I'm going to be honest; I really like this kind of game. Turn based dungeon crawlers in the vein of Wizardry or Elminage Gothic are my favourite sort. I've even been known to break out the grid paper and do some mapping. With this in mind, it might not be an entirely objective review. If I had to make a comparison for people who don't want to read much, it's Etrian Odyssey without manual mapping and better combat.

This game is good.

Ok, so I guess I have to back that up now, because the production values are low and I must admit it looks rather like RPG-maker shovelware when you first see it. It'd be easy to discount it because of that, but that would be a mistake though, because this is obviously a labour of love from someone who's a massive fan of Etrian Odyssey and this genre.

PROS-

- Combat is really good. There's a lot of depth with plenty of different skills, strengths and weaknesses. And it's TOUGH!
- Character development is surprisingly good. Chars can be customised with skills gained from equipment as well as class and then levelled up each char level. There's quite a few different character classes to choose from as well.
- There's item levelling as well as char levelling, but it's not overpowered broken like in Class of Heroes.
- The dungeon is hazardous to explore as there's no saving in there, but an item that can teleport you out instantly is very cheap to buy.
- The price is ridiculously cheap.

CONS
- Weeaboo overload. I cringe at some of the character art, but at least it's not fan service.
- Production values are low. Like, low. Look past the 'SP_POOL' and 'alchemy_boost' code text and the basic dungeon graphics.
- It's obtuse to the point of puzzling. The manual is not a lot of help, just being 7 screenshots with some text overlaid. I've figured a lot out so far, but if you want everything explained through tool tips and tutorials, it ain't happening.
- Lacking lore and story besides 'go seek your fortune in the labyrinth'. This may well change later, I'm only up to floor 3.

If you like this sort of game, you'll probably already have it in your library. If not, what are you waiting for? A Steam sale on a game that's this low in price already?! This probably isn't the game to convert people who don't like turn based blobbers, (that might be Stranger of Sword City), but for those of us that do, this is a no-brainer.

Sadly i have refunded it fast.
At first i was really happy that i found a game like etrian odyssey on steam.
I love the etrian odyssey games, but playing them at the tiny screen of a handheld device is not really fun gaming.
But this game is more like a cheap ripoff.
The skills are not really interesting, almost no active skills, most are passive skills.
I mean, only 4 different magic skills for your mage? And the only difference is, that they have another element?

But i would play it anyway, if the english translation is not so bad.
Almost nothing makes sense, you have to try and error what every stat and every skill really means.
A lot of it can be guessed from etrian odyssey, but there are a lot of other mechanics that seems new, but i never found out what they mean.

8 hours in, and I'm not planning on stopping.

After thoroughly searching through all of the options in the game menu, I can finally change my review verdict from "Not Recommend" to "Recommend".

Lord of the Seal isn't for players who are looking for great graphics or immersive worlds.
This game is more geared towards players looking for a basic, simple, and fun RPG grind.

Pros:

- Classic dungeon-crawler (kill, farm, sleep at inn, repeat)
- Simple combat
- Fast gameplay (no flashy effects, quick animations)
- Easy to learn
- Auto-battle option ("A" on Xbox 360 controller)
- Items and skills are straight-forward (obvious and easy to understand)
- Music is basic and easy to listen to
- Job/Class system is acceptable
- Tons of control over how your characters (team members) develop and what skills they gain (reminds me to FFX-2's job system).
- Mastery/Orbs are easy to understand
- "Encounter" icon in the top-left corner makes it easy to anticipate an enemy attack

Cons:

- Sounds made from attacking or getting attacked, seem too loud compared to the rest of the sounds (selecting, confirming, encounters, purchasing, etc.)
- Shop sub-sections are inconsistent, and thus, confusing (for the item merchant, it's on the bottom-left; for the alchemist girl, it's in the top-right).

Neutral:

- The Xbox 360 controller support is non-traditional:
- It seems like "X" is the "confirm" button, although it makes more sense to bind it to "A".
- "B" opens up your party menu instead of "START".

Some of my issues prior to searching through the game's menu options have been solved and thus, removed from this review.

Oh my... !!! This game has come a LONG WAY!! HUGELY crazy deep dungeon crawler in the vein of Etrian Odyssey on mega-steroids. I played this game back in the day and don't remember it being nearly as wild as this version is here on Steam... just crazy. Blown away by the amount of sheer DEPTH & FEATURES that the game has. It has everything and then more, and then a bit more on top of that! Can't wait to eventually delve into this one, looks to be a hugely underrated gem that has only gotten better over the years. Thanks dev for creating an awesome game! <3

I can't possibly recommend this as it is. The AWFUL Engrish translation and utter lack of meaningful tutorials means you'd have to have a lot of patience to just brute force your way through this game and figure everything out on your own, which I don't always have the energy for. Maybe if the translation is fixed and someone writes a guide or something I'll pick this back up but until then I'm getting my money back.

A decent dungeon crawl, heavily inspired by the Etrian Odyssey games. Very basic production values, and minimal documentation.

A great dungeon crawler -- once you can get past the graphical setbacks of being made in RPG Maker.

It borrows elements from different dungeon crawlers, namely:

* Etrian Odyssey - chasers, reliable ailments, unique classes, FOEs,
* Elminage/nu-Wizardry series - per-rest spells and skills, lethal encounters, flexible and deep itemization/crafting, less emphasis on doing wombo combos and instead have each class be strong on its own.

While the tileset consists of a single one (the entirety of the 30 floors is made of a single forest "wallpaper") and is a legitimate concern, I kept playing because the gameplay is just good.

Combat is very fast and responsive, the power spikes feel nicely spaced out, and seeing what's the hardest encounter can my party clear after a bunch of tweaks and adjustments using the different systems in the game (items, gems, orbs, masteries, skill points, the aggro system...).

It definitely tried to address some of my concerns with the ever so popular Etrian Series -- like giving more importance to items and resource management being effectively null after a point -- while implementing some older mechanics present in the traditional Wizardry entries.

Battles occasionally a little tough. No controller problems!!! monsters can be a little repetitive, but I really enjoy this game. Havent figured out all the upgrading mechanics yet, but thats my bad, not the games fault. No real plot, some quests, but thats ok too, sometimes I want lite gaming, not heavy. Very nice game. Thanks.

A bit of a learning curve,,,completely old school....im having a blast.

Game actually feels broken with the awful controls. Movement in the dungeon has no sense of weight or feedback, as if you're walking across ice. Menu controls are inconsistent, with confirm/cancel buttons changing across random tabs. Class descriptions at the guild are clear as mud and the battle screen is somehow both too cluttered and too vague. Minimap is useless when the flowery frame covers upmost of it.

It feels like this game wasn't even playtested. It plays like a Tiger Electronics Handheld version of Etrian Odyssey.