REVIEW: Epistory – Typing Chronicles

REVIEW: Epistory – Typing Chronicles

Epistory: Typing Chronicles is one of the most simple yet unique games I have played in quite a while. It puts you in the boots of the muse of a struggling writer, a little girl riding on a fox who has to travel around in an origami world and return the world to its former glory.

Author: Abhigyan (BANNED from SoQ)
Steam: Released
Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie
Developer: Fishing Cactus
Publisher: Fishing Cactus, Plug In Digital
Release Date: 30 Mar, 2016
Type: Single-player

Gameplay

The story is surprisingly upbeat and usually starts off with the little girl going into a gloomy world which seems to close around her and her overcoming all odds to come out of the world at the end of each act. The story is told through a narrator with the words appearing on the map itself as the story is being told. There is something so nice and sweet about the story that made me want to progress through it to see what new things the game threw at me.

The gameplay of Epistory revolves around your typing. You move around with WASD or a different combination of keys given by the game to maintain your hand in a good position for typing. You need to switch between movement and typing by a single tap of the space key and then proceed to type the words out given on the screen.

Obstacles like wood and fire pits can be removed from the way by typing. The enemies that come towards you can only defeated by typing. Small enemies require less words to type with some even requiring a single letter while larger enemies can require up to 8 words and big ones at those. As you string together combos and defeat enemies, you get more XP and points. You can use your XP to unlock various perks which help give special abilities like knockback and fire spells to your word attacks or simple ones which increase the intensity of your attacks.

These points are used to unlock new areas which in turn help in progressing through the story. There are a few puzzles through in there for good measure which are simple and require trial and error. The gameplay is simple and effective and the game has a dynamic difficulty setting which changes the difficulty based on your typing speed. There are certain chests scattered around the world which contains bonus or artifacts which also require typing to unlock.

The game does have some confusing parts regarding exploration and you might get stuck after completing certain parts. The game world features a hub called The bridge which has portals which go to different new areas. The game does not require a mouse and can be played entirely with a keyboard and even navigating through the menu is quite easy due to this.

Epistory can get brutally difficult at times due to the simple reason that enemies can kill you with a single hit if they reach you and sometimes you will miss out seeing an enemy and that will lead to your demise. But the game starts you off back just where you died except in wave battles at the end of any area. Overall, Epistory holds true for the fact that simple gameplay can also lead to effective experiences.

Visuals

Epistory features an origami world which changes as the story goes on and unfolds before you like a page turner. There is a certain charm in the world that immediately draws you in the game and never lets go. The environments while nothing new, are really well done and have a lot of variety in them. The only problem here is the way the enemies look in the world when the camera zooms out. It becomes quite difficult to pinpoint small enemies and can result in some cheap deaths.

Sound

The sound design of Epistory is absolutely fantastic. The game has a stellar soundtrack which goes hand to hand with the overall nature of the game and it has a soothing touch to it. The voice acting and sound effects are also done very well and overall Epistory has a complete sound package you would want from a game like this.

Overall

Epistory is one of the few surprising games I have played recently and I absolutely adored it. The game has an incredible feel to it and I am just glad that I got to review this game because it might have easily been gone into my pile of backlogs if I didn’t have to review it. The game is stellar at its price point and a steal if you find it on a sale. You should definitely check Epistory out for its charming nature and stellar world building.

RATING:

(click on the image to see the rating explanation)

Written by
Dead Parrot
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