Lycah

My spreadsheet instincts kicked in the moment I realised Lycah sits at a 59% mixed rating on Steam across only 22 reviews - that sample size barely constitutes a data point, but the pattern in those reviews is consistent enough to take seriously. This is a small, episodic RPG Maker title built around Lycah, a monster hunter working under a religious military order called The Ecclesia in exchange for her people's safety. The premise has genuine tension on paper: a protagonist caught between loyalty and survival, hunting demons and werewolves for an institution she resents. The problem is that the writing rarely cashes that cheque. On the mechanics side, the game runs a traditional turn-based side-view battle system with animated sprites - the kind of structure anyone who spent time with early-era JRPGs will recognise within seconds. Combat is the game's most functional layer. Lycah hunts monsters and demons across episodic cases, with Weeping Pond serving as one of the first assignments: a village plagued by child abductions tied to something from the abyss. That setup shows promise. The issue is the opening stretch, which throws players into enemy encounters before healing options are accessible, and the game offers almost no guidance on where to go or what to do. Survive that rough early patch and you reach the only main hub town, where roughly 80% of your equipment comes from dungeon runs rather than vendors - a structure that will either appeal to loot-minded players or frustrate those who prefer a cleaner progression curve. The lore is where things get genuinely rough. Reviewers consistently flag that the narrative leaves too many questions unanswered - character motivations shift without explanation, and the relationship between Lycah and the Ecclesia general feels underwritten given how politically loaded that dynamic should be. For a strategy-minded player like me, unexplained systems are friction; unexplained story beats are just missing content. A companion named Trevor appears in the party and there are noted bugs around item usage that the community flagged years ago with no clear resolution in sight. The game is built on RPG Maker, which means no mod ecosystem, no community tooling worth speaking of, and a visual style that leans entirely on asset packs rather than original art. Who is this actually for? Honestly, a narrow group: players who have already completed the Thorne series from the same studio and want more of that world's tone, or collectors of budget RPG Maker titles who go in with adjusted expectations. The episodic structure means the content on offer is short, and the lack of post-launch support or critical coverage makes it difficult to recommend as a standalone purchase to anyone unfamiliar with the developer's work. There is a genuine dark fantasy premise underneath the rough construction, but it needed another development pass to deliver on it. Diego, Scout Team

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