Druidstone

Druidstone is another game that probably wouldn't live up to my wishlist standards today, but it did in 2019, and so here I am suffering for my past decisions.

I joke. It's not that bad. It advertises itself as a turn-based RPG or strategy game. It's not entirely wrong but I'm quite sure that most RPG or strategy enjoyers would not enjoy this game for those aspects. You control a small party and go through a series of missions, each requiring you to fulfill some objective and probably kill some enemies in the process.
The best part is that the levels are very handcrafted, and designed less like one would design an RPG, and more like one would design a puzzle game. You are expected to spend a lot time contemplating how to make your move, how the enemies are going to move, and how to beat the turn limit that most missions are on while also fulfilling as many bonus objectives as possible. There is a bit of power scaling through upgrading your abilities and passives, but at the core of it, none of your characters really change. This is important to keep the challenge of the puzzles, but this would also put off any RPG enjoyers.

While I was kind of expecting an RPG, I wouldn't even mind if this was a well-crafted strategy puzzle game, but it falls short. I find a lot of the character abilities bland, but even worse, I can't predict what enemies are doing. For an RPG, this would be fine, but for a puzzle game, I need to know ahead of time what the enemy can do against me, so I could plan for it. As it stands now, I have to complete each mission at least twice. Once to know what all the enemies do and what all the timed events and spawns are, and the other time to actually plan around them (if I still remember them accurately). This really does not fulfill the fantasy of being a brilliant strategist.

Overall, between low production values, boring combat options, and somehow managing to disappoint both RPG and puzzle game fans with their combat design, I don't really see any reason to recommend this. Whether you're looking for a turn-based tactics game or an RPG, there are many better options out there.