Strange is the night where black stars rise,
And strange moons circle through the skies,
But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.– The King in Yellow
Cosmic horror can be a fine line to walk. It thrives on the indescribable, the maddeningly incomprehensible, the things a mortal mind was not meant to grasp. And yet, complete unknowability just leads to confusion, rather than the intended horror. It needs to be presented in a way that is strange and unsettling, but not so much that it wraps around to just befuddlement. Striking that contradictory balance was something I found myself musing upon as I played through High North Studios’ Skald: Against the Black Priory, an RPG that heavily draws upon such notes.
It strikes that chord hard right from its opening strains. The game begins with the player sailing to the shores of the Outer Isles in search of a nobleman’s daughter, last seen heading toward a port there. Yet these are troubled waters, in a very literal sense. The player’s first combat is with strangely twisted rats on board, and the crew has seen an ominous dark shape within the depths, one that makes them refuse to draw any closer to shore. How the player chooses to approach this stalemate serves as the game’s tutorial section, and sets the stage for the sort of narrative players can expect. What monstrous terrors may lurk beneath the surface, whether of the waves or of the very world itself?
Shades of the ancient and eldritch aren’t the only “old” things the game draws from, though. Boasting an art style inspired by the C64 and tactical, turn-based combat reminiscent of the Gold Box games, Skald also harkens back to the CRPGs of yesteryear. Indeed, it’s this connection that first drew my eye, as there’s a healthy dash of my beloved Ultima here as well (there’s even an option in the Deluxe edition of the game to adjust the UI frames to something straight out of Ultima V).
Drawing off such an esteemed heritage, Skald has set a rather high bar for itself. Does it manage to reach these lofty aspirations, or does it end up dashed upon the shoals? That’s the question at the heart of any critique, and as ever, we’ll break it down piece by piece to arrive at an answer.
The 8-bit Review
Visuals: 8/10
Skald makes a bold first impression, in no small part due to its pixel art. Sticking to a C64-inspired palette, but free of some of the other artistic limitations of the system, the game’s visuals are striking and evocative, suiting the overall tone of the game perfectly. Portraits for player characters and party members have personality, and offer a variety of expressions as they experience different conditions and degrees of injury. Various scenes and important moments are given full pieces of art, which add that extra bit of drama and gravitas, and all are wonderfully detailed.
On the other hand, the game world can look a little busy in places, and when night falls and the already-dark landscape grows even more so, it can be hard to make out what’s what. This doesn’t prove to be completely detrimental, as the game does give the player ways to mitigate the frustrations: a hotkey to highlight interactables, a toggle for a visible grid on the landscape in order to make it easier to figure out what (and who!) is where. Still, in some places it’s a bit difficult to tell what is and isn’t traversable. It feels like aesthetics takes precedence over readability at times, though not to an off-putting degree.
I think it’s also worth noting that Skald does delve a bit into the body horror the genre sometimes includes, though for what it’s worth, I consider myself a squeamish sort on that front and there were only a couple moments toward the end that I found discomforting. However, neither felt gratuitous nor just there because it’s “part of the genre.” It’s sparing with it, which makes it all the more effective. I merely mention its presence for those who might be sensitive to it!
Audio: 8/10
Accompanying and accentuating some fine pixel work is the game’s soundtrack, which is deliciously eerie. While not particularly complicated, it doesn’t need to be. It’s that vague note of something ominous somewhere in the background, the sort that makes the hair on the back of your neck prickle slightly. It forgoes the bombastic for the restrained and haunting. The music’s always present to add that extra chord of unsettling to the dark places and the tentative steps into the unknown. Not only that, I’ve found it weirdly earworm-y, as I’ve definitely caught myself with a tune or two stuck in my head during my work commute.
And if “something that inexplicably seeps into the brain” isn’t the perfect descriptor for a soundtrack to cosmic horror, well, I don’t really know what would be!
Sound effects are similarly sparse but effective where they are—the strike of a blade, the roll of the die. I do wish that a few of them packed a bit more of a punch, especially when it comes to some of the spell effects, but what sound effects there are serve their purpose well.
Narrative: 9/10
Ah, now we’re getting into the real meat of it.
The word “grimdark” honestly tends to be more of a turn-off to me than a mark of interest. Too often it’s a synonym for relentless edge, and that’s just not my cup of tea, especially when there’s little purpose to it besides the edge.
Skald, on the other hand, touts itself as a grimdark tale, but avoids the pitfalls I often associate with the term. This is a game that understands the genre it takes its inspirations from. Though it begins big and bold, for the most part the opening sections are careful and measured, the narrative equivalent to something glimpsed furtively out of the corner of the eye. It allows for moments of at least small relief and tiny hopes, the betterment of an immediate situation even if not the whole.
And then as it swells, it all spins wildly, preying upon that vague sense of unease as it builds to its climax, that feeling that something beneath the surface and just out of reach is deeply wrong as it climbs to its proper cosmic horror apex. It doesn’t just lean on the tropes of the genre to do its heavy lifting; it understands the controlled burn into madness that’s necessary in order to make those tropes effective.
Part of this is, of course, giving the player characters to care about, and the potential party members fill this role well. Though they’re familiar archetypes—Kat the uneasy greenhorn, Roland the grizzled veteran, Driina the quiet protector—should a player choose to take them along, they’ll chime in on situations as appropriate, and can even sometimes be consulted for their perspective and insight.
Even the player character can be given the opportunity for some characterization as, in the vein of Planescape: Torment, some of the choices presented to the player are more in terms of motivations than actions. Perhaps one of the strongest examples of this in the early game is when the player is tasked with their quest in the first place. Presented as a flashback (an odd choice on first encounter, though one that feels more thematically appropriate as the game unfolds), accepting the request to seek out the nobleman’s daughter is a bit of a “but thou must,” yet the player can define their reasoning for doing so. They can do it for the sake of their own honor, for the sake of the woman in question, or simply for the coin. Little choices like this do much to give the protagonist a personality of their own, in a way that isn’t merely gaming a morality system. Perhaps the strongest thing I can say on this front is that I actively chose not to reset the game when I got a poor outcome on a quest, even though it wasn’t the result I wanted exactly. It felt the natural and fitting consequence of the choices made, and those the ones most befitting the way I was trying to play my character. Simple, yes, but effective and done with purpose.
The story’s delivered in nice vignettes, too. Sidequests, while in practice perhaps little more than a back-and-forth fetch quest or chat with NPCs in some cases, are still framed in a way that flesh out the setting. Even short game sessions feel productive in this manner, developing the overall narrative in some fashion even if it’s just via a minor sidequest or two.
I can’t entirely overlook the fact that in the build I played for this critique, there were a few typos scattered throughout, and even some lingering instances of placeholder text. These weren’t frequent or distracting enough to bring down the effect of the whole, though, and this too speaks to the strength of its narrative. Dev updates have also indicated extra polish on this front in the time since, so this should prove less of an issue in the release version.
Gameplay: 9/10
Some of the game’s narrative strength comes from the way Skald ties it to its mechanics. There are typically various ways to deal with obstacles, whether in terms of a narrative obstacle, a random encounter, or even merely traversing terrain, and what’s available to the player is often determined by where the party leader’s strengths lie. For example, if the player wants to avoid a random encounter, they can attempt to do so by running away with a check against their Athletics skill, sneaking around via a Stealth check, or in some cases, talking their way out of it via a Diplomacy check. The difficulty of each of these checks varies depending on the enemy encountered, thus making different character builds better able to avoid specific types of enemies. It’s a nice touch that dovetails a character’s strengths in terms of mechanics with their ability in terms of narrative. There’s room for actual roleplay in the variety of ways any individual quest, and indeed the landscape itself, can be approached.
There are other things that blur the line between narrative and gameplay as well, such as in the resting mechanics. The party must, of course, rest periodically to regain their strength, but this isn’t simply a matter of pressing a button and that being that. Each member of the party can attempt an activity during rest periods for a small bonus. For instance, characters with high Diplomacy can entertain the group for a small buff until their next rest. Those with good Survival abilities can forage for rations to prepare future needed resources, crafters can fletch arrows, Lore experts can train the party for a small amount of experience. While none of these bonuses are particularly game breaking, this little addition to the mechanics sets an entire scene of the party around the campfire, each attending to some manner of business for their next venture. It’s a subtle way of adding just a pinch of characterization to the group dynamic, and also incentivizes resting before your party gets too injured, as wounded characters won’t be able to work—though this must be balanced against the party’s food supplies, as each rest requires sufficient food in order to be effective.
It’s a recurring theme for the game, really. Skald doesn’t just do what it does because that’s the way the old games it’s trying to emulate did it. Instead, it considers what the purpose of each mechanic is in the first place, and tweaks it where it suits Skald’s own purposes a bit better. It’s familiar, but with proper intent behind it. Take the turn-based tactical combat system. The basics of it are very recognizable, what with characters each getting a turn based on their initiative, a certain number of actions/movements they can make on their turn, and so on and so forth. There’s an added tweak, however, in the “hold action” mechanic. This delays their turn until after everybody else, including enemies, have had an action in the round, but may put them in a better tactical position. You can set up a thief for a backstab or buff your hardest hitter before they go wading into combat. If initiative doesn’t shake out in your favor, you can still adjust.
I found myself with a few small annoyances here and there, such as being locked into the level-up screen once activated, which is potentially frustrating when you’re trying to remember what equipment you have on a specific character, and thus what abilities should be improved via level-up skill choices (though it’s worth noting this too is something that’s been addressed in the time since the press build). I never did figure out if it was possible to buy things like arrows in bulk, either, but on the whole, it’s an effective design.
Accessibility: 8/10
For the most part, the game tutorializes well, gradually introducing and explaining mechanics with informative pop-ups while also providing opportunity to put the concept into practice. The frequency of these pop-ups can be adjusted (or turned off entirely) for later playthroughs, and anything in colored text—from spell effects to status effects to even a few lore tidbits—can be clicked on for an explanation. While these little encyclopedia entries are helpful, the game doesn’t rely on them as its sole source of delivering information (though I do wish there was a dedicated central spot where it could be accessed and referenced). There are, however, some details that aren’t labeled quite so clearly, such as tabs for inventory sorting. It took me a bit to remember which was for reagents and magic, which was for vendor trash, and so on, as there’s no tooltip to accompany these.
Difficulty options are robust and detailed as well. While there are four set difficulties, the game defaults to “Easy,” which I found struck a nice balance for a bit of a story focus while still allowing for some degree of danger. These settings can be further refined, adjusting such things as how the game calculates dice rolls, whether things like encumbrance or food need to be accounted for or not, and even whether random encounters happen at all. If you’re just here for the story, you can focus on that all you like. If you’re here for a tactical challenge, the game will accommodate that, too.
Replayability: 8/10
As mentioned before, Skald does offer a few different approaches to several of its quests, which allow for a little variance, but it’s in the choices of party composition and difficulty settings that its potential for replayability truly shines. The game features nine classes, each with their own “talent tree” that can be customized accordingly as you level up. The classes don’t feel like one-trick ponies, either. For example, I ended up with two Hospitallers (think battle-cleric) in my playthrough, so I leaned heavy into the spellcasting for one and more towards combat for the other.
Skald does have several predefined NPCs that will join you along the way, but this isn’t the only means of filling out your party. Throughout the game you’ll find mercenaries you can hire, which are fully customizable from the ground up. They won’t provide the same flavor to the story in the way the predefined party members will, but they’re great for those who want to be able to build their entire party from scratch for specific group compositions, like a spellcaster-only challenge. It’s in this variety that Skald makes its strongest case for a second play—how does a different group change the way you consider your approach? Add in that extra bit of challenge via the difficulty settings to test how well you understand the underlying mechanics, plus the fact it’s not terribly long by RPG standards (I clocked in around 20 hours), and there’s much to make the experience a little different the next time around.
Uniqueness: 7/10
“Grim RPG inspired by classic CRPGs” maybe isn’t the most original premise out there, but Skald executes well on it, and it doesn’t simply stop there. There are added little details that make it feel fresh even to aficionados of the genre. The elements are all familiar, but they’re blended together in a way that makes Skald feel like its own distinct entity. It doesn’t revolutionize, exactly, but it doesn’t need to, either; it’s competent, not held down by the weight of its own inspirations, and it stands on its own two feet. It’s a game that’s shooting for what’s probably a bit of a niche audience, but it knows that audience well. If it looks like it might be your thing, it probably is.
Personal: 10/10
Skald has been in my periphery since fairly early in its development. It’s almost inevitable for anything that cites Ultima as one of its big inspirations to end up there sooner or later. Though I held some trepidations, I was at least interested in giving it a try.
I did not expect it to sink its hooks in as deeply as it did.
I see so many things, large and small, that put me in mind of all my personal favorites. Spending time meditating at shrines a la Ultima IV; little messages upon leveling up that tell of personal growth and development so reminiscent of Morrowind; the strange, macabre prose and the asking of the player to consider motivation as much as action similar to the way Planescape: Torment does.
But more than that, Skald isn’t just a loving nod and hat tip to the games of what pass for “days of yore” in the medium. It certainly is that, but it’s also extraordinarily tight and carefully crafted, and for that I am thoroughly impressed. If I’ve been effusive in this critique, that’s because it’s an aspect I prize. It packs so much into its game time. Everything feels purposeful, and it’s clear how each piece of it fits into the whole. There is very little I can think of that could be reasonably removed without diminishing the game’s effect in the process, as nothing feels extraneous or tacked on just for the heck of it. Like cosmic horror on the whole, it’s a fine balance, but Skald has walked it well. It’s a game that knows what it wants to do and does not deviate from that purpose, and the end result is a strong, memorable experience—one I will be eager to have again, you can count on that.
After all, as the game itself would put it—it has always been so, and it always will be.
Special thanks to publisher Raw Fury for providing us with the review key!
Aggregated score: 8.4
Linguistic Dragon works in translation by day and nerds out about language, video games, and storytelling by night… and nearly all other hours, really. You can find him on Twitter as @DragonKetea.
