Goblin Stone Review | Charming on the Outside, Flawed on the In

Goblin Stone, the award-winning fantasy turn-based RPG where the tables have turned! This time, you’re the goblins in this RPG. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.

Goblin Stone Review Overview

What is Goblin Stone?

Goblin Stone is a fantasy turn-based RPG where it answers the question what if you’re the goblins this time around? Driven to the brink of extinction by adventurers, you must rebuild their lair, explore the outside world, and put an end to the cruelty of the adventurers once and for all. Comparatively speaking, it has a lot of similarities to the first Darkest Dungeon, where it has a gameplay loop focused on getting resources to improve on your home base from your exploits in the outside world and using your buildings to bolster your units. Breed the perfect goblin with the perfect stats and traits and equip these goblins with the strongest weapons you can find to make sure that the goblin lineage is safe from extinction.

Goblin Stone features:
 ⚫︎  Fantasy turn-based RPG combat with focus on action economy and turn order
 ⚫︎  Surprisingly deep combat system that rivals other turn-based games
 ⚫︎  Different classes that fulfill different roles for each combat scenario
 ⚫︎  Resource collection and management for base building mechanics
 ⚫︎  Breeding the right units with perfect stats and traits for stronger combatants
 ⚫︎  Story-locked progression with a grind to collect resources

Goblin Stone
Steam

Goblin Stone Pros & Cons

Pros	Cons
Surprisingly Deep Combat Fun and Diverse Party Compositions Great Storybook Aesthetic Amazing Soundtrack and Voiceover	Unexpectedly Difficult Tutorial Doesn’t Teach The Intricacies Progression is Locked Behind the Story Base Building Isn't That Interesting Soft-Locks, Bugs, and Performance Issues

Goblin Stone Overall - 70/100

Goblin Stone is a charming fantasy RPG that puts the focus on the mean green little guys that are constantly being bullied in other games. Beneath its charming exterior and great narrative experience, however, is a game filled with flaws and a difficult learning curve. It’s an unforgiving game with a rough start and will continue to be difficult until you start to get its combat system.

Goblin Stone Story - 6/10

The take on humans being the villains is not a new concept at all as this theme has been explored before. That being said, I don’t think there’s a lot revolving around goblins and how they’ve been bullied for most of the games out of this specific genre. I personally like the premise and the setup of the story, but loses its charm by the second act due to reinforcing the inferiority of the goblins.

Goblin Stone Gameplay - 7/10

The gameplay loop consists of building up the Goblin lair, exploring different areas with roguelike mechanics, and the turn-based combat in conjunction with the game’s different classes. It’s a combination of Darkest Dungeon and Ruined King’s combat and XCOM’s base building. There is a surprising amount of depth to the game with how you can use stuns, knockbacks, debuffs, and more to influence the flow of battle, but the game actually doesn’t prepare you for how difficult it is even just starting out.

Goblin Stone Visuals - 8/10

Visually, the game looks amazing. The hand-drawn art style shines most especially in the game’s cutscenes which makes the story even more engaging and interesting. The cartoony storybook-inspired visuals drive the game’s lighthearted and feel-good nature that really helps in elevating all of its aspects.

Goblin Stone Audio - 8/10

The music and voice-over in the game is also a big highlight in the game. Featuring music from Hearthstone’s Peter McConnell, the music is definitely a great asset for making you feel like you’re living in that fantasy world. The voice-over work by decorated artist, James Smillie, also enhances the storybook feel of the game and further adds to its charm.

Goblin Stone Value for Money - 6/10

Priced at $25, the game has a pretty good foundation of gameplay further supported by charming visuals great music, and voice-over work. However, the flaws of the game like its difficulty, shallow gameplay loop, and numerous bugs show itself quite early and frequently, making the game a hard sell even for players who love the turn-based RPG genre.

Goblin Stone Review: Charming on the Outside, Flawed on the In

The trope of having humans being evil is by no means a new thing that people came up with in 2024, but I will admit that this time around I like that the spotlight is on the goblins. It has its good and bad sides but personally, I think that the latter is highlighted more with how the game currently functions. The storybook aesthetic and its pretty good story are highlights that hook you in, but when you start playing the game you get to see the flaws of the game that need to be ironed out.

The premise of the game is that the goblins are driven to extinction by greedy adventurers who abuse their race for experience points. In a twist of fate, a few surviving goblins were able to take a sacred stone that allowed them to rebuild their ancestral lair in order to take revenge on the cruel humans who aimed to annihilate them. The story is pretty good, but the second act tanks the game’s narrative of being the underdog as the trope of the goblins being inferior is used time and time again. To add to the story, the visuals and music add a lot to the game’s storybook aesthetic, and I could say that this is the game’s main selling point.

Gameplay-wise, it’s similar to Darkest Dungeon’s combat and XCOM’s base building. I do like the game’s combat system, but this came with a few failures as it dawned on me that this isn’t a game where you can just mindlessly throw out attacks and expect to win all the time. It’s an unforgiving game and is in theme with the game’s story with how goblins are the shining examples of survival. It took me quite a while to get a hang of the game’s combat systems, and this led to me appreciating the complexity of the game’s combat a bit more after the fact.

Even if I liked the combat, I have to be objective with it as well. Starting out, you will not be prepared for the enemies you will be encountering. It will definitely seem like you’re always on the back foot even if you have 6 members with you, as enemies have pretty outrageous stats and damage. This is compounded by the fact that the rewards for beating a combat encounter is lackluster as well. You do get compensated by gold, but as I progressed through the game, it isn’t gold that you’ll need more of but rather the resources that you need to harvest in various points of the map.

The focus then would be to avoid combat altogether, as it isn’t as rewarding as harvesting resources for building upgrades or getting treasure instead. Harvesting resources, looking for goblin captives for breeding, and getting treasure are more rewarding than fighting, which means it's to your benefit to avoid combat as much as you can. Throughout missions, you also get temporary enhancements for your weapons and health items that only last for that mission, which means that going for treasures isn’t all that beneficial as well. After all that, the worst part is that the progression is slow as well as gated by the story, which is where the whole loop falls apart as it takes too long for an increase in power level.

All in all, the game is pretty rough. You could say that this should’ve been an expected experience, but for a game that’s been winning a lot of awards during its development, it definitely got plagued by a ton of issues. Everything feels a little too slow, with regards to progression, combat, and even the story. It has a solid foundation of how the game should work, but with the amount of bugs and design issues that plague the game, it definitely needs a little more time before it hits its stride.

Pros of Goblin Stone

Things Goblin Stone Got Right
Surprisingly Deep Combat Fun and Diverse Party Compositions Great Storybook Aesthetic Amazing Soundtrack and Voiceover

Surprisingly Deep Combat

With Darkest Dungeon’s combat system and a focus on formation more than anything, the game offers a slightly different combat experience than its comparisons. After every attack, the unit that just took its turn will move to the back of the team’s line depending on the cost of stamina for that attack. This formation-based combat makes it so that every rank is in danger and you’re going to need to manipulate the turn order through various debuffs like stuns, slows, and freezes to make sure that your squishy units are safe.

This will be the main basis of combat in the game, being able to manipulate turns and deliberately target certain enemies so that you can mitigate risks moving forward. The importance of having skills that directly influence the turn order isn’t particularly highlighted early on, and you would do well to understand this system to make the combat experience better.

Fun and Diverse Party Compositions

The game starts you off with four different classes namely – Peon, Raider, Guard, and Shaman. Each class has its own unique set of skills that fulfill its own role in the composition. For example, Raiders have skills that deal with the Bleed status effect and have other skills that deal more damage if the target is stunned, while Guards have skills that directly protect a teammate from danger and mark an enemy to protect whoever they attack.

With six goblins in the party, you can mix and match classes to suit the situation needed. Other classes still need to be unlocked by playing through the game, and this may be your primary motivation to keep pushing through the game’s numerous maps.

Great Storybook Aesthetic

The hand-drawn art is a big highlight of the game and could be the game's biggest draw. The storybook aesthetic really makes the game shine as opposed to other modern fantasy RPGs that go for the sense of realism.

Amazing Soundtrack and Voice-over

The game boasts some of the best music for a fantasy RPG I’ve heard in a while. With Peter McConnell responsible for the soundtrack and James Smillie for the voice-over, the game feels like you’re going through a fantasy audiobook experience with its wonderful soundtrack and narration.

Cons of Goblin Stone

Things That Goblin Stone Can Improve
Unexpectedly Difficult Tutorial Doesn’t Teach The Intricacies Progression is Locked Behind the Story Base Building Isn't That Interesting Soft-Locks, Bugs, and Performance Issues

Unexpectedly Difficult

While this may particularly be a skill issue as well as an unlucky streak, the game’s first few exploration missions have some pretty difficult fights. For instance, the spiders that you fight in the tutorial don’t inflict the poison debuff while your first fight after the tutorial with them do, and being unprepared for the amount of damage they bring to the table is a recipe for disaster. The armor mechanic in combat is a flat damage reduction from its specified value which means 1 armor means 1 less physical damage taken. Since you’re not doing a lot of damage at the start, the armor and high hp that enemies have tend to drag encounters out, and it may lead to a slow and painful death for some of your goblins if you don’t understand how to influence the turn order.

I’ll admit that I went into the game not exactly expecting a cakewalk, but not to the point where most of my starting units died and had to brute force a few missions using the starter Peons instead. Do yourself a favor and read into the game’s systems as soon as you can, so that you can avoid a rough start like I experienced.

Tutorial Doesn’t Teach the Intricacies

To add onto the game’s already pretty lengthy tutorial, the combat tutorial doesn’t really teach you how influencing the turn order is the most important part of the game’s combat system. Being able to deliberately target a certain enemy is one of the best ways to successfully defeat every encounter.

For example, stuns prevent the frontmost enemy from going to the back of their line since they still haven’t taken their turn. Haste and Slow on the other hand, make a line move forward faster or slower depending on what buff or debuff was afflicted. It’s these little interactions that make the combat interesting, but also make it a harsh reminder that this wasn’t a part that they focused on teaching the player.

Progression is Locked Behind the Story

The game gets quite grindy if you want to optimize your goblins’ stat spread and traits, but this grind is literally gated by unlocking more regions in the map via scouting and story progression. To give you context, goblins don’t level up in the game, they’re primarily used as breeding tools to create even stronger goblins with the perfect traits. Instead, the progression on other factors like weapons, base upgrades like unlocking class skills, and more.

I explained earlier that there are more classes that are locked behind progress in the game’s story, specifically the Acolyte, Hunter, Mystic, and Bandit. Moreover, higher tier traits are also locked behind rescuing goblins in the random missions, which means that more often than not you will be stuck with the same crew for a pretty long time until you start progressing through the game.

Base Building Isn't That Interesting

The game’s base building mechanic is more akin to XCOM’s base building where the buildings are there to unlock more upgrades rather than an actual base builder where you’ll have to care about every individual goblin in the base. I found myself just creating more of the storage and armory buildings to give myself more inventory space and having empty rooms in preparation for unlocking new classes instead. It’s pretty lackluster feature, and it only really exists to give you a sense of progression as opposed to an actual fleshed out base builder.

Soft-Locks, Bugs, and Performance Issues

The main issue that people have with the game is that there are a number of bugs that already occur even in the tutorial alone. While this can be mitigated by restarting the game, some players won’t give it that time of day as it directly stops you from progressing. Another bug is not the game not saving your progression even if they keep reminding you that every choice is final and will be saved automatically. Lastly, the game also has some performance issues like random slow downs encountered during gameplay.

Some of these issues were addressed in a recent hotfix patch, but some of these still remain in the game as reported by other players. If the devs can address these issues quickly, the players can still change their mind about it being a buggy mess.

Is Goblin Stone Worth It?

Not at the Moment; Needs Time to Fix Bugs and Other Issues

The game has its ups and downs, but personally I think the bad outweighs the good in this scenario. Performance issues that slow the game down, bugs that can potentially soft-lock a run, and improper pacing are some of my issues with the game that really sour the experience.

It has a pretty good foundation of its identity and the core gameplay loop, but the execution of it all is a lot to be desired. If the devs can lessen the bugs and issues, then it could be a decent experience. But then again, there are more games out there in the same genre with the same price tag that does it way better than Goblin Stone.

Digital Storefronts
Steam
$25

Goblin Stone FAQ

What are the System Requirements needed to play Goblin Stone?

The System Requirements are as follows:

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Goblin Stone Product Information

Title	GOBLIN STONE
Release Date	March 12, 2024
Developer	Orc Chop Games
Publisher	Orc Chop Games
Supported Platforms	PC (Steam)
Genre	Fantasy RPG, Turn-Based Tactics, Dungeon Crawler
Number of Players	1
ESRB Rating	N/A
Official Website	Goblin Stone Website

Michael Gerra-Clarin

Resident fighting game nerd, avid FFXIV fan, and enjoyer of mostly anything gaming. He is currently trying to get farther in the Tekken ranks while waiting for Dawntrail.