Deadly Sin
Deadly Sin is an indie RPG from the aptly-named newcomer indie Deadly Sin Studios. It's a jRPG-style indie game with a fantastic soundtrack (which isn't afraid to mix a little rock-and-roll with the traditional epic orchestral stuff). Deadly Sin is billed as being inspired by or reminiscent of the "golden age" of console RPGs, but it doesn't stop there. It really does some interesting things with it's basic framework, the RPG Maker engine.

In Deadly Sin, you play Lorelai, a young woman who has been living far from the escalating tension and violence growing in the nearly all-powerful Dondoran Republic, where the ruthless Empress Ardelia using an iron first to smash down the growing tide of rebellion. However, Lorelai quickly gets pulled into events, as she discovers that she is none other than the princess and heir to the empire living in exile.

And of course, this being the kind of game it is, her voyage of discovery and growth involves a good deal of getting together with friends, engaging in cute and melodramatic dialog, searching through ancient ruins, and kicking a lot of monster butt.

Naturally, this is just the way I like it.

I haven't gotten too far into the story yet, but I have played enough to be intrigued by some of the more interesting mechanics. First of all is the character progression system. In addition to gaining general measures of awesomeness when you level up (you know, hit points, magic points, chance to hit or whatever), you gain a number of "skill points" with every encounter. These skill points can be spent at any time (well, outside of combat) to buy additional abilities to improve your characters . This allows some customization and progress in-between major levels. Wanna focus on Lorelai's healing power at the expense of her combat abilities? Go for it. How about making Glade more of a damage-dealer than a sneak-thief? You can do that too.

And it makes much more sense than some of the systems offered by recent major Final Fantasy releases.

Another thing Deadly Sin does that changes the gameplay a bit is what they call the threat system. MMORPG veterans will recognize the concept immediately as a variation on aggro management. The AI targets party members based on their "threat level" - a factor visible from the combat screen. Players can use party actions to manipulate the threat level and thus protect weaker characters from attack.

In lieu of actual tactical formations and real combat positioning, this is one more way to add some tactical tools to the player's arsenal. So far it hasn't made a huge difference in my game, and I worry I could end up with the major spell-slinger getting turned into everybody's punching bag after unleashing a big ol' fireball in round one. Which is pretty much how these things usually work out, anyway.

So far I've been enjoying the game a lot. Which is dangerous to my productivity. Dang it. I'll report back when I've played some more. Or you can. You can check out the game yourself (free hour-long demo, cheap full version for 30 hours of enjoyment, etc... you know how it works) here:

Play Deadly Sin

Deadly Sin is only available for Windows platforms.

Labels: Game Announcements, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:20 AM (Permalink)