“Goblins, we’ve been hunted to the brink of extinction by cruel adventurers. Those pesky menfolk love to see poor monsters suffer, and they extinguish their life for the sake of just a few experience points… but nobody ever thinks about the poor critters and their families left behind, or do they?
As such, it’s upon us to unite the tribes, to free goblins held captive, to repopulate, and to rebuild our lair! It’s upon us to take matters into our own hands and to fight this injustice by putting a party together of raiders, shamans, guards and peons alike who have each other’s backs and who will fight to the death to scout out areas, harvest resources and bring an end to menfolk supremacy! Are you with me?!” – my headcanon, idk
With that said, Goblin Stone is great. I hope I get to convince you of that as well so that you play it yourself!
You take control of two little green guys whose friends got slaughtered by adventures and you stumble across the titular Goblin Stone which guides you to some ancient ruins in a nearby forest, allowing you to rebuild your lair and get stronger over time.
Developer: Orc Chop Games
Publisher: Orc Chop Games
Genre: Indie, 2D, Roguelike, Turn-Based Strategy RPG, Dungeon Crawler
Release Date: March 12th, 2024
Reviewed on: PC
Available on: PC
Copy was provided by PR.
This game plays a lot like Darkest Dungeon but it’s a lot more wholesome without losing the incredible challenge that comes with later areas if you aren’t prepared for it. Trust me, I’ll miss Porkcutter and Ruinflower forever but their sacrifices won’t be in vain whatsoever. For the tribe!
What’s really interesting about the game is the combat system, in my opinion, because while it clearly draws inspiration from titles such as Darkest Dungeon in some regards, Goblin Stone has its own unique spin to turn-based combat.
While you’re fighting, you see a turn meter at the top of the screen showcasing the turn order. Characters move alongside this bar over time and whoever reaches the middle first, gets to make their turn, bulking up, buffing or attacking. This system can be manipulated though. You can stop enemies from moving temporarily using stuns and freezes, you can knock them back or slow them down, too, or you can give haste to a fellow goblin so that they get their turn quicker.
Attacks cost units displayed on the turn-meter. A simple whack or slice attack might just take one unit or two, for instance, whereas more powerful attacks cost way more, putting you into the later areas of said meter and tiring you out which in return causes you to take more damage until you’re back to the normal area.
You see where I’m getting with this, don’t you? There are so many cool abilities that influence the stakes of battle and the different classes that your goblins can go for also complement each other fairly well.
Shamans, for instance, can be magic damage dealers or healers depending on what abilities you select whereas Guards can protect others and bulk up their armour on top of dishing out stuns, too. Meanwhile, Raiders are your typical damage dealers applying bleed effects or bringing the whole squad together with finishers that pair well with stuns or slows dealt by the other characters.
But the complexity doesn’t just end there since enemies also have tricks up their sleeves! Menfolk (the adventurers), for instance, might level up gaining big boosts upon slaying one of your fellow goblins, whereas slimes can merge together to become stronger as a whole – and other enemies even buff up their whole squad which can ramp out of control really quickly!
Btw, I mentioned deaths, didn’t I? Yeah, no matter how mellow and friendly this world looks, deaths are still a part of the survival of the fittest and as such, you’ll need to be aware of the turn order, status effects and your typical attacks. Sometimes you calculate whether risks are worth taking or who you have to stun to protect your weakest ally. Even then, the game doesn’t make it easy for you since enemies will resist status effects the more you use them against them, and some types are even completely immune to them!
Long story short, when a goblin’s health reaches 0, they receive a mortal wound which permanently halves their hit points and sets them to 1 health for the current run which can be healed, though. If they reach 0 hit points again, however, they die and you receive some souls which can be used to upgrade your lair.
Btw, the lair is your hub where you manage goblins, build new rooms, plan out the next operation and do all sorts of other things that are really exciting and get my micro-management-liking blood boiling. I mean it, there’s a lot here.
You can breed goblins in this game, after all, and there is a whole “gene trait” system that affects their stats. There are three character stats in the game: Body, Mind and Spirit. Body affects hit points, Mind affects crit chance and Spirit affects magic armour, armour and healing abilities. Depending on the class selected, goblins may get further bonuses in these categories which opens up the path to a lot of possibilities… but gene traits also further modify these stats or grant you other perks.
As such, diversifying the gene pool and creating thick-blooded and lucky goblins might be a great idea… and it lends itself to a lot of experimentation. You will rescue goblins on your journeys and you will recruit new ones at the camp but there may be times when you sacrifice or retire goblins altogether for the sake of the colony given that souls are needed to upgrade a lot of rooms.
In that sense, while the game does get fairly complex, I do not mind deaths as much as I do in Darkest Dungeon because the gained experience and the friends we made along the way directly translate into progress for your base, unlocking new classes and features, etc.
With all that said, though, Goblin Stone has its fair share of issues that need some tweaks, in my opinion. For instance, the building in this game feels a bit frustrating. I’d love to place rooms next to each other without needing a little bit of space. I’d also love it if I could move staircases to be more efficient with my layout. This stuff bothers me a little bit.
The resource gathering can be a bit annoying since harvest points do not necessarily have the wood or fibre that you need. Having a way to guarantee those resources or to create them inside of the base would be really nice as it would make the game less grindy at times. The game is hard enough as is, so each adventure means possibly losing a member of your party or even all of them if you’re unlucky. So, reducing some of that tediousness would be pretty great. I’m struggling for wood, right now.
Aside from that, I dislike how the classes work. For starters, goblins can pick one of nine classes with over 70 different combat abilities which is really cool but to access those classes you gotta build your different guilds. Fair. The thing I dislike is that in combat, you can only use four abilities out of your whole repertoire with one extra based on your weapon. If you change the loadout of these combat abilities, it changes it for ALL shamans or raiders depending on the guild you do it at…
I wish I could specifically change it for only select goblins. Some shamans, after all, have high Spirit and would work really well as healers and buffers whereas others are better equipped to be magic damage dealers. With the current system, I have to do either one or the other or a mix of both that is worse than both. So, let me just change one goblin’s loadout at a time, please. Thanks!
But that said, I love the game otherwise. Those are some minor gripes in the grand scheme of things. This isn’t a colony sim, after all, so I get not putting too much emphasis on that one part. I’d love that other issue to definitely get fixed, though, as it bothers me a fair bit.
Goblin Stone‘s music, narrator, sound design and overall look are absolutely fantastic and add much panache to the whole title. There are tweened backgrounds and little details in the world that really make this feel alive, and the general design of the goblins and enemies really had me agape in awe.
Add to that the complexity of the combat system, the interesting synergies between classes, the difficulty of the game in general, and the incredibly wholesome yet kind of dark storytelling… and you’ve got yourself one hell of a gem that any goblin would definitely pick up at all cost.
This post was originally written by Dan Dicere from Indiecator.
If you see this article anywhere else other than Indiecator.org… then this article has been stolen. Please let me know of this via E-Mail. Other than that, feel free to stop by my Twitch streams!
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