#The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics

[oz-the-sorcerer]

Kylan in his TACTICS outfits

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(he can tecnically wear every outfit present in game but these are the ones he wears up until the song teller one so i drew them...except for the mender outfit, the mender outfit sucks :D)

[miloscat]

[Review] The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: Tactics (PC)

A decent tactics RPG if a bit buggy.

The spinoff prequel show to Jim Henson's 1982 fantasy adventure The Dark Crystal was, like the film itself, a brilliant showcase of puppeteering, production design, and worldbuilding. Like many shows on their service, Netflix did not renew it for another series to follow up on its lingering plot threads, but they did at least commission a tie-in game from American studio BonusXP, who had previously made two Stranger Things games for them before shutting down mid-last year. The only other Dark Crystal game was a Sierra text adventure, which got a highly abbreviated browser-based remaster around the time of the show's broadcast.

As an adaptation of the show, the large cast and themes of rebellion and questing lend themselves well to a tactical RPG, although the reality of this game feels a bit restricted, with compact maps and characters usually limited to four or five per stage. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as I appreciated the manageable scope; I don't have a huge amount of experience with this genre but I know how bloated Wesnoth scenarios can get. The setup for this game is square grids with no zone of control, turn order dictated by a dynamic action timeline, and experience and gear gained between levels. On top of equipment customisation, there's a job system where you can shuffle anyone into any role, although they need to get experience in that job to unlock skills and advance to new sub-jobs.

The character roster again could be considered limited, with a final total of 14 selectable characters (although others join as temporary allies in various scenarios). About half are from the show with the others being OCs who fit in well enough. Most of them are Gelfling, who have the most developed job system with three broad categories of soldiers, scouts, and mages who get further specialised as you progress. Apart from them there are two Podlings and two Fizzgigs, who all have a smaller job pool but can usefully fill niches on your team.

The key art depicts the urRu urVa, but they only appear in one mission as an NPC, and the game's store blurb mentions "familiar faces from the classic film" which is just an outright lie, unless they mean broadly the races and creatures of Thra seen in the film... but I won't concede that. Lacking these kinds of surprise bonus characters, a broader array of the show's cast, or other types of creatures for the playable cast like Arathim or Lore, was a disappointment but I have to accept the realities of a likely budget development and to be fair I had loads of possible characters lingering on the bench anyway given the scale of the battles.

My core team was Deet, for me a versatile offense/healing caster, Brea, a strong healer with other utility spells, Hup, who ended up a beast-summoner/debuffer, and Kylan, a dependable rogue-type. In the mid-late game I tried to switch them all into new basic roles to level into the high-end hybrid jobs, but starting from scratch at that point made them all too weak to get by so I just reverted to their existing specialities and went from there. I played on Normal and found the difficulty to be highly variable, some levels being a walk in the park where others kicked my arse. A few missions had specific objectives or required keeping plot characters alive such that they required quite a few restarts, and that's without the crashes...

I do have to mention the state of the game, which will likely never get an update thanks to the shuttering of the studio. At first I tried to run the Mac version, but it crashed on launch without fail. The PC version at least runs, but had a tendency to crash repeatedly during certain missions. This would lose my progress in that level, since there is no ability to save mid-level (which would also have helped in the more demanding scenarios). A couple of times the game also went into a state of intermittent hanging or stuttering, and for a few of the character jobs it would reliably fail to remember my skill choices, so that I would only be able to fill two out of three available ability slots. Pretty frustrating!

The plot of the game broadly follows the show, although it skips quickly through the first half and the pace slows down for the later episode events. But this is fine, as the two mediums are very different and this works for the pace of the game. I liked when things opened up late in the game and there were a lot of sidequests and scenarios that expanded on events unseen in the show, like doing requests for each of the various Gelfling clans to win their support. The enemies consist of other Gelflings who use the same job system you do, Arathim, and Darkening-afflicted creatures, with a few Podlings and Skeksis boss fights thrown in for good measure... I was kind of expecting Garthim to show up, but I guess they really only appear in a late cliffhanger in the show.

In some senses the game works well as a tie-in to the show, but there are limits to how one is able to capture the charms of the puppetry and production design in a budget 3D video game. Apparently the range of movement of the in-game models is accurate to the puppets themselves, but rendering the characters the way they have, while necessary, does lose something, not to mention the world being built of square tiles for gameplay purposes gives the environments something of an artificial feel. You also sadly lose the show's all-star voice cast, as the game is entirely unvoiced. There are nice hand-drawn cutscenes from time to time which I would compare favourably to the better Dark Crystal comics, but they're few and far between.

Given the technical issues I had in my playthrough I find this game hard to recommend, but I did enjoy the customisation, the strategy of the battles, and the little expansions on the show's story. This definitely works best as a supplement to the show though, as it doesn't do much to flesh out the characters, assuming that the player is familiar with them. It's something to treasure in that it's a rare game based on this marvellous but niche Henson property... just don't expect too much.

[theworldofthedarkcrystal]

Deet, Dark Crystal Tactics

[podlingmom]

[nintendocafe]

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics is a fantasy turn-based tactics RPG, now available to pre-purchase on Nintendo Switch

Launching on February 4, 2020, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics is a strategy game where you lead a budding Gelfling resistance against the oppressive Skeksis overlords. Lead your team across a vast fantasy world in more than 50 unique turn-based tactical battles. Pre-purchase today!

[niche-gamer]

New Overview Trailer for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics https://nichegamer.com/2020/01/10/new-overview-trailer-for-the-dark-crystal-age-of-resistance-tactics/

[imagin8]

OMG OMG OMG it's here!!!!! 🤩 I waited so long for this, and it was worth the wait! I already played some of the game on my brother's Xbox, but now I get to play it all by myself on the switch :) the fizzgig is really soft and fits in your hand and the art is beautiful!

And with my Name day coming up this is a beautiful early present!

[punkcalf-art]

Hi everyone!

Since I could use both the space and the money I'm selling my entire book and game collection.

Shipping will be from Europe, payment via PayPal.

All these were bought to collect meaning that they never been read or played.

Please DM me for details as I am not comfortable sharing my location pwp- feel free to rb this. Everything will be shipped with a track and trace code.

[sifanjewel]

I GOT IT!!!

I know it said it won’t come for another couple months or so but OH MY GOD I GOT IT!! YES!!

[oz-the-sorcerer]

I'm in the Tactics hell again after so long. And currently drawing Kylan in all of his outfits 👀

Don't know how they will turn out but I'm pretty excited!

[jojoseames]

Been playing The Dark Crystal: Tactics, and there’s a level where you’re up against the General...and also some hollerbats, who are labeled “General’s pet”, and I am absolutely delighted by the implications of those two little words!

Ink & Digital, 10 x 13 inches JoJo Seames, 2020

[theworldofthedarkcrystal]

“Welcome Clever Brea, [...] Proud All-Maudra, Fierce Naia, Wise Kylan, and Gurjin.”

“...that’s it?  just - Gurjin?”

[podlingmom]

HD Map Rip from AOR tactics

[nintendocafe]

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics coming to Nintendo Switch

[the-stonewood-drenchen]

Me: *just getting off work* "omg I'm so exhausted. I'mma take a nap."

My Brain, knowing damn well I'm just gonna boot up the ps4 to play Age of Resistance Tactics: "You are a lying whore..."

[niche-gamer]

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Tactics Launches February 4, 2020 https://nichegamer.com/2019/12/04/the-dark-crystal-age-of-resistance-tactics-launches-february-4-2020/