Mythos: The Beginning is an horror themed RPG where you'll be investigating the disappearance of some students at Harborough Asylum using a character of your choice.
While its story is interesting and it does have a few Lovecraftesque vibes the low production values and frustratingly difficult combat makes it hard to recommend.

PROS:

-interesting story

-out of combat skills (investigation to find clues, occult lore to read texts etc) are fun to use and it's nice to see they provide you with exp

-good amount of choices in how to build your character (but read below to see how they're, imho, squandered)

-nice monster design

-interesting puzzles require you to think and keep notes

CONS:

-atrocious voice acting

-barren graphics

-awkward UI and controls, why am I allowed to use WASD to move but have to use arrows in menus and combat?

-combat is frustratingly difficult even on the lowest difficulty level: I love a challenge but meeting monsters that can wipe my party in two turns after just 30 mins of play feels unbalanced. You can try to escape but even if it works the monster will still be near you once out of combat and probably attack you again right away

-the issues with combat means that if you build your character for, say, investigation or occult lore you'll be screwed since you'll be useless in combat and won't have npcs to back you up for quite a bit: the one npc I've met was also a pushover and could only withstand two hits. You'll have to try and come up with a cookie cutter combat oriented build if you want a chance in fights, especially with bosses , and this means you won't be really free to create a character as you see fit: also if you screw up your build I doubt you'll manage to advance much and might need to start over

I went into Mythos expecting a good mix of combat and investigation but was sadly quickly disappointed when I realized that, despite investing equally in combat and non-combat skills, it still seemed it wasn't enough and that I'd have to just try over and over again to win a fight with wandering monsters. I do not find this enjoyable and the fact you can only save in certain rooms, thus having to walk back to where you were each time, just made things boring and frustrating.

Apart from combat the game suffers from very poor production values, the graphics are dark, lack detail and are quite low res, the sounds and music are basic and the voice acting is so bad that it ruins the otherwise interesting dialogues.

If you are ok with extremely hard games and don't mind being shoehorned into combat builds then you might find it decent but I honestly can't recommend it after my experience.

Just bought the game and finished it in about .. 4~5 hours.

There are a few things that can improve the game more:
The length of the game seem to be a bit too short. Consider I roam around constantly to look for more enemy in order to gain EXP, it still take me quite a short time to finish it.

After I'm roaming around, I found that the amount of enemy is pretty much fixed. No random encounter (as opposed to traditional RPG games), which is actually making me quite sad. I do hope that I can slaughter more enemy on my way.

As such, the warning at the beginning of the game that said: There is a limited number of EXP, is true. The most negative part here is that this could mean you will stuck within a certain area forever, because you don't have enough EXP to perform certain thing (potentially spoiler hence skipping this).

The other thing I noticed is that the EXP you will earn from killing enemies is also fixed, no matter how many enemies you encountered in a battle. This is not totally something bad but just feel unbalanced.

Oh, and the puzzle solving is actually a bit too easy, especially seem like all related document can be found in the same room.

Now on the positive side, this is quite a different combination of gaming experience. Mixing horror and RPG together may sound weird, but it work (at least for me).

Will actually recommend this game. Just hope that it will be longer in the sequel.

Mythos: the Beginning is a lovecraftian horror RPG adventure game, set in the early 1900’s and done in a retro 16 bit art and gameplay style. The gameplay is standard tuned based RPG goodness; you can attack with psychic powers, physical attacks, guard, heal or use buffing powers. There are several statistical categories that govern how powerful your characters are and also many skills to purchase, all of this is done with experience points you either earn in battle and also by trading in unwanted items. The character building is quite deep, allows for some different playstyles, and absolutely necessary to master and maintain as this is not an easy game, even on casual difficulty. Took me 6 in game hours to complete my play thru on casual difficulty, but 10 real world hours due to dying without getting to the next save room, and I have beaten many and old school RPG in my time and am no novice to this style of game.

The story itself is suitably creepy and mysterious, the writing is decent, the voice acting is poor but for a small project like this I was great full to have any voice acting at all. The music adds to the atmosphere and never gets tiring. The asylum you explore is filled with puzzles, monsters and mysteries to solve, and how you choose to do so is up to you. Suck at the puzzles, spend some experience points on your intelligence levels and you can bypass them. Want to unlock that door or decipher that secret evil looking book, purchase the appropriate skill powerups. You have to pick and choose as XP points are limited, making Mythos a fun, deep and challenging adventure fit for any RPG gamer that likes lovecraftian horror and old school charm. First part of a planned series, but Mythos: the beginning stands on its own two feet as a complete story, and plays great with a gamepad.

So, as I was writing this review, I switched my recommendation from yes to no and back about three times.

Consider this a very conflicted 'yes', with a lot of qualifiers.

For example: $1 is about what you want to spend on Mythos: the Beginning. Allow me to explain why.

Mythos is a survival horror rpg with heavy-handed Lovecraftian elements. It's a very short game (clocking in at about three hours, playing as a completionist, on the hardest difficulty) so long as you don't get stuck, but it's also got puzzles and lacks a walkthrough, so your mileage may vary.

In Mythos, you investigate a semi-condemned asylum/hospital/thing, skulking around in the dark and occasionally falling through the floor to your death. The game is class-based, and it lets you freely spend exp in safe rooms to progress your character's combat abilities and investigative chops. Raise your int stat high enough (60) and you can bypass every puzzle in the game. Raise your sense stat high enough, and hidden items start appearing on the floor around you. Stats are reasonably well balanced, and most character builds are viable. So long as you build high int and throw spells, or build high attack and hit rate. Some combats can be optionally sidestepped, but a lot of monsters on the map clip towards you at just barely sub-sonic speeds, making evasion unlikely. Monsters and investigation points are also your primary source of exp, so I found myself combing the asylum for every squamous horror I could locate in order to make my intestines stronger. Optionally, you can also spend items for exp, which was kind of a neat feature. I mulched my entire inventory into my statline and promptly discovered I did not need to be healed when my defense was so high that I could not be hurt.

Which brings me to game balance. Mythos is a little wonky in this regards. Played properly, it probably is a nail-biting exercise in inventory management. However, exp costs for stats progress based on how many save rooms you have discovered, not on how many points you have spent, so I just scooped every single point I could find in the first few areas and made myself indestructible before even seeing a boss. If I hadn't decided to spend points to pad the survivability of my companions, I would have breezed through the final act of the game too.

Regarding raising any of the stats on your companions: don't. Them dying in combat has no actual repercussions whatsoever, so just use them as one-hit distractions for the monsters. Get your luck and guts high enough, and status effects and damage will not touch you.

Mythos' design also falters when it comes to its graphics and voice acting. The rest of the sound design on the game is utterly lovely, and evokes just the right atmosphere, but I've never seen worse (and buggier) voice-work. Everyone you meet sounds like they're trying to force a British accent through a sieve of rusting fish-hooks and razors, and that in turn is wrapped in some kind of low-fidelity distortion that made me take off my headphones every time someone spoke. I believe you can turn voiced dialog off, but you have to go into a menu in the game. Which means the intro voiceing is probably unskippable.

Graphics are not much better. This is an RPGmaker title. It shows. On top of that, all the character portraits and monsters look like they were whipped up using some sort of 1991 home edition 3D modeling software. It's garish at best, and comical at worst.

So, what's good about this game? Why did I eventually switch back to a 'yes' rating?

Unfortunately, it's fun.

I genuinely enjoyed most of my three hours playing it, and I even managed to get kind of immersed in the story and ambiance a few times. Mythos does not outstay its welcome (I'd say it understays it), and I found myself thinking about it after it was over - and not just in a "what did I put in my brain?" kind of way.

I don't think this was because of the writing, which was bog-standard Lovecraftiana. I don't think it was strictly the gameplay either. But somehow the whole of Mythos is greater than the sum of its jumbled-together parts. Dollar-for-dollar, I wouldn't take it over Alien or Amnesia, but if you want to support a pretty cool indie dev or slum it with a project-on-a-budget, you could do worse than this.

Mythos the Beginning brings back the traditional survival horror gameplay. It encompasses many styles of playing all in one. Mythos offers much flexibility to players in determining the starting player and how they would want to play. Either going in full force or playing with avoidance, Mythos is fun for many.

Mythos the beginning offers well crafted locations with appropriate background music which adds depth to the environment. The difficulty of Mythos for every playing style is equal. Whether you are fighting every enemy or avoiding every enemy, this shows how Dark Gaia really thought about the execution of this game.

Mythos the beginning also has many puzzles in which some require a keen eye to detect and good logic reasoning. Mythos will wreck your brains on some puzzles which are yet fustrating but interesting.

I highly recommend this game for those who enjoy the classic survival horror game. Mythos is the quintessence of a survival horror game done right.

I have beaten it, here are my thoughts:

PROS:
-Great, creepy atmosphere created from the music, sound and visual style.
-Fun turn-based battle system.
-Constantly rewarding experience system.
-Fairly balanced difficulty curve.
-Decent storyline.

CONS:
-Last save point in the game is poorly placed.
-Experience system can easily be taken advantage of to make the game much easier.
-Graphics may turn off some people.
-Poor voice-acting.
-Some people may not like the short (3-5 hour) length of the game (although $6.50 is a good price match for the length, and there are several endings and character classes to play as).

Overall: this is a good game. It could use some improvements, but I recommend it if you're looking for a somewhat different RPG. I am looking forward to the sequel.

As a long time fan of all things Lovecraftian, I really wanted to enjoy this game. Indeed, there is a good time lurking behind this game's one big problem; balancing.
If you don't make the right decision with spending your experience points early on, then you are screwed when the difficulty level suddenly ramps up. And boy, does it ramp up suddenly (in more than one place in the game). I ended up playing the same fights over and over and over for hours on end before I could beat them.
I managed to slog my way to the final levels (in the other world), but in every battle there my party got slaughtered in 2 rounds flat. So, after many hours of getting to that point, I finally had to throw the towel in and give up.
Avoid, unless you are a glutton for punishment.

[Edit: this review was written before a major update. I haven't played the newly rebalanced game]

A surprisingly good game - really nails the lovecraftian tones and topics, the game features a lot of written text, diaries, notes that expand the lore, backstory and build a really amazing atmosphere. The game's monsters are pretty unique, genuine otherwordly monstrous creatures that add so much style to the game.

Music and animations are custom-made, also the game features really nice puzzles. As far as RPG/RPG elements go, you earn xp by killing enemies, or investigating things, achieving something with your skills, like in a tabletop pen and paper RPG. These experience points can be used to buy new skills or stats, allowing to uncover extra lore books and such with the skill of occult knowledge.

Among previous reviews it was a reoccuring problem that the combat is really unforgiving - that can be true, and it's really easy to get on the bad end of a very-common confusion debuff, attacking your own team. (My semi-useless follower killed my main character 2 or 3 times, usually with a crit...) But in an update the developer introduced a "zero" combat difficulty that makes most of the fights absolutely trivial, minimizes the amount of consumables required, so they can be used on skills without issues, greatly helping players who would play the game for it's theme and story, than for the actual fighting.

It's really good to see the easier combat difficulty in the game, as this way it opens up for people who like their lovecraftian thrills and exploring an abandoned asylum, without the punishing difficulty.
I can totally recommend this, a very-well written little game.

+ Character Progression system that will have you scratching your head until you decide what to pump exp into;
+ Silent Hill-esque atmosphere with chilling music and creepy sound effects;
+ Journal based story telling similar to the old school Silent Hill and Resident Evil games;
+ Clever use of items; (multifuntional keys that only work once, a consumable portable save item etc.)
+ Challenging combat scenarios;
+ Stat based dialogue/exploration options similar to old-school RPGs.

- The voice acting sounds fake;
- The story is a little cliche; (well delivered, but you've heard it a million times)
- No sanity system. (seriously, a Lovecraftian RPG without a sanity system? why?)

VERDICT: I know people have hang-ups about commercial RPG Maker Games, but this is a good one, especially if you are a fan of survival horror games and old-school RPGs.

A survival horror-rpg game. Pretty much in the first Resident Evil style. Visually is modest, but is not bad at all. You just need to get used to it. Found no bugs or crashes. I saw lots of negative comments regarding the voices, but there are non now, just text, and that is OK to me. A few scares now and then. Also the game got a free expansion and some stuff was changed for good. So old reviews might not reflect this.

Now, I had to play it the casual way, cause it is very hard otherwise, specially at first. The monsters are really though and you will not get any followers after several fights. In normal difficulty I was pretty much about to quit. Playing casual allowed me to finish the game, still not very easy, but the challenge was more fair. And you really need to fight, cause this is all about getting experience points and getting stronger, so you just shouldn't avoid fights. There are a few puzzles, not very hard ones. One or two are head-scratching. There are different endings too. So some replay value.

Overall, despite it is lacking some balance, once you get into the story and learn a few things is entertaining and provides plenty hours in return for the money you paid and there are also cards. Is a good little game and the Mythos theme is always welcomed.