Quartet Review

Lately, everyone seems to want 1 billion FPS or go the route of 8-bit/16-bit graphics. 1 FPS shy, and it is the end of the world. The “retro” graphics never seem to fail, though. I mean, after 30+ years of gaming, Final Fantasy VI is still my top 3 favorite games of all time so we know where I stand on graphical preference. Luckily for me, and other like-minded gamers, studios like Something Classic Games exist. From their first title, Shadows of Adam, a “self-proclaimed modern-day successor to the oft-heralded classic JRPGs of the 90s,” to publishing Pillars of Dust and For a Vast Future by Retreaux Games, they continue to bring those SNES-styled RPGs to the modern age for all to enjoy. Fun fact: between Michaela and me, we have reviewed every developed/published game from Something Classic to date. Can their newest title, 7 years in the making, achieve that same level of nostalgia for those that remember playing the classics, and provide an entertaining title for the younger audience that learned of the SNES through the SNES Classic Mini (for shame!)?

Yes, that is a hippo (anyone else immediately think: hip? hip hop? hip hop anoymous?)

STORY

Quartet is a turn-based RPG that begins with four distinct stories: the soldier, the mage, the cook, and the shop girl that takes care of her sick mother. Seemingly unrelated, these characters unexpectedly join forces and must uncover the mystery of an ancient event that could change the course of history forever.

Players start the game with a choice of stories: Nikolai, Cordelia, Ben, and Alexandra. There is no proper order here, and completing any of the chapters allows you to pick from the remaining ones. Upon starting Chapter 5, the stories begin to merge. At this point, our chapter character along with a supporting character from their world, form the Wandering Adventurer’s Club (well, Quartet only covers four of them, and I think Octo-something or other was used…). Not to be outdone, players get to delve into the stories of the four supporting characters who became main characters in their own right.

Quartet’s story is linear-ish until it is not. Each chapter will dictate what you must do and where you need to go, BUT you are free to explore within the confines of those areas. Confines is a strong word, though, as most areas have several forks in the road, so to speak, that can be explored for secrets and bonus loot. Fear not if you miss anything, though, as all areas can be revisited later in the game. At a certain point, you gain access to an airship (spoiler? I mean, it’s in the promotional material and right on the Steam page). Airships are a must-have for any game in this genre. I mean, a castle that can burrow underground and traverse the map would be cool and all….Anyway, this is the section of the game where you can go anywhere - anyWHERE.

It is also the time that you get to decide as a player if 12-15 hours is enough of a game for you or you want to double down and do a boatload of extra content (literally double; my final play time clocked in just over 28 hours). I do have to recommend going for the extra content, as it contains significant backstory for all 8 characters. I was pretty invested in their stories, so I definitely needed to know more.

GAMEPLAY

Quartet’s combat plays out like most turn-based RPGs do with a unique feature not found in other games. Now standard to most games of the genre, there is an on-screen display showing the order of player and enemy turns. Do you play your turn or plan 3 moves ahead? Sometimes, brute force is not the answer. Enemies have weaknesses, and it is your job to exploit them. Physical attacks come in three flavors: slash, blunt, and pierce. Magic attacks can be of the wind, water, fire, and earth variety. In addition to attacking the enemy, characters can debuff enemies with abilities that lower their defense (magic or physical), delay their turn, or weaken their attacks. Alternatively, characters can protect themselves and the group with a multitude of defensive abilities. When brute force is the answer (and it is more fun in most cases), the cast of characters can synergize their abilities in such a way that you could just nuke the enemy before they even have the opportunity to attack. For an extra advantage, placing characters with the highest SPD stat in front of the party will allow them to act before the enemy.

Speaking of party placement, all 8 characters enter combat together. Only the four characters in the front row will be able to act once combat is initiated, but substitutions or swaps can be done whenever it is your turn. The back four do not take any damage, but they will regain AP, which is used for all abilities. Swapping in also does not burn a turn, so the new character can immediately act. As dead characters cannot take action, swapping should be done sooner rather than later. If the front four die, combat ends. I had my favorites (as I am sure everyone does as you play through the game), but each character has a unique skillset that may serve you better in certain fights. For example, one character could dish out massive Blunt damage, but I was not a fan of the rest of her abilities, so I kept her in the back row. My favorite character, Nikolai, has an ability that can end many fights immediately, provided you have the AP (health and AP do not regenerate outside of combat unless you find restore points). If I forgot to top him off before combat, I would immediately swap him out at the beginning instead of burning a turn using an Ether. Regardless of who is used in combat, all party members gain experience at the end. There is nothing like grinding in an RPG with your party before realizing some of your playable party members are severely underleveled due to non-use.

All characters can equip a weapon, head armor, body armor, and two relics. The armor serves mainly as a stat stick, while the weapon can actually change the type of physical attack the player performs when selecting the fight ability in combat. The relic slots provide a plethora of stat boosts that can be swapped as you see fit. These stat boosts range from increased AP regeneration (all characters automatically regenerate a set amount of AP with every attack made - boosting that number allows for some of the higher costing abilities to be repeatedly cast instead of waiting) or resistance to specific elemental attacks and/or debuffs, to just a flat increase to any number of the character stats. Gear can be purchased at various vendors found in the locations you visit but the best stuff is mainly found in secret areas scattered around the game world.

ACCESSIBILITY

Quartet can be played with either a controller or the keyboard, plus it is verified on Steam Deck. Depending on your preferred input chosen, button prompts will change on-screen to reflect this (i.e., Q & E swapping tabs in the config menu vs. RB & LB). There is also an option to choose what input type you would like to see (Nintendo, Sony, Xbox, or automatic). For example, the game will tell you to press Cross or Square if the Sony option was selected. I thought this was fantastic, as everyone uses different controllers when playing on PC. For all controller players, analog movement can be changed between free, 8-direction, and 16-direction.

For audio options, players can adjust the music and sound effects independently of each other. Video/Display has a bit more choices, though. Vsync can be toggled on and off, and there are 10+ resolutions to choose from (I would imagine this depends on your PC specifications). Fullscreen options include borderless, window, or full screen, and Upscaling options are either Pixel Perfect or Stretched to Fill. On the Steam Deck, options are limited to Vsync, Resolution, and Upscaling.

Regarding gameplay options, message display speed and font type have several options. Currently, there is a casual and normal difficulty that can be swapped whenever you have access to the menu. Patch 1.1 will introduce a hard mode and a turbo mode, which speeds up all in-game actions (some enemy animations can seem to take an eternity). And the award for the most obscure/greatest game setting goes to…

On Reddit now with 17k upvotes

FEEDBACK

Here at Dear Gamers, we are well aware that we are not developers and therefore will not just say, “Patch this feature!” We do take notes while playing and notice things that we hope CAN be fixed in future patches, if possible. Sometimes, these things bother just us and/or a small portion of the gamer base, while other things may be beneficial to all. Anyway, on to the airing of grievances…errr, suggestions.

Earlier, I mentioned enemy weaknesses and exploiting them in combat. There are two ways to figure that out when playing: using the spell Clairvoyance or just attacking the enemy. If an attack lands and the enemy is weak towards it, WEAK will appear on-screen along with the damage number. The spell, on the other hand, shows hitpoints and what the enemy is weak to and what they resist. It would be useful, especially on some of the longer fights, if, after using the spell, there could be an indicator to remind you of the weaknesses. If you do not use the spell, that is on you, but it seems like a waste to have to re-cast it just to remind yourself. Piggybacking on the weaknesses, as mentioned, player weapons can do pierce, blunt, or slash damage. Obviously, if an enemy is weak to one or more of those attack types, it would not hurt to take a swing. The only way to see the type of damage the weapon does, though, is by looking at gear in the menu, but this is not accessible during fights. Perhaps a tooltip next to the “Fight” option to see the type?

The other area I thought could use some improvement was the world map when flying around. Points of Interest become marked once you land and explore (love this idea). There is a point, though, where there are a lot of Points of Interest across worlds so remembering what each one is is no easy task. There still should be some mystery involved in exploration, but hopefully, a way to see what has been found could be added.

I do have to throw in that the Something Classic Discord is extremely active with the developers answering questions and responding to bug reports/other feedback. It is refreshing to see developers provide support in real-time post-launch.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Are you looking for a JRPG that is a real throwback to the golden age (read: SNES) of gaming with a fantastic story, a wonderful cast of characters, brilliant writing (there are some really clever jokes hidden throughout), an amazing soundtrack, and all-around fun gameplay? No? Oh, well, thanks for reading this far, I guess. I hate repeating myself, that this is a cannot miss title of 2025, but it is not my fault, great indie games keep releasing. Support those indies! Buy Quartet! Buy it twice and gift it to a friend. Seriously, though, Quartet is an incredible work of art and deserves all the recognition.