KickStarter SKALD: Against the Black Priory - retro RPG inspired by Ultima

[Lagole Gon]

Man...
SKALD is a great name for a fantasy brand. Good word. Short and strong.
Add it to the list of cool fantasy brand names I'm mildly annoyed are already taken.

 

[Fargus]

I bought this a year ago maybe less (double checked to be precise and it was in may, because this was the month the game came out in 2024) and shelved it immediately. Started my playthrough today because i haven't played many rpgs lately and i need to remedy that.

It looks like complete shit visually outside of event art and was hard to get into for the first 1.5 hours, prologue is kinda boring. Now i'm exploring the shore after getting shipwrecked and the more i play it the more i like it. Writing isn't bad and the weird alien cthulhu theme really fits the game. Combat is ok, nothing special.

 

[Fargus]

I rarely ask for advice, but this is getting out of hand. Who do i have to fuck in this game to get a two handed weapon? 7 hours in and i can't find a single one. I met three merchants and none of them had it.

I really like it so far but this kind of itemization is shite.

 

[Litmanen]

I rarely ask for advice, but this is getting out of hand. Who do i have to fuck in this game to get a two handed weapon? 7 hours in and i can't find a single one. I met three merchants and none of them had it.

I really like it so far but this kind of itemization is shite.

The itemization IS shit. I cannot even remember if there is any two handed weapon...

 

[Fargus]

I rarely ask for advice, but this is getting out of hand. Who do i have to fuck in this game to get a two handed weapon? 7 hours in and i can't find a single one. I met three merchants and none of them had it.

I really like it so far but this kind of itemization is shite.

The itemization IS shit. I cannot even remember if there is any two handed weapon...

There was one on Roland and i took it for myself. And of course during the shipwrecking they stripped all of my gear but left all the items i gave to Roland on him when i met him later....

It's frustrating that i can't find weapon my character specializes in. Not even on traders.

 

[Fargus]

Bought 2h sword in smugglers cave and stole plate armor worth 5 thousand from their merchant. Lots of nice gear to steal but i guess it's better not to raise too much suspicion.

 

[Litmanen]

Bought 2h sword in smugglers cave and stole plate armor worth 5 thousand from their merchant. Lots of nice gear to steal but i guess it's better not to raise too much suspicion.

Pickpocketing is quite profitable and easy to manage. In the smugglers cave I used it to steal from every merchant (with caution) and nothing negative happened. You can control quite easily when it is time to stop.

 

[Infinitron]

Use this website to plan your equipment loadout: https://www.skaldcalculator.com/items

I think only one store in the game sells Grand-Master weapons, so you'll have to cheese it to ever get more than one.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

Yea you can keep stealing from those in the smugglers cave it really doesn't make any difference lol

 

[Fargus]

Whats the max suspicion level?

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

You can steal a few times (unless you fail a check). If you don't care about the specific vendor, take what you want until the checks get impossible but doing it once or twice will never fail you as long as you have the stats for it.

 

[Fargus]

Stealing is indeed effortless, you can harass random merchants on the road and steal their shit every chance you get. I grabbed a bunch of free potions from two merchants... not that i use them that much. And a few bows from arms dealers.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

If you're looking for a good 2hander early, there is one in a locked chest under the lighthouse. A magic 2H hammer. Force the lock or find the key.

Thievery is a massive windfall. You can practically steal the shoes off a vendor's feet. This is probably the first RPG I remember shoplifting being really useful since Baldur's Gate. While I like that its useful for once, thievery is probably a bit too generous. Make sure you don't steal anything stackable, because it only takes one of the stack.

 

[Fargus]

I think i checked everything there early on. There was no magic 2h weapons. Maybe the chests are randomized?

 

[Infinitron]

Most loot in the game is random. It's seeded when you first enter an area, so you can't save scum it. The exception to that is merchant inventory, which is generated when you first access the merchant's store screen.

 

[Fargus]

Yeah, i checked and save scummed with the smugglers merchant, the inventory resets once a week maybe, so i saved just before visiting him. It feels like 2h swords and axes are rigged because they appear the least among the wares. But i managed to grab one fine 2handed sword after many reloads.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Thievery is a massive windfall. You can practically steal the shoes off a vendor's feet. This is probably the first RPG I remember shoplifting being really useful since Baldur's Gate.

Someone has never played Kenshi.

 

[Modron]

Or Daggerfall, Arcanum, et cetera.

 

[Fargus]

If you go upstairs it says the door is barricaded. Is this place purposely inaccesible? Or you can get there before killing fishman.

 

[VonMiskov]

If you go upstairs it says the door is barricaded. Is this place purposely inaccesible? Or you can get there before killing fishman.

Yes. Just follow the questline.

 

[Fargus]

Yes. Just follow the questline.

I did, just wanted to know if you can get there earlier and kill that mage.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Finally went back and played this all the way through. What a great game.

Did someone say the ending was changed? If so, what was it before? I mean, I can't see this being less bleak than whatever they used to have if it did change.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Finally went back and played this all the way through. What a great game.

Did someone say the ending was changed? If so, what was it before? I mean, I can't see this being less bleak than whatever they used to have if it did change.

No ending changes to my knowledge.
Maybe that one poster was confused by the generic upbeat endgame page "CHARNAME joined the hall of legends and ended his quest in XX days" or whatever.

 

[Fargus]

And finished it too. I'll give it 6 for the effort and that would be generous. I somewhat liked the story, atmosphere and world building, though nothing really mindblowing it was enjoyable. But combat turned into low effort, boring slog somewhere midgame, every fight was pretty much the same. And kinda feels like dev blew all his load on the first island because it had the most of content. After that it was just: visit 5 shrines, visit carnival and mage tower (well done btw, i really like how dev portrayed a powerful mage that creates serville clones who worship him, and i guess because clones will decay fast and to make their passing more peaceful he promises them "ascension" which is just a coffin with an oven lol) and visit endgame area with lame nonbossfight and just as lame bossfight. Every other island after the the first was nearly empty.

Food is trivial, sleeping is trivial, using resistance potions and spells is almost always trivial and not needed, brewing potions is trivial as you rarely need them and recipes are hard to find, almost like they don't exist. I had tons of ingredients and nothing to do with all that crap because of very few recipes. Items like rope, pickaxe are only used once at the very end of the game and yet they scattered everywhere on every island. There is a crowbar with the same "adventure" tag that is not used at all.

And thievery in this game... no comments.

Almost 0 tactics needed in combat because pretty much you either use chokepoints or every fight ends up wall on wall slog. Fights were somewhat dangerous only at the start of the game.

I feel like the dev should have spent more time to flesh it out or just make an adventure\point&click game. Non the less i'm curious if he ever makes another game, if he would hope it will be in the same setting.

Also what happened to mutated infant who were supposed to be stalking you, because then it just went nowhere? And who were the masked creatura at carnival?

 

[mediocrepoet]

recipes are hard to find, almost like they don't exist.

I agree with some of your criticisms, not with others, but this one is particularly retarded.

You literally don't need any recipes, they're just a QOL thing that tells you how to make something. You can just look at the ingredients and read them and put them together at a station and hit craft. Even if you didn't want to read, you could brute force it, or if you know anything about cooking, just slap in what you'd use irl to make something and it will probably work.