Tales of Maj'Eyal

I'll be brief since i'm not the type to write a big effortful review. The game's good but god is it seemingly intentionally designed to be frustrating and wierdly balanced as all hell. Most of the gameplay is you bulldozing trash mobs until you meet an actually difficult enemy that is usually at least 5 levels ahead of you and oneshots you. Eventually you adapt and just start powerfarming enough and abusing enough broken abilities to beat them anyway but then the next hurdle is just getting knowledge checked. Even if you adapt to abuse ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ some encounters are just very unfair if you have no idea what to expect. Celia, the Necromancer, is easily the most frustrating obstacle so far. Not only is she herself extremely strong (she has oneshot me every time regardless of character or build so far) but her crypt is also deceptively designed. It has these little coffins in it that tell you something bad might happen if you disturb them. Usually, when the game gives these warnings, you're better off actually listening to them since the alternative is your likely death from an enemy way stronger than you, so you'll naturally heed the warning and ignore the coffins; Except when the Celia fight starts these coffins all spawn multiple powerful enemies that will likely mob you and kill you before you even get to fight Celia. You have no way to know this was going to happen and the game thus far made it clear that if it tells you something's dangerous to interact with, you probably shouldn't until you're at least done with the area and a few levels ahead of it, and yet it pulls this on you. You've basically been gaslit and failed a knowledge check and now you have to start an entire run all over again, farm for god knows how long again just to get another try just to probably still get oneshot anyway. Like i said, the game's fun, it's just that it's lows are... really, really low. Sucks to have an hours long run end from something oneshotting you for the gajilionth time, or cuz of some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ encounter you're basically required to have already died to before to know what to do. I know it's a roguelike and this stuff happens, but in this roguelike you have to take a significant amount of time doing levels and farming just to barely keep up with the tougher enemies, so it feels very bad to die in this way and have to start over. If the gameplay flow was faster, this wouldn't matter as much; But it isn't fast.

This is my roguelite Stardew. Love this game. I barely, hardly rage when dying.

old and clunky UI, but not as bad as you might think once you get the graphics scaling dialed in. Cool, deep game

Kitchen Sink mentality done to its finest

click click click click DUN DUN DUNNNNN

Thanks to Dr. Incompetent for introducing us to this game. Lots of fun

I almost didn’t stick with Tales of Maj’Eyal. I started as a mage, but kept dying and found it frustrating to even learn what I was doing. Switching to a more defensive warrior/shield build made a huge difference, and playing on Adventure Mode (with multiple lives) helped me actually learn instead of constantly restarting. Once it clicked, the combat became much more enjoyable. I started understanding the flow of fights, paying attention to stats, and making better decisions about what enemies or zones I could handle. Even on Adventure Mode, the fear of losing your character never fully goes away. It’s more forgiving than permadeath, but dying three times still wipes your character permanently. That pressure makes combat feel more tactical instead of encouraging save-scumming or trial-and-error. I actually like that design as it forces me to understand what my abilities do before I rely on them, rather than learning through repeated failures in the middle of combat like in more forgiving RPGs. One of my most memorable moments was in a dungeon where I accidentally triggered a level 40 boss spawn while I was only level 17. I couldn’t win or safely escape, so I had to survive long enough to use a teleport staff back to the overworld. Carefully juggling abilites, healing, and defenses just to barely survive made it one of the most satisfying escapes I’ve had in a game. That moment really sums up what I enjoy: it’s not just about winning fights, but about adapting and surviving when things go wrong. In another game I'd just die and reload the save, and probably just ignore the boss. My only hesitation is how steep the learning curve feels when trying new classes, especially compared to the safer tank-style builds. I’m also not sure how much more of the world I still have to discover after a few hours on one character, since exploration already feels fairly familiar. So in summary, the game is at its best when its systems click and you’re forced to think carefully and adapt under pressure, even if the early learning curve and class complexity can be intimidating at times. Overall I’d give it an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who is even slightly interested about this game.

This game is unplayable on mac because when the window pops up it centers the screen far below your computer screen. No easy way to fix this, I've tried everything. On top of this, the developers haven't updated it in years.