Under my reviewing microscope today is Blightstone, a tactical, turn-based strategy Rogue-like from developer Unfinished Pixel and publisher Kepler Ghost. The plot of Blightstone is set in motion when a powerful demon overlord called Korghul unearths the titular Blightstone, a relic steeped in evil power. Korghul has used the Blightstone to tear a rift into the planet’s surface and allow his demonic underlings to spew forth and invade the world. A powerful chronomancer called Xander has discovered the Earthglass crystal, a relic capable of containing the Blightstone and counteracting its effects. Xander knows he cannot wield the Earthglass crystal alone, however.

That’s where you come in. You play as a group of adventurers who fit various RPG class archetypes. Xander assembled the lot of you because he believes that with your combined efforts, you can safely escort the Earthglass crystal to Korghul’s domain and use it to end his demonic onslaught. There’s one slight problem with that theory, though: Even working together, the heroes you control don’t start out quite strong enough to do what Xander asks of them. They’ll make several valiant attempts, but seem destined to continually fail early on. Thankfully, Xander’s chronomancy (i.e., “time magic”) gives the lot of you a huge advantage.

Whenever you fail in any attempt to reach Korghul, Xander can simply rewind time to undo the events of that failed run. This restores the Earthglass crystal and brings any slain party members back to life, albeit at the cost of also reversing almost all of your progress. I say “almost all” progress gets reset because, since Blightstone is a Rogue-like, there are several ways you can permanently grow stronger that aren’t erased when Xander has to rewind time. One of Xander’s fellow chronomancers, Ayanur, can use her “Continuum Forge” to help with that.

In each run you’ll make in Blightstone, the various paths toward your ultimate goal of defeating a powerful boss are laid out before you. The map legend labels things like combat encounters, merchants, mini-bosses, and random events that may or may not involve combat. Thus, you can use the map legend to help you plan your preferred route based on how fortunate (or unfortunate) you’ve been during the current run. Each in-game day in Blightstone is divided into three sections – early morning, midday, and nightfall. Moving to a new point on the map advances the time of day accordingly.

You might wind up in combat after nightfall, but this isn’t guaranteed to happen. Once you’ve dealt with whatever type of encounter was on the map legend at nighttime, your group will make camp until morning. Both while camping and in combat, your party has a limited number of action points they can spend to use their unique abilities. The closer you get to the final battle with the boss, the more your group is affected by the Blightstone’s power. This causes Blight to build up within your party members, which will become increasingly problematic if you let it fester too long.

One aspect of Blightstone I really like is how much thought was put into the tactical aspects of combat. As I said, your characters have a limited amount of action points they can spend each turn. Oftentimes, there will be objects in the environment that both your group and your enemies can use to gain an advantage. You can take cover behind large boulders, for example, or use a ranged attack to detonate an explosive barrel. The weather conditions also factor into tactics in Blightstone. Rainy weather strengthens lightning magic and weakens attacks involving fire, to name one example.

Positioning your heroes strategically is made even more important because friendly fire is always a concern. Friendly fire is mainly a factor when it comes to ranged attacks, though it can also affect certain melee attacks depending on their effects. Friendly fire can damage the Earthglass crystal in addition to your party members. Since you can fail the current run if all your heroes die in battle or if the Earthglass crystal is destroyed, that’s all the more reason to think carefully about where you position your heroes and how you use their abilities. Many of the more tactical elements of Blightstone are really well done.

Blightstone features very little voice acting aside from grunts of triumph and pain from enemies and party members alike. Xander is the main character who has any voice lines beyond that. What voice acting is present in Blightstone is pretty good, though. On the topic of spoken and written dialogue in Blightstone, however, I’m afraid I have to be “that guy” yet again. I’ve noticed occasional errors in terms of spelling, grammar, and punctuation in the in-game text within Blightstone. As usual, these errors are minor and don’t affect gameplay at all, but I still feel compelled to point them out.

I also feel like some of the written dialogue is inappropriate for its context. I know I’m really nitpicking here, but the fact that each run’s boss, a powerful demon, frequently says “y’all” feels weird to me for reasons I can’t really describe. While I’m nitpicking, I might as well also mention that the limited background music in Blightstone gets repetitive and boring over time. If you’re anything like me, however, you can rectify that by turning the in-game volume down and putting on a podcast while you play. Blightstone’s core gameplay loop makes it a fitting “podcast game,” if you will.

With all of that being said, I know the developer Unfinished Pixel is based in Barcelona. That leads me to suspect there may not be any native English speakers on Blightstone’s dev team, so I’m willing to cut them some slack for those minor mistakes. Besides, Blightstone is launching into Early Access, so that should give Unfinished Pixel plenty of time to iron out small issues like those before Blightstone’s eventual 1.0 launch. Hopefully, the studio will also consider adding more varied background music as well. In cases of games like Blightstone, I think launching in Early Access first is usually the right decision.

Blightstone needs a bit more time in the metaphorical oven. On top of that, I’m not sure Blightstone’s content is novel enough to carve out a niche in the “tactical dark fantasy Rogue-like” genre. In fairness, Steam has been constantly flooded with games that fit that description for years now, but I’m still not convinced Blightstone can manage to keep its head above the water of that flood of other games. So to speak. I suppose we’ll have to see how Blightstone’s development progresses during its time in Early Access and how the planned additional content may help or hinder its chances.

A PC review key for Blightstone was provided by Kepler Ghost for the purposes of this review.

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Blightstone

$15.99

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Really well-implemented tactical elements in combat.
• Interesting setting, plot, and justifications of certain gameplay mechanics.
• Core gameplay is easy to learn.

Cons

• Content may be too generic to stand out from similar games.
• Occasional errors in in-game text.
• Boring, repetitive background music.