Game: Baladins
Genre: Adventure, RPG
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Seed by Seed | Armor Games Studios
Controller Support: Full
Price: US $22.49 | UK £18.89 | EU € 22,05
Release Date: May 15th, 2024
A review was code used, with many thanks to Stride PR.
Baladins is a unique combat-free, choose-your-own narrative adventure RPG that draws inspiration from tabletop turn-based roleplaying games. The game has been developed by Seed by Seed and published by Armor Games.
Baladin’s development was funded with the effort of 1,407 Kickstarter backers to get the game off the ground, and it is released for PC via Steam with a further release planned for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4/5 later this year. Lottie previously played the Baladins demo and gave us her thoughts on it, which you can find here.
Choose Your Character In Baladins
The Baladins are a group of adventurers who are tasked with helping the residents of the magical realm of Gatherac and tackling different challenges during their travels.
Baladins kicks off by having you choose a character. There are four characters to choose from, and they are a bard, a pyro, a cook, a dancer, or a luxomancer. Each character comes with distinct starting attributes: physique, finesse, knowledge, creativity, and destruction and gold. These attributes become increasingly important as you advance through Baladins, shaping your capacity to tackle diverse challenges and fulfil particular quests.
After your character is chosen, which for me was the Pyro for the first run-through (later on you can change it, I changed to play as the Bard) the Baladins‘ leader will greet you.
Their first mission revolves around assisting the villagers in arranging a festival. Initially, it seemed like a pretty easy task. However, it wasn’t as simple as I thought it was going to be, and there is also an eerie sense of foreboding, hinting that things might not unfold as you would expect.
Help With the Festival
You see, to help the festival be a success, I had to convince the winemakers to provide wine for the party. However, to do so, I had to reach the winemaker’s location using movement points, and I didn’t have enough movement points to complete that quest in one turn.
During each turn in Baladins, you use Movement Points and Ability Points. These movement points dictate how far you can traverse the overworld map before resting, while AP governs the number of interactions possible. Each character begins with varying amounts of AP and MP; for example, as the Pyro, I had 4 MP.
So, along the way to the winemaker’s location, I completed some side quests, and the side quests rewarded me with additional points and various skills that increased my character stats. However, remember the game restricts your movement and actions per turn. Once you have used all your movement points, your turn ends, and the game advances a week.
When I finally made it to the winemakers, I was challenged to a drinking competition involving lifting a heavy barrel. I rolled the dice and, luckily, was able to win the competition due to the extra stats my character had increased along the way. Great I thought, the festival was sorted out, but the game had other ideas.
Shortly after that, the festival took place and then an unexpected incident occurred when Colobra, the time-eating dragon, was awakened, causing the Baladins to be sent back in time to redo all the tasks once again.
Unique Time Loop Mechanic
It is this unique loop mechanic that adds an interesting twist to the gameplay, as the Baladins are the only ones aware of the time loop while the rest of the village remains completely oblivious to the time change; it also allows for some humour in the game’s storyline.
You’ll spend your time completing quests for the quirky villagers and trying to advance the storyline within those seven weeks. I found that the game’s turn mechanic adds challenge and urgency to the gameplay. If your objectives in the game aren’t met within those seven weeks, the magical dragon will send you back in time. One more thing: the dragon also eats every item you have found, so other than keeping your well-earned stats, everything else reverts in time.
Restart The Loop Again, But With Extra Stats
You can then restart again; however, this time, you have newfound knowledge from your previous runs through. Furthermore, there are no right or wrong choices to be made in Baladins. Instead, all your choices are imaginative pathways that may lead to an intriguing outcome in the game….or not.
It’s really an interactive storyline where a roll of the die leads you on exciting luck-based adventures.
You can play Baladins by yourself as I did or with up to four players–either locally or online. But even though I played the game solo, I can see where it would be great fun to have friends along for the ride. Furthermore, Baladins offers an interactive storytelling experience suitable for most players of any age or skill level; it’s an easy game to get into with an engaging story.
Visuals and Music
Baladins is presented in a couple of visual styles that use both 2D and 3D; it’s similar to the Paper Mario art style, and the colour drips off the screen; it really is gorgeous.
On your travels through Gatherac and the surrounding areas, like Greasy Gutter, Cork Forest and Castle of Hortegarde, you’ll meet all sorts of characters, each with their own unique personalities. The music is great as well, real toe-tapping music.
As well as meeting new characters, the game’s world is alive and dripping in colour; you can hear the birds chirping and the wind blowing through the trees. There isn’t any voice acting in the game; the storyline is relayed to you via text boxes. I would have liked to have at least heard the narrator tell the story instead of silence.
I played Baladins on my laptop and the Steam Deck. The game ran pretty well on both systems, though it did crash twice on my laptop. Overall, I mostly played Baladins on the Steam Deck, and it ran perfectly on it without any hiccups.
Conclusion
Baladins is a delightfully enjoyable game. Though I don’t think every gamer will enjoy all the backtracking and the rewinding of time, the storyline is fun. If you like turn-based roleplaying games that you can play with your friends, then give Baladins a try.
Final Verdict: I Like It a Lot 
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