WASD Coverage April 2024 - Battle Juice Alchemist

Article by Adam Ray

WASD was a truly phenomenal event, and one that we here at Fantastic Universes are always eager to attend. This particular event saw me play well over a dozen games during my three days there. Some of them were not worth writing about, but the very first game I sampled is an adventure RPG pulled right from my heart.

Battle Juice Alchemist - great name - is an adventure RPG set in a fantastical world. You are an alchemist you create them from the ground up in a very detailed character creator, and the initial tutorial sets the tone of the gameplay. As you navigate this fantasy landscape, you are constantly completing quests, looking for items, Gold, and other ingredients to brew into more powerful potions.

At the start of the game, you get your standard attack in the form of a firebomb potion. If you're playing on PC, it's bound to number 1. It costs a little Juice to use, but a second potion refills your Juice quicker than usual, and that's on number 2. After that, health potions, frog jump potions, smoke bomb potions, and others I'm sure exist somewhere out there in the game, all go into your Cauldron. The potions in your Cauldron get bound to numbers 3, 4, and 5, but here's the kicker. They randomly rotate. There could be times when you're getting utterly stomped by a monster, and there's only smoke on your Cauldron and you just need a heal!

While this kind of randomat gameplay will annoy some, I deeply love it. The chance and the chaos of anything coming up is deeply appealing to me. The thrill of the chaos element makes gameplay unique and challenging every time. Besides, all my years of card gaming has me used to variance like this.

Once again, ESDigital has brought us gameplay that rewards players for engaging how they want with their game. This is definitely the case with the other titles by ESD that I've looked at, namely Sky of Tides and Awaken Astral Blade. There can be room for super optimised Cauldron load outs, and you can position the camera to be over the shoulder or over the top Hades style.

Any fans of adventure style RPGs with a fun new take will deeply love Battle Juice Alchemist and it's available for you to buy early access on Steam RIGHT NOW!!!