Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first hour is likely to hook you if making a party sounds like part of the adventure rather than preamble. You create all six members yourself and assign the statistics that shape their abilities, including strength and charisma. That immediately makes the group feel like yours: a capable front line, a character prepared to fight at range, and mages with room to grow are not just preset roles handed to you.

Jaktar moves through several classic RPG viewpoints. You cruise the larger world from overhead, then switch to a first-person perspective inside cities and dungeons. Conversations use multiple-choice responses, so towns are more than a place to pass through on the way to the next fight. The structure is familiar, but it has a dependable rhythm: travel, explore, talk, fight, collect experience, and return stronger.

Combat is turn-based and deliberately methodical. Each round, you issue an order to every party member, choosing melee or ranged attacks where appropriate while your mages select from 16 spells. The ability to aim at a particular body part gives battles a welcome extra decision beyond simply attacking. This is not a game for anyone who wants quick, effortless encounters; it asks you to consider six sets of orders every turn. For fans of party RPGs in the Bard’s Tale mold, that is the point, and the steady improvement in statistics gives the repetition a satisfying purpose.

Graphics

The game’s view changes with the activity: an overhead map handles the wider journey, first-person scenes take over in cities and dungeons, and fights place the enemy in a small battle window. That layout makes the game’s different modes easy to distinguish, even if combat is more about reading orders and choices than watching elaborate action.

Story

This is a clean, direct fantasy quest: Salar is threatened by the evil Elex, and the only answer is to reassemble Jaktar, a magical stone broken into five splinters. There is no need to wrestle with a complicated setup before the adventure starts. You have a kingdom in danger, a concrete relic to recover, and a party built specifically for the job.

The five-splinter goal gives the journey a useful sense of direction. It turns the quest into a sequence of milestones rather than an aimless tour, and each gained level feels tied to a larger push toward confronting Elex. The story’s strength is clarity, not surprise.

Multiple-choice dialogue gives you some involvement in how you engage with the people you meet, while the custom party helps you supply the personality the plot itself leaves open. If you enjoy imagining who these six adventurers are as they cross Salar, Jaktar gives you a sturdy framework for that kind of role-playing.

Overall Experience

Jaktar: Der Elfenstein is a compactly pitched throwback to a style of RPG built around making a whole party and managing it one turn at a time. Its strongest quality is how consistently its systems point back to that premise: character statistics improve through experience, the group has distinct combat options, and every encounter asks you to direct all six adventurers.

Frustration can set in if you prefer action-driven combat or a game that handles party decisions for you. Here, the pace depends on your willingness to issue commands, think about targets, and accept that leveling comes from repeated enemy battles. The payoff is the gradual feeling that a party you designed is becoming equipped to finish a long, clear-cut quest.

Give it a chance if you have a soft spot for first-person dungeon exploration, overhead world travel, and Bard’s Tale-style turn-based encounters. It is a better fit for patient fantasy RPG traditionalists than for anyone chasing speed or spectacle, but its six-character setup and targeted combat choices give it enough texture to make the hunt for Jaktar’s pieces worthwhile.

Retro Replay Score

6.5/10