After playing QuestRun one word mainly comes to mind… why? Beautiful artwork, extremely well thought out statistical systems in the back-end, and yet everything takes place with little to no animation, music that could have been excellent with just a little bit more time in development, and a battle system that is almost completely automated. For those who wonder what that means, users control the use of items and equipment but do not actually get to pick each battle choice in each turn. This wasn’t very popular for any RPG game that’s tried it so far, which brings me back to my initial impression… why?
Players can set up a strategic standing and attempt to speed up their adventure by simply hitting wave after wave with automated attacks and feeding their characters the weapons, armor, potions, and scrolls that they need to continue forward. The problem is this game is being advertised as a turn-based RPG for Steam not a smartphone flash game for children.
Every so often players get to interact with the game, but it’s always in ways that are not immediately clear and results in a confusing experience throughout. The development studio Cuve Games didn’t proposition us for this Review, we went to them. From the outside it looks good, and that’s a problem because prospective customers are likely not prepared for the truly mundane title they are diving into.
Only a few other reviews exist in mainstream media for this title, one of which claims that it “appears surprisingly solid” implying that the reviewer didn’t even play it. Not to mention, we know that the publication who reported that actually charges cash for their reviews.
Another piece of press written on the game featured on the title’s Steam page is actually from a place that hasn’t spoke ill of many titles since their main focus is to expressly to help titles get greenlit on Steam’s Greenlight program which Valve aims to do away with soon for an even more open ended marketplace.
There are only basic attacks and special moves per character with no story or dialogue whatsoever. Although this was done on purpose, it’s not a good thing since the battle gameplay found in QuestRun is utter crap. Instead, clunky and confusing are the words I’d use to describe the overall feel of the game. Enemies are beautifully crafted but sometimes come completely odd and out of place. I don’t even know what some of them are supposed to be based on, a baby man in a suit? Again, most of them are great but some just make you scratch your head a bit and laugh.
Perhaps most disappointing is the completely reckless way that classic and fundamental role playing battle mechanics are thrown to the wind. When you go from mission to mission there is no tracking of stats or level. Skills and weaponry all start over from their basics. Enemies attack in waves that basically just proceed until there’s a major problem at which point everything stops and players must figure out what to do or accept defeat.
Final Verdict:
Don’t get me wrong, some people might really dig this title (I haven’t met any yet), but it could have been so much more and the vision the developers had based on their advertising was not even close to met by their efforts and work. Compatible with Windows PC or Mac OS X, QuestRun features Steam Trading Cards (though somehow this isn’t being displayed properly on its store page) and also Steam Achievements. The Steam Stats feature suffers from a glitch which wipes the amount of time you’ve played from record repeatedly. Introductory quests feel the same as most of the rest of the game, so if you can manage to find clips of that and don’t like it – rest assured that QuestRun is not for you. We beg the developers to take some of this great art, remix it, take all of those good intentions, re-inspire them, and make something playable. QuestRun is one of the worst games ever.
Overall Score: 1 / 10
RGN Rating: Below Bronze
Developer: Cuve Games
Publisher: Digerati Distribution
Available On: PC | Mac OS X
Played On: Windows PC
Review Copy Info: A digital copy of this game was provided to RealGamerNewz for the purpose of this Review.