EARTHLOCK

Earthlock is a turn-based RPG from Snowcastle Games that wears its late-90s inspirations openly, think Final Fantasy IX meets a lower-budget European indie production. You get a cast of characters exploring a world called Umbra, a planet that has stopped rotating, leaving one side in permanent sun and the other in permanent dark. That central worldbuilding hook is genuinely interesting, and the environments that grow out of it have real personality. If you are the kind of player who still has a soft spot for JRPG-era adventure with fixed camera angles and deliberate pacing, there is something here that will scratch an itch. The combat system is the game's clearest mechanical ambition. Characters are paired into duos, and each pair shares a stance mechanic that lets you shift between two roles mid-fight. One character might be your frontline attacker while their partner buffs or supports from the back, and swapping stances changes who is exposed to enemy targeting. It adds a layer of tactical thinking that standard turn-based systems often skip. Talent wheels handle progression, and while the system looks complex at first glance, it eventually settles into a fairly linear path with limited genuine branching. Past the midgame, build variety feels less like a choice and more like following the obvious route. The writing is where your mileage will vary most. The main story has decent bones and the world concept deserves a bigger narrative than it gets. Side quests, however, lean heavily into the filler territory I have zero patience for. Fetch tasks with minimal dialogue payoff show up with uncomfortable regularity, and the pacing sags badly in the middle third. Character arcs exist but rarely surprise you. The localization is serviceable, occasionally charming, but it does not reach the density of writing that makes you want to re-read a line. If you come in expecting Disco Elysium-tier prose or even Baldur's Gate 3 companion depth, recalibrate expectations considerably before booting this up. Production values are a mixed bag too. The art direction has genuine warmth and some environments look lovely for an indie title of this scale. The soundtrack works. But the voice acting is inconsistent, some animations feel stiff, and the UI gives off a 'first major project' energy that more polished RPGs have trained us to notice. The 73% positive Steam score feels about right. It is not a bad game. It is an earnest one that runs out of steam (no pun intended) before its ambitions fully land. Players who grew up with SNES and PS1 RPGs and have strong nostalgia tolerance will find more to love here than newcomers expecting modern RPG polish. Earthlock is a reasonable pick if you want something low-stakes, visually pleasant, and mechanically coherent in its combat core. Just go in knowing the narrative will not challenge you, the grind is real in the back half, and the paired-stance system is the single most interesting thing the game does. For RPG completionists or anyone assembling a catalog of indie turn-based games, it earns a cautious spot. Everyone else should know exactly what they are signing up for. Monika, Scout Team