Razed are the Powerful

How it comes I haven't played tis Razed Glory til now? Its like total hidden gem. If I had only known, I would so vote for it in The Misaos.
The game was created by dynamic duo of Gourd Clae and Minnow for two great events RMN hold last year. Its about Ulrika and her life, struggles with husbo and hidden passage behind the library.
Sorry, for the pictures, I wasn't thinking about doing review during my playthrough. So, I'm just using images from the gamepage to lighten up my review with their presence.

Story
Writing is just all time amusement. There is no weak point to it. Everything, everything just shines. There are brilliant funny dialogues, cool characters, descriptions, original story. Its just so good.
There is ton of characters as their recruitment is essential part of the gameplay. They are all original, witty, funny. They all have their personalities. Of course Eric is my favorite as he is the only one i can remember from my maker. And Lana is bit boring as she is the good gal. But the diversity is amazing and amount of dialogues is massive. Not only the characters but there is lore too. History of the world where fights take place in and the look of it. Every character has its own history. Some don't have space to shine as much as the others, but still they are all something fantastic. Together with the urban environment this remind me of Dragon Age 2. In the good way. If you played DA2, you can remember compact, working story. Razed are like chapter taken from this multimillion franchise. There are mysteries to be uncovered as the story progresses, some cool twists and both professional and private life of the Protagonist, Ulrika.
Extremely humorous are short before battles speeches. You can find yourself loosing for reason easily to be able to see your opponent's reaction to different choice.


Eric, pal!

Gameplay
You move yourself around small hub area which takes place in front of the arena. Here you can talk with other gladiators and buy some better equipment or extra items. I haven't needed to buy anything during my playthrough, tho. The game feels very well-balanced as it goes and you are able to find enough consumables at your place or by defeating the enemies. By The Sword, you also recruit new characters. All of your opponents automatically join you after being defeated. This way you end up with your favorite characters in the party in no time! Its yet another motivation for the player and it gives game certain replay value as you can't deal with everyone during single playthrough.
Fights itself are fun and they are well-balanced. There is challenge for those, who seeks it, and it can be story-driven experience for anyone else. With exception of story bosses your opponents are usually equally strong or maybe little stronger than you (It depends on your choice too). The most interesting part is 'warping' which switches between skills your character is able to use. There is lot of skills and game tends to keep itself low, so no fancy magic amongst them. That mean, It can get bit repetitive on skills and characters often have only one or two originals. It wasn't bothering me, because this way I hadn't such a urgent need switching between actors before every battle and quite easily found solid formation.


Is the arena supposed to be predecessor to the Battledome?

Art
No need to write about graphics as their awe is visible from the pictures. I absolutely love them and they remind me of Legend of Dungeon or Hyper Light Drifter (but everything reminds me of Drifter these days). Its not only about the stunning coolness of chosen direction and power of redesigning RTP characters into RTP's custom style. There are these neat details such as colors. Character sprites are brighter and so they easily stand out from the background. This way authors could work with the same amount of detail for both actors and environment without getting them to blend together.
Music is chosen well too. Sometimes it can be bit of immersion breaker but that is more problem of sudden transitions between songs. There are some cool pumped-up tracks, which I really like such as Energy, Uppermost's Born Limitless which reminds me of Justice.

The games is eye-blast.

Conclusion
Go and play Razed are The Powerful. Its totally worth it. I would pay for a game like this. Its flooded with content. Fighting is fun, story is fun, just walk'n'talk is fun. I haven't given it five stars, tho. It's the game I like, I enjoyed it, without any major flaws, but it doesn't feel like a five star experience. It's more about that feeling than there is something missing. Maybe I got influenced by Unity's review too. Still It easily can compete with likes of Oneshot or Dreaming Mary. It feels professional and definitely overlooked.