[img]https://i.redd.it/75e5r3w16nu41.jpg[/img]

It's mid-day and you're a foreign dwarven mercenary currently stuck waist-deep in dank dungeons filled with bloodraving cultists, horrible monstrous abominations and wooden medieval BDSM enthusiasts. The village elder has bequeathed upon you a quest to retrieve a cursed amulet and to stop the machinations of this foul cult. Having finally found the cult leader, you ambush them in the middle of whatever horrid scheme they were planning and cleave their head off with a carving axe the blacksmith gave you out of pity whilst suffering a broken arm. You eat a couple of penny bun mushrooms in your inventory to stave off the maddening hunger. You claim the cursed amulet of the cult and try to retrace your steps back to the village.

You are then encountered upon by a pack of 3 bandits and the hooded one slits your carotid artery and makes you bleed out all over the forest floor. 

That is the experience that Stoneshard has offered me for over 70 hours. 

Stoneshard has been the most ambitious early-access game that calls to me like a pond does to a duck. It's got everything that I love. Stellar pixel graphics and art. Engaging and brutal combat mechanics. Near seamless character progression. Mood music. Turn based combat (Without the number crunching). Randomized rogue-like elements. 

The game isn't that long (10 hours of content tops) but more than makes up with it with its replayable nature and the depth and scope of its mechanics. Stoneshard's biggest strength and weakness, call it a double edged sword if you will, is its difficulty. The game does not fuck around. It's the [s]Dark Souls[/s][s]Doom on Ultra Nightmare[/s][s]Impossible Quiz[/s]  you know what I mean of RPGs for me at the moment. You will die a lot. From hunger. Thirst. Poison. Traps. Fire. An acute case of migraines caused by the fact that bandit stove in your head with a warhammer. Loosing enough blood to fill a bath-tub. Getting mauled by Pumba's cousins. Getting eaten alive by Smokey's the Bear's redneck brothers. 

On top of all that, no map or waypoint system. Your character's location is pinpointed on the UI. You must make out your location and your relative directions to places of importance in the world map through memory and navigation. You can also only save by sleeping at a select number of places, most of which cost money to do so. There is no save on exit nor can you save in the middle of a journey. Once you set out on your epic journey, you set out and there's no amount of savescumming that will allow you to keep your progression.

Yet, you will also find ways to kill. A lot. Stoneshard possibly has the best skill/perk progression system I've ever seen in an RPG as well. There's active skills which cost energy to use and passive perks that you can buy. There is no strict level up where you're forced to choose a certain set of perks nor are there strict origins that limit you to a select number of skills. Everything is open for the taking. You could play a warhammer wielding arbalest. A dual wielding berserker who uses a knife and a spiked maul. A traditional sword and board knight. A pyromaniac wizard who wants to simulate the Shining with his shiny axe. A bowman who can fart rocks out of the earth. 

My relationship to this game can be summed up as digital Stockholm Syndrome. At first, I hated it. Then, I liked it. I then hated it again before loving it again. Eventually, this abusive relationship transformed into a blossoming healthy relationship interspersed with random moments of unfair violence and cursing at RNGesus.

10/10. Fucking beauty of a game. Would die from dehydration because I forgot to fill my water skins at Osbrook's well again and get mauled by a bear in the process.