TL;DR
Tales of Maj'Eyal (TOME) can be described in brief as a traditional or classic rogue-like RPG. It captures the true essence of the genre with turn-based combat, randomly-generated maps and loot, permadeath, unlockable permanent classes/races/abilities for future playthroughs, optional zones and quests with big risks with big payoffs, and importantly, a strong sense of satisfaction when you finally overcome a tough challenge and eventually beat the campaign(s).

Although the game can be downloaded free of charge, I encourage you to purchase it outright if you enjoy it (or just purchase it to begin with if it sounds even remotely interesting to you). I nominated this game for the 2020 Steam Award "Labor of Love" due to the dedication from the developer to continue enriching the game with content, and to diligently optimize and fix bugs. The dev truly takes pride in the game and it shows; with as much enjoyment as TOME continues to provide me, it deserves a solid review. If you're on the fence, I strongly recommend buying it with all the DLC. Full price is worth it and deserved but sales are always nice. Each DLC adds a great amount of content, including a full sequel campaign (Embers of Rage) to enjoy a different perspective of life in the game world. Read on if you want a more detailed breakdown.




High points:

+ The combinations of classes and races allow for a great deal of replayability - at almost 500 hours as of the time of this review, I have hardly tried half the possibilities.
+ The numerous ability trees, divided by those offered by your choice of class and sometimes race, offer further customization and experimentation with different builds. Relatively easy to understand with a bit of a learning curve if you are new to rogue-like RPGs; a challenge to master as the randomly-generated maps provide new experiences every time. No two runs will be the same; as you unlock permanent access to new trees through in-game achievements, even playing a repeat class/race combo will provide a new experience.
+ The game world is filled with bits of discoverable lore that, after a certain point in a run, will become preserved for review on future runs.
+ Optional quest to obtain your own personal domain complete with optional (for a very small and well-deserved donation) access to a permanent, inter-dimensional vault to store your most prized rare or unique equipment. Should you pursue the permanent vault access, it enables stashing equipment sets over multiple runs so that you can plan a build tailored to maximizing its benefits.
+ A consistent world map with consistent low-, mid- and high-level areas rewards persistence by letting you plan around familiar challenges and bosses, or in many cases skip them altogether. You will come to hate certain unique endbosses until you develop a strategy and/or character build combo that satisfyingly crushes them.
+ Starting class, race and ability choices are interesting and plentiful enough to carry you through the initial hurdles of familiarizing yourself with unique game mechanics and learning the world map while you unlock more character options.
+ A handful of classes and races provide an alternate starting location and quest, and additional lore. These areas are typically inaccessible to other character builds.
+ Various difficulty settings enable you to adjust to an appropriate challenge for yourself at your own pace. The strength/weakness of the player character and mobs can be adjusted in traditional difficulty settings, and the permanency of death can be set to infinite lives, a handful of extra lives to cushion bad luck or mistakes, or classic rogue-like permadeath.
+ Optional vaults and world map zones sometimes appear and can be undertaken by the brave, the overconfident or the foolhardy. Higher-level and higher-rarity randomized mobs can be a difficult challenge and may unexpectedly end your playthrough, but they are just as often full of rare and powerful equipment that can improve your odds of continued success.
+ The tiles and mobs are fairly detailed and easily identifiable at a glance. Graphics and effects are certainly minimalist overall, but the default character tiles change their look to reflect your equipment (and some status effects) at a given moment. If you pursue the optional domain quest, there will be an opportunity for you to change your character's look based on equipment you have encountered throughout various playthroughs.
+ Technical requirements to run this game are low and have been optimized over time.


Low Points: (but not really)

- Some might consider the graphic style to be outdated, I guess. I think the graphics fit the game fine, but it feels like something worth mentioning as a potential turn-off for some.
- The world is rich in lore and a familiar and mostly consistent zone placement on the two continents. Despite all that fuel for the imagination, all playthroughs feel vacuously devoid of sentient life with which you could interact socially. At worst, the most common non-hostiles exist as cardboard cutouts; at best, the important NPCs or those few with conversation cues resemble animatronic automatons (or sometimes exist only in the mind's eye as they talk to you from behind a closed door. How rude!). My counterpoint is that this style of game isn't meant to recreate a living, breathing world. It is designed for you to erase all evidence of life other than your own, by transforming it into loot and experience - through the magic of creative violence.
- Mastering the game mechanics will take a while. Certain unique abilities may take longer to learn by virtue of being initially locked from availability until you achieve some particular feat; some by accident or luck, sometimes a result of significant choices in optional dungeons, and some by just following/completing the campaign. Learning the basic game mechanics can be a trial-and-error process, but I remember having several "a-ha" moments where certain nuances became easier to recognize and predict. There is also the aforementioned option for infinite lives to provide a safety net while you learn.
- Some of the unlockable content requires you to risk permadeath. Some of it requires access to other unlocks first. This promotes replayability and is an appealing challenge to most, but it bears mentioning for those more easily frustrated; there are options to get immediate access to unlockables, but you won't earn any progress toward unlockables on that playthrough.
- You may not beat the game on your first playthrough. Or even your 10th. Some of this is just a gradual learning process and familiarity with the consistent aspects of the game. Some of it amounts to unfortunate crits or bad luck with random loot drops. Your favorite character will die permanently, and only their great deeds (in the form of expanded character creation options) and legendary gear (if you survived to reach your shared character storage vault and have donated at least once to obtain permanent vault slots) will persist beyond your death. Take risks with optional areas early and often - learn from them to increase your odds of survival in the future.
- The tradeoff for having a largely consistent world map, and only randomly generating the contents of the individual zone maps, is that after enough playthroughs it can lose a bit of luster. In spite of hundreds of hours invested in this game it never truly feels like a grind, but you'll probably end up with a ritual order of zones you stick to every time and some aspects of your later playthroughs may feel like you're marking off a checklist or going through the motions to get to the part you "really care about" for that particular run, whether it's in pursuit of an unlock, trying a new character combo or some new strategy. This perception of monotony is hastened along by the relative lack of friendly or meaningful interactions.


7/7 would do a mankini run again

Easily the most fun I've had playing a Diablo clone, since Diablo 2. Well worth the price, doubly so on sale and make sure you get the expansions.

After formerly giving a bad review due to the price point and dlc practices for this game, I'm now changing my review to a positive one.

The good:
- Graphics are enjoyable, though many seem to disagree. I prefer this style to previous ones.
- City structure is built outward physically into tiles, allowing for great visual and strategic customization.
- Trending toward historically beefy expansion packs full of content to keep the game interesting.
- Civ traits are distinct and allow for a broad experience across different games; in previous games the traits were not pronounced and most civs played similarly. Civ 5 took a step in this direction and 6 defined it well.

The neutral:
- At release, the game sort of forced you to build wide - building tall would cause you to fall behind more easily, unlike in previous games where either strategy was viable. Recently, expansions have helped mitigate this.
- The engine and toolset have limited the development of great overhaul mods as were enjoyed with Civ 4, though there are many good mods out there today for 6. Just none as grandiose as Legends of Revolution or Fall From Heaven.

The bad:
- Initial few years price point for the game and dlcs, coupled with no discounted offering of the season pass/GOTY. Too much for too little. As someone who pre-ordered the game but not the season pass (I refute this practice and will not support it), I felt cheated until the last year when the price points dropped sufficiently. I don't expect anything for free, but it is akin to punishment for initial supporters. Scenarios with no new civs costing the same as dlcs with civs? What are the marketers thinking? I won't purchase their next game until a solid 2 years have passed since this seems to be the "New Deal" of developers in general and of this one in particular.


Conclusion/tl;dr

I recommend buying this game during a steam sale when you can pick up the core game, dlcs and expansions for under $40. I also recommend NOT pre-ordering or even buying their next game until either a GOTY or there is a significant discount, or both.

Orwell is a GUI point and click choose your own text-based adventure. Minimal audio limited to ambiance, punctuated occasionally by tension-inducing background music. Intriguing story surrounding the security vs. privacy debate with real world implications.

Recommendation: Get it during a sale; definitely worth playing!

PROS:
+ Relevant and topical story
+ Interface is easy to learn and feels natural
+ Plausible system mechanics aids in the suspension of disbelief
+ NPCs have interesting personalities
+ Difficulty increases at the end to maintain interest
+ Multiple endings with satisfying results; good replayability

CONS:
+ Minor text/grammar errors in a text-based game are bad, avoidable through QA/QC
+ Game is a bit short, can be beaten in just a few hours - which is why I recommend only getting it on sale
+ Listening in on phone calls looks/plays exactly like reading a text message conversation; i.e. boring
+ Can feel railroad-y, especially at the very beginning tutorial part

You will carefully select fresh hirelings for their combination of skills, only to have them suffer crippling psychological maladies after even the first dungeon run.

You will watch with trepidation as your party nears the boss room low on health, stressed to wit's end and out of resources.

Your favorite characters will die, sometimes without much warning as battle turns sour from an enemy's critical hit.

Despite all the punishment and stress, or perhaps because of it, you will enjoy this game.

9/10

Get this game right now, it's well worth $1.50!

Planetside 2: Re-Quest for Batteries

Why dred less when you can Dredmor.

This game is great.