Overfall is a rogue like exploration RPG that has you sailing the seas in search of booty. Is the treasure worth the trip? Or should you stay on land this time? Check out our Overfall Honest Game Review to help you make your choice.
Overfall Early Access Review
When you first start Overfall you will be given two characters: a knight and a cleric. You will be able to see their moves, gear and traits before you set out on your adventure. You are told you need to find your king by lighting two beacons that are somewhere in the world. Finding out where the beacons are will require the help of the other races in the game. Overfall has six different races you will be dealing with: Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, Orcs, Hollows and Forsaken. Only by building up a reputation with each of these races will you be able to find the beacons you need. Increasing your reputation will also get you other rewards as well, such as letting you bring one or two additional units into battle. This is, of course, easier said than done.
The majority game consists of sailing and island hoping. You stop at each island for a random event and sometimes to turn in a quest. The islands are a lot like the curios in Darkest Dungeon. The events can range from giving fitness tips to fat guys to facing off with an orc village. Each island has a type and a race or two that will inhabit it. This is how you know who you will most likely be dealing with reputation wise. They will also give out quests that you can complete for rewards and sometimes new characters. Thankfully, for the most part, you can sail away if you stumble onto an island you don’t want to deal with. The game does reward players for exploring and fighting, but the health you lose oftentimes isn’t worth it. Much like Darkest Dungeon, your units don’t gain EXP from killing enemy units.
The ocean is full of neutral and enemy ships as well. You can interact with these ships to find new quests or Bazaars that you will use later in the game. You also have the option to attack the ship and board them, taking their supplies. This will affect the reputation you have with them so be careful who you engage with. There are plenty of enemy ships sailing around to engage with as well. As you progress, more ships enemy ships will start to spawn and they will start burning islands. These islands can still be landed on, but they are always inhabited by tough undead you need to kill. It’s a race against time to finish building your rep with someone before the ocean gets overran. They can also burn down the islands with the bazaars which can really hurt later in the game.
You can upgrade each unit at a bazaar in town but you can also upgrade their moves at a guild ship. The guild ships are very rare and finding the right one for the characters you have is even more difficult. Thankfully some of the quests lead to the different ships so you don’t just have to search the whole ocean. Another way to upgrade is through battle. Basically at the end of a battle you will have chance to gain a trait. The trait can be good or bad and depends on how much HP you have at the end of a fight.
The combat itself is turn based and played on grid. Your turn is split into three actions, movement, skills and then attacks. All units have the basic move ability, but they all have a secondary one as well. Some of these are meant to support your team and others are meant to get you into a good position. Each class and companion has a different one so there will be a lot of experimenting. Next you will use one of your three skills. These are mainly buffs, debuffs and sometimes heals. Using these to combo into your attacks is the best way to win a fight. You will also have three attack commands to choose from. Everything except the basic move command will have a cooldown so be ready for that. One thing I am going to knock it for is lack of ship on ship combat. Anytime I am in a big ship, I want to have some ship on ship combat.
The game looks good and the art style is on point. The models are colorful and fairly detailed to boot. The backgrounds are done well but there are only a few of them. The music helps set the tone for the battles and has an eerie presence while exploring the ocean. Unfortunately the sound effects on the moves and abilities are a bit lackluster and leave much to be desired. Even when you crit, you never really feel like you are hitting all that hard.
One other thing I want to mention about the game, there are tons of Easter eggs in Overfall. Some of the more memorable ones came in the form of Top Gun, Pokemon and Skyrim. There are plenty more as well and some I’m sure I missed.
Overfall hits all the proper notes of a good rogue like RPG, it’s challenging, loves to make you feel like you are bad and it’s fun. With the amount of unlockables you can expect to put some serious time into this one!
