Potato Flowers in Full Bloom is a dungeon crawler RPG that incorporates turn-based combat. You explore several dungeons, encounter monsters, and engage them in combat. When you first begin, you can recruit up to eight different characters into your party. With each character, you can choose their race, their appearance, their name and their class. You can recruit up to eight (8) different party members into your group. From there, you assemble a squad of three to explore the dungeons and fight enemies. This customization allows you to adapt your squad to strategize around whatever enemy you’re fighting.
When exploring the dungeon, you will encounter stationary groups of enemies obstructing your progress. The combat is balanced, with both you and the enemies taking turns engaging in attacks. Characters on both sides have a stamina meter that drains with each action. If characters don’t have enough stamina to perform an action, they need to take a turn to rest, which can leave them vulnerable. While health and stamina recharge after every battle, skill points do not, and can only be recharged by returning to base camp. Returning to base also respawns all of the monsters in the dungeon.
When you’re not fighting enemies, you’re usually making your way through the dungeons. You’ll have to use your torch to navigate through the otherwise dark halls of each dungeon. There are also torch brackets on the wall that can be lit. As you progress further, you can open up new paths and bypass areas guarded by enemies.
In addition to exploring the dungeons, you can also pursue various side quests from different characters located throughout the dungeon. These characters can upgrade your equipment, craft new weapons and armor from materials and sell you new items. They can also give you rewards if you help them locate lost items somewhere in the dungeon.
The overall goal of the game is not explained in great detail, but there is some semblance of a plot. You are part of an adventuring group that is searching for a lost stash of potato seeds. They aren’t any ordinary seeds, however. These seeds are specially developed by a group of alchemists to grow in contaminated soil. If the seeds are found, they can help end a famine that has been plaguing the world.
Overall, Potato Flowers in Full Bloom feel like a nice blend of two different genres. It mixes the dungeon crawling and turn-based combat well to form a rather different game. However, sometimes it feels a bit barren and repetitive. It’s a bit too easy to forget what you’re trying to do or to figure out what you’re supposed to do next. It’s not bad, but there could have been a bit more variety in where you explore and what you do. Still, not a bad game.
Final Score: 7/10
2D Action Adventure Asymmetric Cellar Door Games Colorful comedy critical games cute Cyberpunk Deck13 Dungeon Crawler Enix fantasy FIrst-Person Greg Lebanov Hack and Slash Humble Games indie Isometric Kemco LGBTQ+ Magic metroidvania Multiple Endings Natsume nintendo pixel graphics Platformer Playstation Quintet retro roguelike RPG Sci-Fi Simulation Singleplayer Square Square-Enix Squaresoft Super Nintendo Taito turn-based Vampire Zelda-Like