- "Same brilliant FFT-esque multi-classing and tactical combat, but now with open world, seafaring exploration like KOEI's Uncharted Waters!"— Steam Curator review of Horizon's Gate.
Horizon's Gate is the third in a series of Tactical RPG games set in the trifecta of worlds known as Eral, Graven, and Limroft, released in March 2020, by Rad Codex. As opposed to the previous two games in the series, instead of playing pastless everymen, you instead play as a new Commodore of the Dominio navy, whose race, name, and skillset you decide. You start off on your ship, which is attacked by pirates in the middle of a thunderstorm- one that the leader gloats about causing. After fending off the pirates, they blast the ship with lightning and you wake up on a nearby beach. The pirates have followed you there to finish you off, and after fighting past them, you discover that the High Admiral himself was responsible for setting the pirates on you. Upon discovering this, you swear revenge, desert the navy, and with the help of your first mate Reeve, seek out a way to take it.
Similarly to the previous two games in the series, it is heavily exploration focused, with emphasis on character progression and tactical combat. There are twice as many classes as the first game, and similarly, twice as many starting races. In addition, this entry in the series is completely open-world. You can align yourself with any of the three nations on Eral- Jasce and Seartial, who showed up previously in Voidspire Tactics, and newcomer Rumane. In addition, where you can go is pretty much limited only by your abilities. You could even ignore the main plot entirely in favor of doing your own thing. Adding onto all of this is the fact that modding support for the game exists, with modders able to make custom races, classes, locations, monsters, storylines, and more.
This game provides examples of:
- Ability Required to Proceed: Precisely once. You need access to teleportation to unlock the Warpblade class. Typically, this would mean you've unlocked the Gatekeeper's Gate spell.
- Aerith and Bob: The names of prominent characters include normal ones like Reeve, but also really weird ones like Lagan.
- A Taste of Power: Reeve starts the game with over 100 HP, compared to the around 30 you start with, an advanced class, and a highly powerful sword. She loses all of that when Lagan blasts her with a prototype lightning cannon- which injures her so gravely, her stats sink to around your level, and she loses her sword because she doesn't have the time to look for it. You can get all of that back for her.
- Beef Gate: Deep water has a chance of spawning dangerous sea monsters that will make mincemeat out of an ill-prepared fleet; they can be avoided by sacrificing a significant amount of food, but this is only a temporary measure.
- Black Knight: The Ravager class is a hybrid of this and The Berserker. They have passives that increase their morale when they kill an enemy, and an active ability that deals boosted Ruin elemental damage at the cost of some health.
- Breaking Old Trends: The classes that you can start as in the previous two games are no longer unlocked from the start. You have to gain XP in the Sailor class to unlock them. Furthermore, all classes past that point require training to unlock.
- Call-Back: Solport, the starting location of Voidspire Tactics, reappears as one of the ports you can go to. The line is still taking forever.
- Cerebus Retcon: The Admiral mentions a spy of his having been on the Voidspire almost as soon as it had made itself known- and implies said spy killed the other nation's agents on it. The implication of course, is that he's talking about one of the protagonists from the first game.
- Continuity Cavalcade: There are a significant number of references to the events of Voidspire Tactics. Places that had chunks stolen from them are shown being repaired, and there are a few dialog lines that allude to what happened. Ekrast, notably, is not mentioned by name, only being referred to as "some mad mage." The Admiral's plan is even born out of the fallout of Ekrast's actions- he's trying to make another Voidspire.
- Cutting Off the Branches: Jin and Vise show up as ship captains for Seartial. This means that, canonically they survive the attack on the Voidspire from the first game, even if you chose to kill the Seartial army who came to there to kill Ekrast.
- Dramatic Irony: The Admiral's plot involves recreating the Voidspire from the first game. To that end, he has people do cruel, exploitative experiments on the Ruluorn in an attempt to find out how Ekrast made the Gate device that powered it. Those who have played the first game, and read the journal entry for the device will know his methods are self-defeating. The device was powered by the reanimated heart of a Ruluorn Queen- two Ruluorn who have fused together and mutually consented to doing so.
- Epic Ship-on-Ship Action: Naval battles are a new feature for this entry in the series. The main differences are that if a ship sinks, it's gone forever, and that ships have two HP bars- one representing the hull, and the other representing the health of the crew on it. You can deplete either one to win, but depleting the hull means the ship sinks, and depleting the crew's health means it remains standing- if you win the battle with an enemy ship still standing, you can take it for yourself.
- God-Emperor: Jasce is ruled by someone who claims to be one, who named the nation after himself. You can meet him in person if you side with his nation and do enough quests for his faction. Whether or not you think he is, his stats are higher than any other character in the game.
- Hunter of Monsters: The concept behind the Krakenslayer class. It's a lightning using Magic Knight style class that has passives that add a small percentage of their target's max HP to their attacks, so it's much better against foes have more health than the average character- like big monsters. Asking Reeve about one of the optional bosses will reveal that she became a Krakenslayer explicitly to fight giant monsters.
- Mordor: You actually get to go to Graven this time, instead of only seeing a misplaced chunk of it.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Seartial has a bad problem with these. The Gatekeeper class can only be unlocked by dealing with one in their capital of Searth, who asks that you either pay a large sum of cash, or wait nine months. While most players would opt to pay, waiting in-game nine months will actually work.
- Oh, My Gods!: Saint Ensu is the resident holy figure in the setting- and a number of characters will invoke their name at certain times, mostly people from Seartial. Jin will mention them every time you defeat him.
- Schmuck Bait: There is a three-way mountain channel that links the Great Sea, Shredded Land and Northern Coast, but it’s closed off and only accessible from the Shredded Land side. Trying to access it will show it’s been barricaded by the authority of all three great nations. You can break the barricade, enter the conspicuously bone-strewn passage and flip the switch to open the channel back up. Doing so will sicc the Demon Drake on your party.
- Sea Monster: These show up from time to time. Specifically of the Giant Squid, Turtle Island, and Sinister Stingray varieties. Dominio even has domesticated ones, which they use to pull some of their ships.
- Shock and Awe: The Storm Cove pirates specialize in this, with their Stormcutter ships outfitted with lightning cannons. There's also the Krakenslayer and Machinist classes.
- Spoony Bard: The Minstrel class is introduced in this game. The class can heal allies no matter how far they are from it, and even restore MP. The main downside is that their abilities have some of the longest cast times.
- Video Game Caring Potential: You can be a peaceful trader, buying and selling goods from one port to another, then investing your profits to make those ports more wealthy and prosperous. You can even found your own ports, and take them from a run-down supply depot to a thriving town.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can also be a dread pirate, raiding fleets and stealing their goods, either for one of the three great nations or under your own banner. You can also attack neutral NPCs or even your own party members for no benefit.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Antagonizing the great nations by raiding their ships or stealing their ports will cause them to hate you, eventually sending battle fleets and barring access to their ports (without bribes.)
- Wake-Up Call Boss: One of the first story objectives players will get out of the tutorial is to go back and defeat the Storm Cove pirates. However, they captain powerful Stormcutter ships outfitted with deadly Lightning Cannons and will eat most early-to-midgame strength fleets for breakfast.
