Despite the music being from several composers and encompassing several genres - from classical to metal - each piece was painstakingly selected to fit its intended character, scene, event, etc. Luckily, Rise of the Third Power‘s soundtrack consists of myriad pieces of licensed music from AudioJungle. The icons in the menus could have been larger as well, allowing the interface to be less twiddly. A game with as much text as Rise of the Third Power needs a clean, legible, and decent-sized font the letters presented here are small, overly pixelated, and difficult to read.

However, one obstacle with the game’s story is that the font used for all the in-game text (be it dialogue, narration, tutorials, menus) is awful. I was compelled by the diverse ensemble cast of heroes, villains, playable, and non-playable characters - I’m sure everyone who plays this game will find a favorite somewhere in the game’s world. Each of them is deeper than meets the eye, and their interpersonal relationships are more complicated than they seem. Adult characters are often underrepresented in JRPGs, and several characters in Rise of the Third Power are troubled adults with messy pasts. The plot has its share of “because it’s a JRPG” moments, and clunky humor sometimes feels shoehorned in, but Rise of the Third Power remains engaging, and the writing bursts with personality. Princess Arielle makes a rare excursion outside her castle. Although Rowan is the primary player character, the game changes perspectives a few times to keep things fresh and allows you to see certain plot points through different eyes. From then on, the plot kept thickening, and I got to know several more important characters, including those who join the main cast and those intertwined with them.

Arielle enjoys her luxurious life but wonders if she is anything more than simply a tradable commodity in her father’s political maneuverings. After playing through part of their caper, I found myself in the shoes of the aforementioned princess. The narrative begins with the cynical rogue named Rowan and his ebullient partner-in-crime Corrina on a secret mission to capture Princess Arielle. Through a subversively deadly combination of political machinations, military tactics, subterfuge, and guile, Arkadya wants to divide, conquer, and forcibly unite the nations of the world under their iron-fisted ideology. Arkadya believes that the post-war armistice was a one-sided humiliation against them. A tenuous armistice was put in place, but not everyone believes in it - least of all, the crippled empire of Arkadya. While some nations prospered, others are still rebuilding. It has only been 20 years since The Great War decimated much of the world and its people. It certainly shoots for the moon, yet it doesn’t quite get there. Featuring eight protagonists and an ensemble cast embroiled in a fantasy storyline loosely inspired by the events that led to World War II, Rise of the Third Power is a far more ambitious and expansive effort than Ara Fell was.

I would love to expound more on such an intriguing tagline, but doing so would mean revealing massive spoilers for Rise of the Third Power, the latest game from Ara Fell developer Stegosoft Games. “They can’t save the world, but they can change history.”

Kickstarter rise of the third power