Engaging story and characters
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 positive reviews
“The story is mindblowing and better than most of the AAA movies. The atmosphere is incomparable.”
Steam review · 84 h played ↗
Septerra Core
Worth buying? What 295 Steam reviews say.Worth buying? Here’s what 295 Steam reviews actually say.
Very Positive · 82%Very Positive · 82%Topware Interactive2013JRPG · RPG · Adventure
$9.99
Open on Steam ↗US Steam price, checked 57 min ago
The verdict
A quirky 1999 western JRPG with a memorable layered world, story and card-based magic, but slow combat, endless backtracking mazes and a rough Steam port. Skip it if you want modern pacing.
Great for
Nostalgic fans of 90s JRPGs who value world-building and story over fast, polished gameplay
Main risk
Extremely slow, repetitive combat and maze-like backtracking dungeons that feel padded
What players love
Nostalgic old-school charm
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 positive reviews
“the story and the characters have stuck with me for literally 25 years”
Steam review · 69.6 h played ↗
Unique, imaginative world
Mentioned in ~1 in 6 positive reviews
“This is basically a western Final Fantasy 7. The story is amazing, the world building is top tier.”
Steam review · 5.3 h played ↗
Great voice acting
Mentioned in ~1 in 14 positive reviews
“some of the greatest voice acting from the nineties.”
Steam review · 35.9 h played ↗
Beautiful pre-rendered art
Mentioned in ~1 in 19 positive reviews
“The pre-rendered backgrounds still look beautiful today. It has a unique artistic style.”
Steam review · 5 h played ↗
Card-based magic system
Mentioned in ~1 in 21 positive reviews
“The fate card system is genius. Combining cards to make spells feels so rewarding.”
Steam review · 5.1 h played ↗
What players complain about
Steam version broken on modern PCs
Mentioned in ~1 in 3 negative reviews
“the Steam version is unfortunately a buggy mess”
Steam review · 0.4 h played ↗
Slow, tedious combat
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“Combat follows usual conventions of active-time JRPG battles, but in slow motion.”
Steam review · 102.5 h played ↗
Aged badly, dated interface
Mentioned in ~1 in 4 negative reviews
“Was one of my favorite games as a kid, but jesus christ did this game age poorly”
Steam review · 2.9 h played ↗
Maze dungeons and endless backtracking
Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews
“You go into a maze, pull levers, kill respawning monsters.”
Steam review · 58.4 h played ↗
Missing cutscenes and QuickTime issues
Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews
“Broken movies. Seriosly? I have to fiddle with QuickTime and stuff in a rerelease of an ancient game?”
Steam review · 2.7 h played ↗
Poor guidance and no quest log
Mentioned in ~1 in 9 negative reviews
“Most of my time with this game has been spent wandering around wondering where I am suppose to go. There is no Journal.”
Steam review · 6.3 h played ↗
System requirements
From the Steam store page
Steam Deck: Playable750 MB
Minimum
OSWindows 98 / XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
ProcessorIntel/AMD Single Core CPU
Memory512 MB RAM
Graphics3D with DirectX support and 64 MB
Storage750 MB available space
Recommended
OSWindows 98 / XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
ProcessorIntel/AMD Single Core CPU with 1.5 GHz
Memory1 GB RAM
Graphics3D with DirectX support and 128 MB
Storage1 GB available space
OSWindows 98 / XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
ProcessorIntel/AMD Single Core CPU
Memory512 MB RAM
Graphics3D with DirectX support and 64 MB
Storage750 MB available space
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