Dark Envoy is an RPG adventure tactical strategy game set in the futuristic Guns N’ Sorcery time. I have to admit I was very curious and excited to play this game. Surprisingly, it’s not that often that I get the chance to play many RPG tactical games, especially ones with a gripping storyline! So, does Dark Envoy deliver on its promises?
Welcome to the World of Jaan:
Dark Envoy is set on the planet of Jaan, where humans are attempting to colonize the entire planet. However, the inhabitants (consisting of non-human species such as elves etc) are less than happy about this arrangement. The humans self-identify as the Empire, while the remaining natives have arranged themselves into the League. They are constantly vying for control over Jaan. We begin our story with Kaela and Malakai, 2 relic hunting siblings in search of ancient powerful artefacts within the depths of Jaan.
The Darkness Looms:
The world of Jaan is pretty intriguing in a strange, janky kind of way. The environments are engaging, and really make you feel like you’re on an almost familiar alien planet. The enemy variety is also brilliant, as throughout your playthrough you are pitted against both of the main factions of Jaan, facing everything from killer automatons to sketchy human bandits.
However, story-wise, I found that while Dark Envoy does offer some redeeming qualities, it suffers from lacklustre cutscenes, poorly timed voice lines and overall poor voice acting. The cutscenes really drag me out of the experience, and the poor timing of voice lines really puts a dampener on an otherwise cool boss fight or interaction. I think that a lot of these story experiences can be perfected as they’re more rough around the edges, rather than completely broken. And with future patches, I hope to see more engaging and smoother story scenes.
Speaking of which, at pivotal points throughout the story you’ll be presented with the traditional fork in the road choice, generally bad choice or good choice. I was at first surprised they managed to squeeze this in as the story would be just fine without such choices, but it added a decent degree of variety to each playthrough.
Gameplay:
Now, for the heart and soul of Dark Envoy. The gameplay is honestly a little difficult to explain, but once you give it a try, you 100% understand it after your first round of combat. Combat centres around a tactical approach, with the ability to slow time (or stop it altogether) being available right from the get-go. Personally, I loathe this, as I’m all too fond of slowing time just for the frame-by-frame cinematics.
However, this option really does signal to the player that they should tactically and cautiously approach each encounter. This feels strange in an adventure-based RPG but it mixes a lot better than I thought. The only real drawback is that it slows down combat drastically, and some (such as myself) may suffer from the odd bout of analysis paralysis! You can almost forget how quick combat is in between pausing and slowing time.
Since Dark Envoy has a Guns N’ Sorcery backdrop, you get an interesting selection of classes play as. Warriors are your generic melee-focused damage dealers. Ranger your traditional range class. Engineers are your summoners/bombs experts. Finally, Adepts are your spellslingers. Each class has a decent variety of skills and upgrades, and I especially had fun as the dual-wielding ranger with a lot of movement, diving from cover to cover, and letting off a hail of bullets. All throughout the game you meet and control new party members so you’ll get plenty of opportunities to experiment! All the abilities feel nice and crisp, and a special nod to the information panel on each enemy that offers another layer of tactics in combat.
Verdict:
Dark Envoy is a one-of-a-kind game. It offers many unique experiences and some solid gameplay. However, I fear that the lacklustre cutscenes and all-around poorly voiced story really drag down what could’ve been an even greater packaged deal. However, I do expect the developers to address this soon, and really polish this nice indie gem!
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