Incline Hero's Adventure: Road to Passion - Wuxia Pixelated Isometric Open-World Sandbox RPG with Turn-Based Combat

[felipepepe]

Posting here to see if more people try the game, it's really, really interesting. It's like a Wuxia Fallout 1/2, with A TON of choice & consequence, build options and optional events.

I restared it twice to see the different options, each playthrough went completely different:

- First was a spear fighter that regens HP each round, became the apprentice to a hobo and then got arrested.
- Second was a super-fast solo fist-fighter that got betrayed by a bandit in the woods.
- This is a swordsman that recruited several companions (including a pet roster), helped an alcoholic blacksmith and was admitted into a legendary swordmaster sect.

Lots of cool details, like how the bandit in the woods betrayed me when I was alone, but the following playthrough I had companions so he ran away. The game also is open-world and EXTREMELY open to sequence breaking, your Lv 10 hero can wander into battles against Lv 50 enemies, and there's crazy items like "since you're part of Sect X, people respect as if you're a high level hero".

Really the only issue is that for some reason they screwed up the riddles... I understand that you cannot properly translate a riddle about completing Chinese poems into English, but then replace it for something functional, don't just leave it impossible a weird word salad...

 

[notpl]

The game is indeed quite strong out the gate, and has the potential to be amazing on repeat playthroughs - especially since they keep adding content. My main criticism is the fucking GRIND. Holy shit, this is the sort of grindy bullshit that would put a 2000s Korean MMO to shame.

1. You're encouraged to grind out achievements and restart with a better character
2. The stamina system requires a ridiculous balancing act of spending money to rest and restore your stamina, using that stamina to gather resources to sell for more money, so that you can spend money to rest and restore your stamina, ...
3. Raising relationship with NPCs requires a really goofy amount of gift spam. Why not just make them more expensive and impactful?
4. The fucking MONSTERS ON EVERY GODDAMN MAP THAT AGGRO YOU INTO A TEDIOUS TURN BASED BATTLE NO MATTER HOW MANY THOUSANDS OF THEM YOU KILL GOOD FUCKING LORD. These fucking things respawn RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, you can't even walk back out of a dungeon after clearing it because they've all spawned back in behind you!

 

[jungl]

Started playing it yesterday it is good put my colon ship playthrough aside for it. If you enjoy rpgs with time system where npcs and the world doesnt revolve around the player you'll love it. Doesn't seem grindy at all tbh there no reason to restart game till u finish ur first playthrough. Out the gate so far slightly better then wandering sword.

Love the humor and charming graphics gave me old korean mmo and adventure games nostalgia.

 

[Abu Antar]

Is there a set time limit?

 

[felipepepe]

The game is indeed quite strong out the gate, and has the potential to be amazing on repeat playthroughs - especially since they keep adding content. My main criticism is the fucking GRIND. Holy shit, this is the sort of grindy bullshit that would put a 2000s Korean MMO to shame.

1. You're encouraged to grind out achievements and restart with a better character
2. The stamina system requires a ridiculous balancing act of spending money to rest and restore your stamina, using that stamina to gather resources to sell for more money, so that you can spend money to rest and restore your stamina, ...
3. Raising relationship with NPCs requires a really goofy amount of gift spam. Why not just make them more expensive and impactful?
4. The fucking MONSTERS ON EVERY GODDAMN MAP THAT AGGRO YOU INTO A TEDIOUS TURN BASED BATTLE NO MATTER HOW MANY THOUSANDS OF THEM YOU KILL GOOD FUCKING LORD. These fucking things respawn RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, you can't even walk back out of a dungeon after clearing it because they've all spawned back in behind you!

This game isn't grindy AT ALL, you get a lot of XP from set battles and events. The only way it gets grindy is if you stay in a dungeon fighting the same enemies over and over instead of exploring the world. Most areas are cities and towns, that don't even have random battles. Also:

1 - No, you're not. You're encouraged to replay the game, reaching multiple endings and unlocking better stats & new starting traits over time. But this is all optional, nowhere the game goes "now restart!"
2 - You don't have to pay to rest, there's several options like resting in abandoned houses, sleeping in your sect or recruiting the innkeeper so you can stay for free.
3 - That's already in-game, higher quality items raise friendship more.
4 - The field turn-based battles are among the fastest I've ever seen in an RPG, you can end weak enemies in under 10 seconds, it won't even waste your time with party selection and position like they do in big battles. AND you can sneak around them if you don't want to fight.

 

[notpl]

Uhh alright but it's still a shitload of turn-based battles with respawning enemies. And saying you can sneak around them is a bit silly since that will invariably waste even more of your time. And the game is extremely, EXTREMELY level-gated. Level mismatches impose a flat damage bonus/malus a la witcher 3 such that you cannot ever function outside your "weight class" so to speak, grinding is the way you get stronger and you cannot progress in the game without doing so.

 

[HerosAdventure]

No more time limit (used to have a 100-day limit in EA). You can now play at your own pace and explore as much as you can in Jianghu in V1.0

Thank you for response.

ONe last question: Does the game have a time limit? Or can you play at your own pace?

 

[just]

i've restarted few times to see how it branches
right at the start you can pick between two chicks (or none)
picking one the other becomes a prisoner. you can release her later if you want or let her be
or
game doesnt give you an option in the conversation but you can manually start combat and kill her while shes tied down
killing one of the broads gives you an evil hater perk, some %dmg bonus
killing the other gives you

then you can go to a nearby village, eat some dog meat and embark on a journey as a thot destroyer
i havent gone far into the game and i'm also not the greatest of attention payers, but i dont think i've fought a woman yet(excluding the one at the start)
no female guards or bandits (think of the esg score), so that perk might not be as op as it looks

 

[warcrimes666]

This is a good game. I'm very impressed with the depth of content and it blows the shit out of the vast majority of recent games of any style. I don't even want to spoil anything for anyone because the shear extent of the branching will just be immensely more fun to tease out on your own. The translation is also completely fine, the only area where its difficult to parse is all the riddles based on confucius and other historical chinese writings which are still very interesting and truthful to read as axioms and I don't think would be possible to set that up in any other way because no comprehensible translation would work for that at all anyway. Here is a guide for those because would be impossible to get through without individual trial and error:

ancient riddle guide

The other helpful thing to note is how time works which is based on the chinese zodiac, for instance "the auction will be held at wu shi everyday' which causes mouth breathers to completely fall apart but really just means between 11am and 1pm or when 'horses are energetic'. It's alot of fun to go through, here is a site with all of the zodiac timings to help with getting around:

chinese zodiac time

 

[notpl]

The names of the chinese hours are also written on the in-game clock, so even if you have no idea what "wu shi" means... you just have to go when the clock says "wu shi." Not exactly a head-scratcher.

 

[Lhynn]

This game is amazing. Been playing it all weekend and I just cant have enough of it.

The sheer amount of shit you can do, people you can meet, content thats locked behind your actions. I go back to the nameless village because I want to tame the rooster, spend the night at the inn after a long trip and when I wake up the owner is getting shaken up by a thug, I help her with that and the higher approval from her has her offering me her dowry for 10k coins. A tad expensive, merchant experts can lower it to half, but im not that. Buy anyway. Its an item that heals your status effects, very nice.

I decide to give her shit to see if theres more content around her, bam, quest about her being stalked at night. Theres just so much care for this game its insane.

 

[Lyre Mors]

If I'm thinking of doing an musical instrument-based character, what is the dominant stat I should be looking to prioritize? I've looked at character creation a bit, and I can't seem to figure how I should build my character.

 

[felipepepe]

This game is amazing. Been playing it all weekend and I just cant have enough of it.

The sheer amount of shit you can do, people you can meet, content thats locked behind your actions. I go back to the nameless village because I want to tame the rooster, spend the night at the inn after a long trip and when I wake up the owner is getting shaken up by a thug, I help her with that and the higher approval from her has her offering me her dowry for 10k coins. A tad expensive, merchant experts can lower it to half, but im not that. Buy anyway. Its an item that heals your status effects, very nice.

I decide to give her shit to see if theres more content around her, bam, quest about her being stalked at night. Theres just so much care for this game its insane.

And they all interact with each other. I had the Inn owner in my party and had her forgive the Blacksmith's debt, which allowed him to travel with me and join a sect.

 

[Lyre Mors]

I'll take the lack of responses as no one knowing either. Intelligence seems to make the most sense, but seems primarily tied to MP - which I'm assuming doesn't stand for music points. Guess I'll just have to try it out and see what happens. I just fear I'll get well into the game, only to realize hours in I've fumbled my build. Going to be playing on Hard the first time through, of course.

 

[notpl]

I'll take the lack of responses as no one knowing either. Intelligence seems to make the most sense, but seems primarily tied to MP - which I'm assuming doesn't stand for music points. Guess I'll just have to try it out and see what happens. I just fear I'll get well into the game, only to realize hours in I've fumbled my build. Going to be playing on Hard the first time through, of course.

Intelligence decreases your maximum MP. Music users want to keep it at 1, just like in real life. I'd prioritize Dex for a music build, mostly just because it's the best stat.

 

[Sarathiour]

i've restarted few times to see how it branches
right at the start you can pick between two chicks (or none)
picking one the other becomes a prisoner. you can release her later if you want or let her be
or
game doesnt give you an option in the conversation but you can manually start combat and kill her while shes tied down
killing one of the broads gives you an evil hater perk, some %dmg bonus
killing the other gives you

 

[Lhynn]

I'll take the lack of responses as no one knowing either. Intelligence seems to make the most sense, but seems primarily tied to MP - which I'm assuming doesn't stand for music points. Guess I'll just have to try it out and see what happens. I just fear I'll get well into the game, only to realize hours in I've fumbled my build. Going to be playing on Hard the first time through, of course.

Intelligence decreases your maximum MP. Music users want to keep it at 1, just like in real life. I'd prioritize Dex for a music build, mostly just because it's the best stat.

Dex isnt that good, none of them are must haves really, but they all contribute sizeably to your characters performance.

A lucky character will find himself parrying, evading, comboing and countering often, the benefit from each point of luck is minuscule, but it adds up in quantity. Intelligent characters will have an easier time mastering skills, and with the amount of skills around, it is a good one to pick. You also level up slowly, and level is super important, as level difference influences damage. so intelligence will make the process of getting to max level easier. Str is also important, and con adds up, a lot of enemies have very strong attacks, and you may get oneshotted, a good constitution score goes a long way into being powerful.

There really isnt a "meta" build, but a lot of viable ways to go about it.

I started my playthrough at dex 1, str 6 con 2 and int 10, and im having a decent time, but theres this fucker that basically twoshots me before I can even act despite being almost as fast as him, I have been trying to level up elsewhere before trying that fight again, but this game is just like that, any given build will run into trouble with something on its own, and the only real weapon you have against that is knowing the game very well, and thats only achieved with several playthroughs.

 

[notpl]

Well, having played a bit (okay, fine, a lot) more, I have to push back more strongly against that dude who said the game isn't grindy. The grind IS the game. Everything about this game is a grind. You have 25 world-interaction skills which all require full real-world hours of grinding apiece to max out, and the game's sidequests all require them in varying degrees. Find a lost family heirloom blade? Requires level 4 weaponsmithing to polish it before you can return it to the questgiver. How do you reach level 4 weaponsmithing? You forge approximately 300 weapons. But can you simply forge those weapons straight out? Oh, no no no - you have to mine the iron first! Not only that, but each weapon requires a bucket of well-water, which as far as I can tell cannot be obtained any other way except clicking wells in-game and watching a 2-3 second drawing animation per bucket. Oh, and the wells run dry after 5 buckets. Get to work!

This is less wuxia and more Elona.

 

[Lhynn]

You can skip a lot of that with gifts, getting up to 3600 exp on a skill if you manage to. So generally speaking you dont need to grind, exploring the world and doing the social aspect will level things high on its own sooner or later. Also higher leveled recipes grant more exp on craft, so that diminishes the number of crafts by a lot as well.

Finally, if you get one of the true endings, all your maxed skills remain maxed for future playthroughs.

 

[jungl]

idk man i went to the casino and won like 60k only reloading like 2 3 times. Nice that game appreciates a high roller haven't visited the casinos a second time be cool if the player gets free comp. Anyway bought tons of items still have like 10k to spare probably go win it all when I become dirt poor again. Recruited a full team power of my combat potential quadrupled. Doesn't feel like a grind yet fuck I did quest in town find dudes at night only by myself against 6 guys they easily annihilate my guy but had master show up 20%hp to cheese them. All I had so far was based moments with the game im sure eventually it'll feel like a grind.

Sure as shit beats colony ship where the game is save reload simulator right from the getgo. "oh I need a grenade for that oh I should done this first before that". Heros adventure feels little more intuitive gameplay wise.

 

[Arthandas]

How's the challenge? Are there any hardcore difficulty settings?

 

[Lhynn]

I am playing on normal, but there are 4 more difficulties beyond that, and theres a huge leap between normal and hard. You really need to know what you are doing in higher difficulties, and be ready to eat shit.
That said, there are a lot of fights you can afford to lose.

 

[deama]

How do you choose female protag? I can't find the button...

 

[Sarathiour]

How do you choose female protag? I can't find the button...

Every chinkrpg endgoal is for the heroe to have an harem of waifu, and scissoring isn't culturally allowed.

 

[Arthandas]

Meanwhile real modern Chinese wuxia: