Legend of Zelda Meets Final Fantasy in Free Steam RPG Offering

This solo dev project just got a free demo that you can play through Steam right now, and it looks like a blast from the past for classic RPG fans.

If you’re a fan of the more classic Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda titles, you may want to check out the demo for this very retro-looking RPG on Steam.

The Chronicles of Nesis is an upcoming tactical RPG from solo developer and publisher AllByte, which will hopefully be dropping on Steam at some point this year.

If you can’t wait that long, though, then, luckily for you, a demo for the game dropped less than 48 hours ago.

The developer states in the Steam description that the demo “represents years of work” and, based on the trailer, I very much believe them.

The artstyle and gameplay for The Chronicles of Nesis are based on the "fifth-generation" of RPGs, which means that it’s supposed to mimic the type of mid-1990s RPGs you could find on the likes of the Nintendo 64, PS1, and the Sega Saturn.

A look at the combat in The Chronicles of Nesis, AllByte

To replicate this exact era’s artstyle, the developer states that they’ve tried to recreate the same style of “pre-rendered backgrounds, perspective projection, and traditional pixel art sprites” that you could find in RPGs from the 90s. Imagine what Final Fantasy IV looks like in your head, and you’re already halfway there.

Gotta say, it does look like the type of thing you could easily find on the Sega Saturn back in the day, but you really have to watch the trailer for the game on the Steam store page to appreciate what they’re going for here.

For the time being, likely due to the fact that the demo is so fresh, there’s currently no review consensus for The Chronicles of Nesis’ demo. That means that you’ll simply have to take a bit of a leap of faith if you want to find out more about it.

As of writing, there’s no exact release date in sight for the full release, but given how long the developer has been working on the game, I’d wager that we’ll see it at some point this year.

Either way, I always have to commend any solo dev for tackling a game by themselves. Here’s hoping that the artstyle in the demo lives up to what’s on offer in the full release, because I’m already very impressed with what AllByte has managed to cook up so far.