Long Gone Days – Five star RPG
Long Gone Days opens with Rourke, a sniper, preparing for an attack and ruminating on his life and decisions. Rourke was born and nurtured within The Core, a clandestine subterranean military organisation with immense power over the surface world. Despite his inexperience, he is chosen for a clandestine military mission with highly skilled Raven Squad agents.
The mission looks to be going smoothly until Rourke makes an unexpected revelation about who his “enemy” targets have always been. He flees The Core, is labelled a traitor, and is sentenced to death as a result of his fear and remorse. Rourke and his “brother” medic Adair flee to a surface city that is about to be assaulted by The Core. In their frantic attempt to flee and survive, the two resolve to assist those they previously considered adversaries. They eventually strive to thwart The Core’s goals and, perhaps, bring about enduring peace.
Long Gone Days also examines how language boundaries may be problematic. Depending on the location of Rourke, three languages other than English are utilised throughout the game. Rourke internalises the yearning that someone understood him, and then finds the one person in town who can assist him solve the current dilemma. Perhaps if this feature had been more tightly related to the game’s ideas of war, it might have come over better.
There is just one brief incident when the language barrier causes a tragedy, and it is limited to a sidequest that might cause morale loss for a party member. Language barriers have a lot of potential as a narrative device, but their use is limited in terms of plot and character development.
Features mentioned on Steam:
- A Nuanced Look at War: Experience the clash of modern conflict against civilian life through the contrast of intense RPG combat and slower, slice-of-life gameplay.
- Communication is Key: As Long Gone Days is set in the real world, you’ll encounter several language barriers. Recruit interpreters in order to communicate with others and forge bonds beyond borders.
- Strength in Others: Meet a colorful cast of potential comrades. Grow relationships through your words and actions as you live and fight together.
- Keep Morale High: Choose dialogue options wisely to boost morale in battle. Every character has distinct personality traits and motivations.
- Strategic RPG Combat: Spot and take down targets from afar in Sniper Mode, or engage up-close in front-view, turn-based combat. Target specific parts of an enemy’s body for a tactical advantage.
- No Random Encounters: Every battle is hand-crafted and directly related to the plot. Your choices in battle will shape your party’s lives, and the world around them.
Long Gone Days is a traditional RPG in terms of gameplay. Players will travel to various locations to meet NPCs and complete missions, spend time accumulating things and equip to enhance their group, and engage in turn-based battle to defeat monsters and gain prizes. There is some minor puzzle-solving along the way, and the side tasks fill out the tale in a number of ways and provide the player with some extra difficulties to complement the more linear-driven story.
Long Gone Days’ combat seems very typical with its turn-based design, however it does vary things up a little to offer some added spice to fights. For one thing, you may pick which portion of an adversary to strike, with each having a risk-versus-reward factor in place where you may do more damage but at the expense of precision. Going for a body shot that nearly always hits is economical, but risking a high-damage head shot or an arm shot that might paralyse your opponent always seems more meaningful.
In a more typical RPG, the tale may eventually finish with a “good triumphs over evil” finale. After all, we have a committed band of heroes who sincerely want to make things better. Long Gone Days, on the other hand, is grounded in reality, tingeing the story’s conclusion with melancholy overtones. War and human nature do not allow for the triumph of good over evil. Throughout the game, the group faces an uphill battle, with things rarely improving despite their best efforts.
Throughout the story, there are moments of hope and brightness, typically in modest acts of generosity at dark times. However, they are always realistically tempered with the thought that deeply entrenched conceptions such as societal biases and cultural worldviews are difficult to eradicate entirely. Finally, Rourke and the party may or may not accomplish their goals. However, there is always a formidable barrier to surmount, making optimism fragile and somewhat faint.
Long Gone Days is essentially about having realistic expectations. Little touches in the fighting and graphics reveal that a lot of thought has gone into everything. The hitch lies in the breadth of the plot, as too many hard-hitting moments get lost in the quick pace at which it strives to juggle everything, causing many of them to fall flat in execution. This might be discouraging since there is a continual sense of wanting them to do more with what they are given. The adventure is brief and contains enjoyable gameplay moments, making it a completely decent way to experience a well-intentioned tale.