Goblin Stone Critic Reviews

Goblin Stone is a delightful romp through goblin lore. By placing the power in the hands of these mighty green goblins, there has never been more of a reason to try a new turn-based RPG. Orc Chop Games has made something special here.

Goblin Stone is a cute and engaging little game with a great message, all about taking the fight back against a bunch of XP-hungry bullies. It cleverly combines multiple genres into an amalgamation that works surprisingly well, making for a strategically engaging sim about saving Goblinkind.

Goblin Stone is a wonderful RPG with thoughtful combat, some seriously compelling base building, and a whole lot of little green folks.

The plight of the goblins and their allies vacillates between heartwarming and viscerally upsetting, with deft storytelling that's nearly impossible not to be enraptured by. Though some bits drag, the game's strategic depth, beautiful environments, and adorable tiny details like the fact goblins sometimes trip as they run across the landscape greatly help offset this. Goblin Stone as a whole is an incredibly creative undertaking, and has a lot to offer any fantasy, turn-based strategy, or roguelite fan.

Goblin Stone is a wholesome version of Darkest Dungeon, ticking all the same boxes without being a blind copycat – meaningful additions like the breeding system and its narrative ensure that it’s a unique experience that can stand on its own. Though the restrictions of its budget do show here and there, it’s clearly a labor of much love and craftsmanship that will keep you entertained for many hours.

Goblin Stone tells the story of the poor goblins who defend themselves against the evil adventurers. The cute goblins have to position themselves well tactically and take part in various adventures to further expand the goblin base. A turn-based roguelike adventure with beautiful graphics and a great narrator's voice.

The game is, on some level, Darkest Dungeon with lower stakes and featuring a group of weird little dudes instead of psychological torture. But they’re fun weird little dudes and you get invested in playing with them. If the basic gameplay loop sounds like fun, yeah, you’ll have to force past some occasional graphical weirdness and some interfaces that aren’t ideal, but there is a legitimately fun and compelling game on the other side. So while it doesn’t really nail the landing for full points, it doesn’t stumble on the dismount, either.

Goblin Stone has a repetitive but addictive gameplay loop with enough variants to make us want to keep you going. The twist in the narrative helps to keep the interest, despite a somewhat tedious progress system that does not fit with the narrative.

Change sides: In this RPG with base building and turn-based battles, you play cute goblins - but game design flaws spoil the good mood.

Our goblins are adorable, and we're eager to know the full scope of their sympathetically narrated adventure, but the gameplay loop skates right over the game's content, and we end up getting bored with fight after fight for minimal progression.

The reward for my perseverance with Goblin Stone would be a well-narrated bit of storybook exposition and perhaps a new combat class or weapon tier, before heading back to base to find missing inventory items, goblins, and stats being reset to the impossibly low 0/0/0. It’s just boggling stuff, making for an arguably unplayable late game that kills any curiosity and goodwill that the first impressions made. A disappointment, as there is genuinely a heap of interesting ideas here repurposed from turn-based indie greats, but Goblin Stone forces its implementation onto rails with no fanfare and no incentive or reward for player experimentation or even investment.

I’ve got a list of other gripes in place of the effusive praise I wanted to give here. You fight vanishingly few heroes for a good while after the introduction. I signed up for hero slaying, but this is all zombies, wolves, and spiders. I can slay these bastards anywhere. The game threatens a good idea in letting you collect healing items on quests that you can then sell if you don’t use. A potentially nice risk/reward that falls flat because, as I said, gold just isn’t that useful compared to how common it is. The main issue is that pacing, though. I’m left in a weird position where it’s too slow to really want to play much more than a pickup game here and there, but a single run just isn’t very satisfying, or tense, or tactically interesting either. So if I don’t want to play for a short while, and I don’t want to play for a long time, I suppose I don’t actually want to play at all? Shit. Sorry, gobs. Extinction it is, I guess.