Best part is when Geraldo T. Witcher kicks open the Vizima palace doors and yells "It's Witchin' time!" then does a slo-mo flip as he Aards everyone as they're Igini'd into Yrdens. Witcher 3 was the first game I played where the graphics were good enough that I fully felt emotion come through the characters. With the seemless transition to dialogue from idle animation(vs cutting to a speaking shot), it was definitely a league above on storytelling. The open world design, fighting style, and even the quests have all been copied for "default action rpg" in a ton of games. Replaying at it again with the next-gen update, the improved control scheme and graphics enhancements make for a great experience. I think the difficulty has been upped a bit(or I just suck more now), especially early game. Even though I've played W1 and W2, looking at it on its own, it's still a bit of a lore dump, and I think the initial setup is kind of clunky. But once it gets going and flashbacks ensue, things become a bit more clear.
Best part is when Geraldo T. Witcher kicks open the Vizima palace doors and yells "It's Witchin' time!" then does a slo-mo flip as he Aards everyone as they're Igini'd into Yrdens. Witcher 3 was the first game I played where the graphics were good enough that I fully felt emotion come through the characters. With the seemless transition to dialogue from idle animation(vs cutting to a speaking shot), it was definitely a league above on storytelling. The open world design, fighting style, and even the quests have all been copied for "default action rpg" in a ton of games. Replaying at it again with the next-gen update, the improved control scheme and graphics enhancements make for a great experience. I think the difficulty has been upped a bit(or I just suck more now), especially early game. Even though I've played W1 and W2, looking at it on its own, it's still a bit of a lore dump, and I think the initial setup is kind of clunky. But once it gets going and flashbacks ensue, things become a bit more clear.
Replaying this after playing Alan Wake 2 was a delight, as there are so many similar things, from style, characters, references, to even missions. The combat and the wierdness are the standouts. Early game can be a bit rough before you get some mad skillz like dashing and flying, but if anything frustrates you there are some great adjustable cheats like curbing dmg received and such.(I wish every game had this level of adjustment, sometimes you just want something slightly easier than normal mode but not full EZ story mode) Not-so-great is the map, mainly because it doesn't account for what floor you're on. Wouldn't be as annoying if the enemies didn't respawn so much. Also not a fan of save points, but that's more a me thing. It can also be very dark, which often fits the mood but can be annoying if you're just trying to go anywhere.(looking at you, Foundation cave) There's a ton of secret areas and areas that open up when you gain more access.(remember you can fly, so they can be WELL hidden) There's one crash that's never been fixed, which is the Anchor boss fight with the clocks. For me(AMD CPU and GPU, W10) it seemed like the best solution was before battle: Open task mgr, right-click Control_DX12.exe, set affinity to CPUs 0,1,2,3 only. This seemed to work for awhile, but just to get through it quicker put one-hit-kill cheat on in the game menu so the boss dies immediately. There's also a Hex-editor way to add the PS4 DLC on the PCWIKI.(dat Astral Dive Suit look goood on her)
Best part is when John Dredger kicks open the lighthouse door and yells "It's Dredgin' time!" then fires dual aberrant octopii at everyone. This game is kinda like a flipside to Sail Forth- simple, colorful style, adventures at open sea, relaxing mechanics, cataloging itch scratching, but then nighttime comes and you start seeing freaky Lovecraftian horrors. The gameplay is simple yet thorough, satisfying but with challenges to each region. You've got fishing, cataloging the fish, dredging parts and trinkets, boat upgrading, even minor cosmetics. I like that the horrors of nighttime also have rewards, like fish only available at night, and more chance of freaky abberant fish. Time not passing unless you're moving is pretty brilliant- just stop to get your bearings, spyglass around, read up on fish. The story is where it gets Lovecraftian- mysterious people and locations, a questionable past, wierdo cult dudes with culty quests... The map could probably be a bit more useful in terms of labelling. And the custom labels should probably have an option to be viewable without using your spyglass.(although that's probably a gameplay decision) Doesn't seem to take much to mess up your boat either. It would be really interesting to see what this game would be with a AAA budget, but it would probably get Ubisoft'd.
This was a delightful game, with excellent graphics, decent platforming, and good mechanics. Story is okay, pretty similar to most "land on strange planet and end up saving it" games. Envionments are vibrant, reminded me of Journey to the Savage Planet, and actually a bit of Horizon Zero Dawn when you go further in. Music was suprisingly great, unusual to hear cello. Only slight negative would be the cartoony looking human characters, but I suppose that's a stylistic choice. Clearing gunk was actually pretty cathartic, makes me wish there was a sandbox mode where you just go around hosing up gunk like a spacey Power Wash Simulator.
Gamedec is a very interesting game, with a lot of world-building depth that is only partially utilized. I feel like they wanted to make a much larger/longer game but ended up shortening greatly. This is most obvious when at a certain point you are railroaded into a series of final missions at interesting locales that you can't do much at, because there is only one thing to do, which then moves you to the next thing you can only do one thing at. There's a good intelligence in a lot of the information you gather, and choices you can make, although I probably need a dummy mode that makes decisions clearer. The journal/info screens are pretty well organized(for a change), although I wish it would highlight all new info discovered, instead of having to search for it. More successful I think, is the Ken DLC, which plays like a standard detective case, although I somehow failed almost every quest in it! I particularly like the final conclusion in it, because if you choose one option you don't even know what you truly did until the credits wrapup tells you.(which led me to retry and find out the truth) I would not be opposed to more adventures in this world, with improvements made. Would be a shame to lose all the worldbuilding in it.
I never should have waited to play this, it is stellar. Basically a time loop game, but they have done what they could to not make it feel repetitive by letting you keep your inventory and your memory of conversations. It's pretty funny sending Galarius to do five tasks for you, then watching him spint from location to location in the background. The heart of the game is in the interaction with the characters, and love em or hate em (and you will hate some) it makes Ending 4 so satisfying, wrap-up wise. Graphics are decent, but there is some graphical jank on occasion. Unreal stutter too, but the tip I found on pcgamingwiki helped a lot. Remembering where everything is was my biggest problem, but of course, the more you play the easier that is. I like that people have a pseudo-schedule depending on time of day, and that conversations and events happen whether you are present or not. Some decent philisophical discussion as well!
Truberbrook is an interesting beast. The style is 10/10, it looks like a Wes Anderson movie(Fantastic Mr. Fox most definitely). Environment and character design(and character movement) are exquisite. Without knowing the sets were physical, I was amazed when the camera moved in 3D space around it. It's juuust enough to give it an extra depth.(I've played enough point-and-click adventure games to know they could have just had beautiful static backgrounds like many other games have had, but they went the extra mile) The references are everywhere, from Twin Peaks to Monkey Island, and probably many I missed as an American. It's an odd mixture of tone, from jokey gags like falling off a ski lift and surviving, to discussions of quantum physics and multiverses. I'm sure many old school point-and-click folks were put off by the way inventory works- you basically can't touch it, and is only useable on objects AS a solution. In a way, eliminating a lot of the trial-and-error can be a relief to eliminate wasting time, although one trade-off I think is getting character reactions from trying to use random objects on them. I was fine with it, although I wish you could at least get a description of the items in your inventory, I often forget what they specifically were. It's definitely on the short side, I'm sure due to how time-consuming the process was. I think the ending is a bit rushed, both in actiony/creaive setpieces, and more justification/character development for the villain to do something so...villainous. I definitely look forward to more from this team.(even if it's a stop-motion movie!) I imagine if this "experiment" was too cost-effective they might do something more traditional, or just take a looong time to build upon it.
Starts out pretty good- rpg points for investigating crimes scenes in different ways, it even appears to have an open world of sorts for you to wander the areas. Then at some point the investigations start shrinking, most of your points(which you can't max out) are useless, and you're railroaded from location and cutscene to location and cutscene in a very linear way. The game does maintain a good Lovecraftian feel, and makes some decent effort into (optionally) descending into madness, but The Sinking City definitely does it all better. Graphics are acceptable but strangely limited, things like repeated character arm gestures as they're talking. Worst is probably not having any type of chapter replay, since there are multiple possible endings, but you literally have to replay from the start to do anything different. Also not a fan of hide-and-seek insta-die sections, but that's on me.
I'm kinda new to horror games, so I kinda suck at them. This was a well done one. It seems to have taken the better bits of a lot of horror games, mainly Resident Evil, but without a lot of the baggage, like inventory management. A healthy does of cinematic cutscenes. Graphics are good, and for the most part, gameplay is too. The open world street areas feel very accesssible, like you can pop into random areas for nice small optional setpieces.(like the church) A couple nitpicks- some advanced abilities seem to elude me- don't think I ever got the "kick" prompt(which would be ideal after you pushed a zombie away), the "run and stealth a zombie" never seemed to work(tried it twice and it missed). Having to aim to fire instead of also having a hip-fire option made it a bit frustrating when a zombie is on your ass and you are super-zoomed in just trying to shoot it away.
