Destiny Spire

Destiny Spire is a role-playing game in which the player character, from the town of Rumalea, is chosen by the ailing King Rasmus to act as his envoy at peace talks among four kingdoms. After recruiting three of the king’s warriors, the party sets out for the capital, Kongkarlsberg, but is repeatedly obstructed along the way. The story follows clues and past mysteries as the party works out who is behind the interference. The game is described as a retro RPG, with an open overworld, dungeons, towns and castles to explore, over a dozen dungeons, and over 200 types of enemy. Playtime is listed as roughly 20 to 30 hours.

Combat uses an active time battle system with no fixed turns. Each character and enemy has a speed bar, and whoever’s bar is full can act. Characters can attack, use skills or use items, or be held on standby for emergency actions such as healing. Battles do not pause while an action is being chosen. Attacks do not miss by random chance, but they can miss if an empty target is selected or if the target is mid-attack, and an attack landed just before an enemy strikes results in a critical hit. Each character carries their own items, which cannot be accessed if that character falls, and items can only be exchanged outside combat. Enemies appear on the map by emerging from the ground, and the player can avoid combat by evading them before they sink back down. Smaller creatures tend to lead to fights with fewer enemies than larger ones, and fairies may appear instead to give a random bonus such as a small item, gold, or an HP or MP restore.

The game begins with a series of questions from the king that determine the player’s class. The player then recruits three more party members of any class. Up to eight characters can be recruited in total, with four in the active party at a time. Eight classes are available: Ranger, Wizard, Barbarian, Monk, Archer, Mystic, Paladin and Bird Master. Every couple of levels, when no new skill is learned, a character can pick a trait from a random selection of four drawn from a class-specific pool. Traits are small automatic perks, such as attack bonuses with certain weapons or elements, a chance to stun enemies, or improved healing spells. Accessibility options include setting battle speed to half or double and setting the encounter rate to half or double. Controls can be remapped and support keyboard and Xbox-layout controllers, and holding the Select, Cancel, Map and Options inputs for two seconds returns to the title screen without saving.