Zoria: Age Of Shattering speedruns its fantasy RPG origin story in a quick cutscene montage at the start, so we might as well get that out of the way first, too. Low fantasy world, two warring kingdoms, one uses necromancy (this is cast as bad and cheating rather than practical, for some reason) to comprehensively gain the upper hand, and everything is named like a bunch of Scrabble letters were thrown randomly on the table. You play Elion war hero Captain Witherel - gender and class TBD by the player - in a small group making a final stand at the fortress Daeg Marastir, which is being overrun by the nefarious Izirian army. We start in media bellum, as it were.

This first stage, where you escape the fortress, gives you a whistle-stop tour of the main systems in the game. You control a squad of four, the combat is turn-based, you can pitch camp at any time to rest and heal up, and there are crafting systems for potions, food and gear. Zoria isn't really remaking the wheel as much as it is taking spokes from a bunch of other fantasy RPGs you like, and the result is the terrier of RPGs. Small, clearly has a lot of different DNA knocking around in there, and punches above its weight, but it's a bit scrappy and sometimes it's knees dislocate and it falls over. This terrier was made by three people, so that is sort of to be expected.

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