GreedFall

The good stuff is basically the same as in all previous Spiders games so I'll just focus on the bad even though I enjoyed the game overall. The backtracking in this game is absolutely atrocious, and I suspect it's done on purpose to inflate game's length since around 20 % of the time you'll have an instant travel dialogue option as part of the quest suggesting that the developers know very well how tedious all the backtracking is. A single quest had me go see person A, go to the archives, go see person B, return to person A, then the next quest following it had me go to person A, go to the archives, go see person B, see person C, return to person A. If it wasn't for all the running back and forth, the quest would have taken 10 minutes, but like this it took over half an hour. The whole camp area concept also just needlessly breaks the flow of the game in order to inflate it. Crafting and fast travel should just be possible whenever you're not in combat. And the combat itself would actually be interesting if you didn't have to fight the same enemies whenever you're passing by the same street at night for the 100th time. Now for my biggest gripe - the game absolutely bottlenecks you into being nice to the natives 90% of the time. When you hear about a colonial-themed rpg, you naturally suppose you get to pick your specific flavor of colonialism at least to the point of whether you'll be nice or a dick towards the natives (plus this game is just terrible with the noble savage stereotyping, the natives are just living utopian, harmonious lives until whi... ahem, Continental people come to ruin it all for them just because). It would at least be nice to have a companion who's a complete dick to the natives, but you don't even get that. Each companion comes from a different faction, and some of these factions are at war yet they all get along just fine and it's possible to be on great terms with all of them?

Clunky controls and infuriating interfaces, tedious talk and irritating interactions, cumbersome combat and frustrating fetch quests. Aside from the janky mechanics of the game, the voice acting and lack of any personality to the characters meant I couldn't get into the story enough to keep going. Such a shame and while I'm sure some will enjoy this game for what it is, I just didn't find anything interesting enough to keep me invested.

Score 4.5/5 POSITIVE + Atmospheric world. The factions are believable and nuanced, though the Bridge in particular made me want to strangle people. Party members belong to one of the factions but bring much-needed perspective to them (and generally do not follow the tenets slavishly). Graphics-wise, the nature settings are admittedly a bit samey, but so beautiful (lush forests, plains, even underground caverns with flora) that I don't mind at all. The cities and clothes per nation are very different and well done. + Well-written quests and interesting lore. They all tie into each other and even the rare fetch quest illuminates the world, I enjoyed it. + The main characters are very well done; the player's character has a very interesting background that, at the same time, leaves many blank pages for you to fill in. + Lots to do and see. NEUTRAL o The narrative tone might be called naive by some, positive or optimistic by others. There is a 'best' ending and it's an 'everybody hugs' ending. I did like it as it was believable enough to work, and I appreciate having a happy end option instead of 'everybody is #$%! and the world is gray'. o RPG choices are limited to certain key choices in the game. If you have a specific character in mind the voiced lines in particular might sometimes induce dissonance (the general habitus seems to be compassionate and helpful). That said, those key decisions can be quite tough and/or evil. o The music is... unremarkable. I can't actually remember it at all. NEGATIVE o Camera can be a bit wonky, especially during fights, making me run or shoot in the wrong direction. o Subtitles were clearly not proof-read and mix up some actors' genders. o Sometimes there's a lot of rather unproductive running from A to B and back. Sadly some quick-travel points are lacking and/or misplaced (e.g. no QT points in the main castles).

The Witcher 3 has probably spoiled me but although Greedfall tries quite hard, I found it uninspiring, samey and boring after only about 10 hours. It's story is 'okay'. It's characters are 'okay'. It's music is 'okay'. And so on... It's not bad, people with huge amounts of spare time may well play it through and enjoy it for what it is but considering many people don't have limitless time, I won't be going back to this game, possibly ever as there are many other games out there which are far better than 'okay'.

This game is the anti-Fallout 4. In Fallout 4, almost every quest (main, side, and radiant) was incredibly simple, with one pattern: Talk to quest giver > kill stuff/fetch something > return to quest giver for reward Greedfall, on the other hand, seems to have zero one-step quests like this. I don't remember any simple fetch quest, kill quest, or escort mission. It's really amazing that Spiders put so much complexity in so many quests in this game. Sometimes, I was a little overwhelmed with getting another quest that would send me to half a dozen people and locations to get more information and quests. I was hoping a simple kill quest would come up, just to subvert my expectations. However, I understand the approach here. You play as a diplomat type of character. Going into every situation guns blazing wouldn't make sense. The story is good, the setting is unique, the locations and art style look great. I don't really like the Spiders combat system, although maybe it's a little better in Greedfall than Technomancer. But both seem to operate on similar mechanics. I basically avoided most combat and turned the game to easy just to get through combat encounters faster. (I much prefer Steelrising's combat system, but it may not translate well into a party-based system like Greedfall.) I'm happy this game is getting a second installment. Spiders has improved with every game, even as their ambitions have also grown. Greedfall is a very good RPG when good RPGs are harder to find than ever. Steelrising is a very good Soulslike (an almost impossible bar to clear).