Flowstone Saga Review
Row-Playing Game
Pure innovation within an established medium genre like RPGs is probably something not often found. For this reason, it’s easy to give credit where credit is due: Impact Gameworks’s Flowstone Saga injects a mechanic rarely seen within the traditional RPG structure to create a unique experience all its own. Combining an engaging narrative, a vibrant look, and a beautiful soundtrack with a combat system built upon the addictive gameplay of Tetris, the title stands out effortlessly in a sea of other games. While there can be no doubt as to the game’s originality and the draw of its gameplay hook (as anyone who’s ever spent more than a handful of minutes with the classic Soviet puzzle game can attest), its singularly original design idea also proves to be a little difficult to maintain interest over the course of the game’s twenty-plus-hour runtime, resulting in a highly entertaining product whose credits I was nonetheless happy to roll.
The story follows Mirai, a young woman who washed up on the beach of the far-flung island of Ocean’s End a year earlier, with no knowledge of who she was before or how she got there. After being taken in by the kind island villagers, who’ve since treated her as family, she’s working on forging a future for herself while trying to remember her past. One day, while exploring a system of caves with her furry fox-like companion Sprig, Mirai stumbles into some ancient ruins, abandoned but filled with advanced technology from an unknown but clearly advanced civilization. After finding a mysterious artifact, Mirai gains the power to control Flow, which manifests as mystic blocks that she can arrange to form certain geometric patterns and shapes.
This is Flowstone Saga‘s main gameplay mechanic. Essentially Tetris, Mirai must manipulate and turn the falling geometric pieces to fill a grid, with fully completed lines causing damage to enemies she faces in battle. For anyone who’s ever fallen under the seminal puzzle game’s spell, this sounds like a match made in heaven. And it is — on paper, at least. While the marriage of Tetris with a traditional turn-based RPG combat system sounds amazing in theory, there’s an almost intangible factor at play here that causes this particular combination to eventually struggle to remain engaging once the first handful of hours have passed and the novelty has worn off. This sounds a bit harsher than it perhaps actually is; Tetris always has been and always will be a great time. But there aren’t enough frills to the equation here to keep it interesting, and once enemies begin getting spongier and spongier, the thrill of starting a brand-new block-building session for every single new encounter begins to get a bit long in the tooth.
Put some Tetris back in your life!
Whereas Tetris traditionally gets harder and harder by virtue of blocks falling faster, with the tower quickly becoming unwieldy as even small, simple mistakes having devastating repercussions, Flowstone Saga begins each new enemy encounter with basically a clean slate. The game tailors its combat system to a turn-based style by letting players slow the progress of falling blocks by suspending them in mid-air indefinitely, allowing for strategic placement; alternatively, players can also choose to simply have blocks continue to fall, and deal with them on the fly. The block-clearing mechanic is only utilized for dealing direct physical damage to foes, while they execute attacks to harm Mirai directly. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough variety inherent in this system; instead, it’s simply a matter of clearing lines at a fast enough pace to whittle the enemy’s HP before they deplete Mirai’s in turn. Difficulty can be further adjusted for those who enjoy a heftier challenge, buffing enemies’ HP pools and increasing their damage output. But while the default setting is a bit tame for Tetris veterans, the highest degree of difficulty stretches the already lengthy encounters even further, so dialing in that sweet spot may require multiple on-the-fly adjustments depending on the encounter.
Happily, there are a few other tweaks to the established Tetris formula found in Flowstone Saga. For one, some enemies have abilities that alter the player’s Tetris board by adding blocks to it, burning holes into their constructed stack, shifting chunks around, or freezing falling blocks in place, to name but a few. There are also some uses of the Tetris formula in instances outside of combat, such as when Mirai interacts with the mysterious advanced technological constructs she begins to find around her primitive island home, forcing players to assemble a pre-determined shape using a limited number of Tetris pieces in brief puzzle sequences. With the high amount of lengthy combat encounters, these distractions are welcome and are one of the highlights of how the developers were able to implement the formula.
New Riverstone is full of interesting characters and opportunities to engage in additional gameplay varieties.
Flowstone Saga offers quite a bit of variety to the player apart from grinding combat encounters. To start with, there’s the narrative, which receives a heavy focus, with plenty of cinematics and lengthy storytelling scenes. Early on, Mirai’s quest to discover more about her past gets things rolling along, but it isn’t long before the island’s peaceful town of New Riverstone is visited by a crew of marauding pirates under the flag of the fearful pirate king Boras Crimm, who are in turn fleeing from the wrath of the fearsome Byzankar Republic. As their peaceful home is invaded by these warring forces, Mirai and the villagers of New Riverstone must find ways to protect their way of life against brutal foes who see them as nothing more than an obstacle to eliminate.
As the narrative continues and Mirai’s powers grow and evolve, new wrinkles expand the gameplay options further. Mirai will be able to take on requests from the other villagers, sending her all over Ocean’s End to explore, gather materials, or return important items. The town of New Riverstone itself can soon be expanded, introducing some light town-building elements with its own Tetris puzzles. Among the additions to the village are a mine in which Mirai can dig for certain resources — via a Tetris mini-game, naturally — a garden to plant various seeds in, and a cafe where players can trigger relationship-building vignettes that flesh out each of the other village residents in lovely ways, providing lots of humor and heart as their personalities are further established. In fact, the game features outstanding writing across the board, with plenty of colorful characters, enigmatic mysteries, emotional drama, and laugh-out-loud comedic bits. While the battle system may slightly outstay its welcome, the world built up around it is deep and satisfying.
Mirai’s mysterious past and her connection to the abandoned high-tech facilities on the island are two of the game’s central mysteries.
The game’s production values further add to its charm, with beautiful and detailed pixel-art animation, environments, and character sprites to enjoy. The game further improves upon its pixel-art trappings in a number of ways. The island of Ocean’s End is gorgeous throughout, dotted with sandy beaches, lush jungles, and mysterious cave systems. Travel is simple, with an overhead map of the island filling up with waypoints as new areas are discovered. Completion progress for each location is tracked on the map for those who want to find each and every treasure, though the in-game quest log leaves some things to be desired, sometimes making it difficult to know where to go to find a certain item. The whole package has a final neat bow tied around it in the form of an incredibly catchy soundtrack that will quickly have players humming along to its lovely tunes.
Overall, Flowstone Saga is a game that isn’t quite like any other, mainly due to its unique gameplay trappings. The infusion of a Tetris system is a natural fit and even lends itself well to the non-combat parts of the game. Despite being a good match on paper, the system’s robustness is directly proportional to the player’s tolerance for Tetris, with plentiful combat encounters that will wear thin for some in the long run. However, the game’s other elements more than make up for any shortcomings here, with beautiful visuals, a jumping soundtrack, and a lengthy and well-written story full of characters that are a joy to get to know over the course of 20 or so hours. It’s a package worth experiencing, with lots to love and enjoy.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
Well-written characters that are a joy to spend time with and get to know
An intriguing narrative is front and center
Variety of gameplay elements
Lovely pixel-art presentation and soundtrack
Despite being a great fit on paper, the combat system eventually wears out its welcome
Sadly, no voice acting
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