Yaga

This game is at its best during its less action-packed moments. Yaga's story has plenty of novel twists and turns, from a witch that seems to be guiding Ivan's fate to using the concept of bad luck as a play mechanic that influences just about everything. It helps that the writing is often laugh-aloud funny, and that the surprisingly ample voice acting is top notch. Running into and talking to new characters is a treat rather than a burden, and seeing how Ivan deals with problems, from attempting to satisfy a king with unrelentingly unreasonable demands to dealing with his grandma, whose primary interest is ensuring Ivan finds a good wife, is rarely less than entertaining.

Other parts of the game aren't quite as satisfying, though. Combat, while simple and fun to start, eventually grows a little tedious. There's a nice selection of gear to choose from, but battles tend to boil down to attacking with your best weapon -- which usually means Ivan's hammer, which we can use as both bludgeon and as a thrown implement -- and rolling through hazards and out of the way of incoming attacks. And while the bad luck mechanic forces you to make some strategic decisions in how you choose to react to situations, in combat it tends to nudge you away from experimenting with potentially useful stuff, such as magic items, which cause Ivan's bad luck meter to fill. But happily the relatively short playtime means that these issues probably won't become too frustrating for most players, many of whom will likely choose to play safe the first time through and then be a bit bolder on their next campaign. Yaga may not come together as seamlessly as one would hope, but there's still plenty of enjoyable play here for anyone looking for a lightly humorous, choice-driven RPG (role-playing game) with a creative visual style and setting.