills a particular niche of those that want an easily accessible, replayable, and nostalgic RPG.  The animations are quick and snappy, which makes combat satisfyingly smooth.  Additionally, there are a few different possibilities for archetype builds that look to only expand as more content is added into the game.  For now, there’s enough to make for a few quick runs and, at an affordable price, there’s a lot to like here.