Alder's Blood

A solid experience worthy of some small praise when it works, but Alder's Blood: Definitive Edition is so marred by bugs that I cannot in good conscience recommend the game. God is dead and, so long as the game remains unpatched, God will remain dead.

All told, Alder’s Blood is shaping up to be an extremely strong stealth + tactical RPG set in a horrific Victorian setting. With just a little love from the developers, working on difficulty curves and addressing the plethora of technical issues, Alder’s Blood could be a fantastic cult Indie hit. Time will tell and with their upcoming patch addressing the critical save game bug, a small step will go a long way to the enjoyability of it. Good hunting, folks.

Alder's Blood is a tactical-strategy RPG with an incredibly rich story that will have you hooked from the tutorial. Where it lacks a little excitement in combat, it definitely makes up for it with the narrative twists and turns that grab at your collar and refuse to let go.

Alder's Blood is a functional game, beautiful, but not exceptionally exciting. On one hand, the game looks great and the writing, while clunky, can inspire a bit of wonder. The gameplay is, however, lacking, as you don't get too attached to your Hunters, and you don't do much hunting.

Alder's Blood is a wonderfully crafted game with an intoxicating story. Its missions are simple but your strategy can't be if you want to survive.

Alder’s Blood is about the least SRPG-y SRPG that I’ve ever played. And I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way. Imbuing heavy stealth mechanics into something that is, by nature, tactical, seems very foreign to me—and I’m sure to many others as well—as each primary element seems to fly directly in the face of what the other is about. I wasn’t sure how it would before playing, and, even afterward, my thoughts on the matter still aren’t entirely concrete. However, I can say this with absolute certainty; Alder’s Blood is undoubtedly unique, and, if you’re fine wading through the problems that exist, like being challenged at every single turn, and don’t mind hanging around for the devs to patch things which don’t work as well as they’d intended (which they’re very actively doing right now, so good on them), then you shouldn’t have too much to lose by checking this game out.

This is a substantial package of content that will be challenging to overcome. It won’t surpass similar games of this ilk, but is an interesting experiment in the genre that shows the possibilities of what can be done in turn-based gameplay.

Albeit too punishing at times, due to some unjust RNG mechanics, Alder's Blood offers a unique take on the classic turn based strategy formula, mixing up elements taken from other games such as Darkest Dungeon, XCOM and Bloodborne.

God has been murdered in this world, and I still feel compelled to understand just what that means. I’ll probably return to this world when the leaves are changing and I’m in the mood for an ethereal scare. I just hope I can remember to tread lightly and not have to reload so much.

However, the difficulty being tied so closely to RNG-based wind means sometimes it really blows to try and finish up a quest. Matching that with inconsistent AI and you have an overall package that falls a tad short of the high expectations. A few minor changes could make this a really special variation on the Bloodborne formula.