Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark Review (PlayStation 4)

by Jim Smale · Published June 5, 2023 · Updated June 7, 2023

For our Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark Review, where we play a turn-based tactical RPG with a focus on storytelling and strategic battles. Unfold a mature story as you progress through hand-crafted scenarios, controlling your own group of Arbiters, with each character customizable from a wide selection of classes and abilities!

Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark Review Pros:

Decent cartoon-like graphics.
3GB download size.
Platinum trophy.
Action strategy gameplay.
Gameplay settings – use type A/B, enable left stick, keep page, tutorial hints, abilities speed, walk speed, and speed sound.
Six difficulties that affect – injury system, random numbers, enemy level scaling, raw stats scaling, added enemies, enemies gear, enemies passive/counter, drowning, revive enemies, enemies have items, and enemies use items.
Storybook style presentation from the cutscenes to the narration.
Turn-based combat.
Each character gets a set amount of points to spend per combat turn and with this, they can use items, move, and attack.
In-game cutscenes.
At the end of each turn, you can choose what direction your character faces as this affects how much damage can be done.
Damage and exp numbers pop as you fight.
Clear grid-based system for movement.
When selecting an enemy to fight you get a pop-up of their stats.
End of combat screen showing stats and rewards.
A world map that populates with destinations as you play and each location gives a brief description of what to find there.
Clicking a location brings up a cool hand-drawn portrait of said location.
You can set each individual party member’s stance – Custom, manual, damage dealer, healer, Guardian, and do nothing.
The help compendium is a large text-based tutorial reference area.
Save and load when you want.
Troops management takes you to a cool camp setting screen and here you can craft, cook, rest, and deal with all party member management tasks.
Great looking locations.
I love being able to control as many or as few characters as I like.
Defeated enemies can drop items and loot.
At any time locations (new and visited) can spawn time-based events. They are optional.
You can skip the cutscenes.

Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark Review Cons:

Really slow starter.
All the player management stuff is long-winded and clunky.
Buying equipment is not as streamlined as it could be, I mean it doesn’t have a handy compared to the current gear option.
No real camera control.
Movement is awkward as it feels like a modern tank control effort.
The combat is slow, especially in big fights with no speed options.
The voice work implementation is sporadic.

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