Myth Bearer - a simple low-res RPG!

[Moaning_Clock]

So, the first pick for my Steam Autum Sale was Myth Bearer, a very cheap RPG. I didn't expect much when I installed it, it looked like a small game which I could finish in an hour. Its price at 2.39€/2.99$ was also a reason for that assumption.

You start in a prison cell and complete a series of simple quests (find this, kill that) and level up a long the way. You move with wasd or with the mouse and interact with the mouse. The dialogues don't have any decisions and you don't have any skill checks. The story is simple and the combat is very basic at first and gets a bit more interesting along the way.

In the beginning I didn't like it very much - I needed to familiarize with the controls and the beginning felt a little bit sluggish - but after an hour or two, it was more and more fun as the character progressed and could easily slay enemies who were way to powerful before. The enemies don't move btw.

In the end I clocked in at 5 hours of playtime. I had expected a maximum of 2 and read afterwards that most people finish it in 3-4 hours. It also has a new game+ mode which I didn't try and I only had half of the achievements. There was stuff I completely missed.

Overall it was a fun experience and the game is very cheap at full price. I hadn't complained if I had paid 5€ instead of the 1.55€, I paid in the end. I liked the environments, the different enemies and for sure, the power fantasy the game delivered.

Minor stuff I would like to see: I accidentally hit ESC two times without saving but this is just a comfort feature and it would have made sense in a few cases to change the dialogue of the dialogue partners if you interacted later with them (for example after you got the book) and in the start menu renaming start to continue after beginning a game.


You can get it on Steam for almost nothing.

And on Itch.io.


Some Screenshots

Spoiler

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Played it again in the Start+ mode. After watching a speedrun on YouTube which shows a few secrets and a better approach overall I could complete the game without any death. Aside from the warm feeling of accomplishment there was nothing to find (afaik). After that I killed the rest of the guys in the game in the epilogue and died a couple of times doing that. Nothing happened. Maybe I missed one.

Also got the rest of the achievements! Still a fun little game.

Two more late game screenshots

 

[CryptRat]

Moaning_Clock The guy released another game following the same philosophy in the meantine, in case you missed it : Deep Rune (Steam).

I haven't played Deep Rune yet and I will probably play it at some point anyway but what I did not like about Myth Bearer is that there were not enough puzzles, secrets you can miss (maybe, probably even I missed a lot but it's how I felt playing the game, and it worked so I got no incentive to search deeper) or even parts where you get to push forward through harder enemies sacrificing a lot of life to get some strong equipment which will make it worth it, also you get spells only at the end which means there are really little combat choices up to there (and Deep Rune might be better on that front with enhanced resource management). There are some of each kind, which means the game is still somewhat fun, but really not enough for my taste, I really always felt the game was barely more than just looking for and killing the next lvl enemies, which is not the fun part, the fun part is really bypassing parts and getting a super strong piece of equipment which will trivialize one third of the game.

Maybe I'm super unfair, especially since I never tried leave alone managed to bypass a big part of the narrative of the game (I think I did all the chapters minus maybe one) but the game explores aspects of the genre I like, especially as some short one-off, I would not play this forever, and my experience was a bit bitter, I thought it did not totally succeed in what it tried to do and I enjoyed the game less than I wanted to.

To give an example, in Ramble Planet the combat is even more simple (as simple as it can get, you just kill lower level enemies and can't kill the others) but the high amount of puzzles and secrets you can miss lead to an experience I thought was more organic and brain teasing, I think intricate level design is essential to this exact kind of games where the combat system is simple (Dark disciples being a brillant example of that).

 

[Moaning_Clock]

I must admit that this somewhat dissatisfied feeling was also part of the experience sometimes. Especially the running around and finding a few low level monsters to level up was at some point annoying since the navigating can be tedious. But I enjoyed the game much more after watching the speedrun and restarting because I aimed for getting the +8 armor relatively quickly and wanted to get the sequence breaker achievement - and for the armor I sacrificed 2 potions (I think). This was really fun. If I hadn't set out to also get to level 50 it would have been also less grindy. Also liked that the spell that dispels the magic barriers was not only used directly for progressing the story but also in a few other places. Got the Explorer Achievement for seeing all of the world was cool.

Overall I think if the game world would have been better if it was a bit smaller or easier to navigate and you would get some cool secrets for beating it deathless etc.
But on the other hand, can one complain for 3$? It's way longer and way more polished than the asking price would indicate.

I also didn't know that this was kind of a genre. I played Desktop Dungeons and it felt similar in a few ways but there was a game mentioned which is called Magic Tower or a Chinese name.

Deep Rune is on my wishlist (which is way too big) but I haven't tried it out (yet)

My suggestion would be that you watch the speedrun, try to get the +8 armor also earlier. Don't speak with the leader in town but get directly to the guy in the cabin to break the sequence. I think then you might have more the experience you are looking for.

 

[Moaning_Clock]

Just saw that he made the game free!