Prodigal

Prodigal popped up on my twitter feed about a week before they were set to launch. The graphics immediately hooked me in as they are designed to be in the gameboy color style. The sprite work on display got me to look into what kind of game it was. Being billed as a adventure game where you could marry cute girls. Simple enough, it seemed, although marriage options are never really a huge selling point for me. So I did have some worries that the game would be TOO focused on the romance aspect. I did have a concern that the game itself would feel too much like an Oracle of Seasons clone. I was dead wrong.

Prodigal comes out the gate swinging with its own unique feeling. Honestly, the only things I think that could be argued that are present and nostalgic are the incredible graphics (Gameboy Color style/palette) and the fact that the game does not overburden you with tutorials on how to play the game/where to go. During the intro sequence, player is told that the librarian NPC can point the player in the right direction if they are lost. I list this as nostalgia because this emulates the style of adventure game where the player was also tasked with discovering the game mechanics for themselves outside of the basics (like what buttons do what)

The core mechanics of the game were solid. Combat was tight and felt good, the puzzles within the dungeons were all very well designed (most puzzles have multiple solutions initially intentionally designed this way to avoid players getting stuck but in the end creates a wonderful puzzle ideology of "be as creative as possible"), the story was a nice, well written adventure with some secrets and hidden lore to find along the way.

During your adventure you can get to know all the members of the town and even romance some of them! This turned out to be a lot more fun than I had expected, and I've replayed the game more than a few times to see what all the romance quests add to the overlying story.

But that's not where the game ends. They continued to release content: new ways to play (gameplay modifiers for challenges), upgrades to certain items, additional post-game dungeons/quests/bossfights, AND in one of the post release updates, the game now has a modular way to play the story as you can complete 2 of any of the 5 Act 2 dungeons to progress the story. Each player can potentially now have a different experience during the second half of the game and still reach the games conclusion. I absolutely love this because it allows for a few different playthrough experiences AND allows for people to talk about which ones they did when playing through the game for the first time. Also, the game doesn't tell you where to go. its your adventure. You can always talk to the Librarian to get a hint, but otherwise it is up to you, the player, to discover what the world has in store for you.

Prodigal went from a game that interested me by its excellent art, to a game that had a similar effect that HollowKnight had. After playing it, I not only wanted to immediately play through it again because the gameplay was so enjoyable, but it reminded me of why I enjoy playing single player games in the first place. A well written adventure, a whole world to explore and find secrets in, and freedom of choice to take the game at the pace I want (whether that be talking to NPCs to learn lore, or delving into tough dungeons to fight monsters and find secret treasures)

If you like adventure games (particularly top-down Zelda style games that have a good balance of combat and puzzle solving,) then this is a game I don't think you should miss.