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I wasn't expecting this game to be as fast paced and fun as it is! There's a surprising amount of customization here, like hiring mercenaries to fill out your team, outfitting every soldier you have, listening to rumors for side quests, wandering NPC groups you can attack or interact with, and different events happening according to the time of day. The real selling point here is the tactical combat which has a major distinction: you cannot move without attacking or using an ability. This is not X-Com where you spend half or time in cover. You move to attack or use a special ability or an item and then the enemy moves. If they attack you chances are you will attack them so battles feel dynamic even though they are turn-based. Everyone levels up into different roles and appearances too so you feel a great sense of progression. The only reason this isn't top tier is a lack of voice acting which wouldn't be terrible if it wasn't for some typos in the script. It's not a deal breaker, it's just obvious this translation is not the original language. Also there's a weird flickering of the shadows even at the highest graphical settings. But other than these niggling issues it's an addictive adventure! High medieval atmosphere. A living world to explore. Castles to conquer. Armies to outfit and raise. A fine experience.
Black Geyser is the best iteration of the classic combat with pause isometric RPG I've played! It has a much speedier combat system than old school isometric RPGs, much clearer quest goals, a clean graphical style, and you always feel like you know where you're going and what you're doing. Black Geyser is nostalgia but with refinements. You're less likely to get one-shot by a random enemy because you didn't find a secret boost or grind by attacking an invincible NPC or something esoteric. It feels a bit like an MMO actually with some 'enemies' being neutral until you attack so you can pick your battles. I like the brewing and drying system which gives you a feeling of concocting potions in a more thematic way. To me this felt like the game I always wish games like Baulder's Gate and Pillars of Eternity had been when I was younger especially: more of a focus on an immersive world than loads of exposition, more of a focus on exploration than fearfully inching along, more of a focus on collecting and improving a character than save-scumming every encounter. Nice music, charming voice overs and characters, a fine effort all around!
I love the Gothic series and this game makes a surprising amount of references to previous games, but it is nowhere near as deep or as challenging. That said the combat is fast and fluid (no stamina), you are never at a loss for what to do, everything is voice acted, you only improve your abilities and combat and spells so managing your experience is equally streamlined. It looks decent (if a little rough) but someone cared to put detail into the environments, buildings, and costumes and armor. You basically wander from place to place on quests with occasional peeks into the corners of the world for goodies. You won't be overpowered because you're usually given the tier of weapon you need to deal with new enemies as a quest reward and there's only a couple limited 'open world' sections so you won't find a giant boss you need to sneak around. Archery is easy, arrows are plentiful. The music is pleasant. I had no technical problems except some flickering at higher resolutions. It's perfectly serviceable and doesn't feel cynical: just a little out of its depth, like people who loved Gothic tried to recreate it with half the budget and demands to avoid user unfriendliness. Get it on sale if you'd like and it's a bite-sized portion of RPG exploration, questing, and fighting.
This is the kind of game tightened up into a lean and tough but fair streamlined experience. If the corp cops sneak up on you it won't be because the AI cheated, it will be because you didn't check your corners, prepare an ambush, forgot to keep them still, or took too long and the security alert got too high. It's never frantic but it's never entirely leisurely paced either. Despite being turn based you can feel the tension of trying to calculate unseen enemy positions by listening for footsteps, dodge directly through blind spots in patrolling guard lines of sight. Also the style is smooth as silk and stylish. It DOES look like an old Progressive commercial at times, but at its best it feels like a cyberpunk espionage show made by Bruce Timm. The game is procedurally generated but it seems like there's a method to the madness. Guard placements don't feel haphazard to the point they'll throw you off, security systems never are without a console to hack or a security permit to swipe. Music is nice and atmospheric so it doesn't get repetitive. You're basically doing the same thing over and over, but it doesn't come across as random at all. Think on your feet and you can tackle each new challenge, and the procedural generation even in the campaign mode is good fun.
The lead character for this game (however its pronounced) has to be one of the most adorable animated characters ever designed. There are thought bubbles and word bubbles communicating her correspondence with other characters but since there's no voice over, just bouncy music, it's a bit like playing and watching a silent comedy. All the characters are so expressive and likable each is a new discovery and it's constantly engaging. It really reminded me of The Neverhood: another game with a non-speaking but funny and innocent protagonist. This is by most standards a kid's game with a friendly non-threatening atmosphere and very simple controls (you can only carry one item at a time) but there are some surprisingly thoughtful inventory management puzzles and other problems involving listening carefully to what NPCs say or Zniw thinks by way of hints when she observes things. The humor is not obnoxious. It's just an easy going game with a sweet simple story. It feels like it was hand drawn from the heart.
This game has great customization, great atmosphere, and fine voice acting and smooth gameplay. But it is STILL a buggy, glitchy mess on any setting. Trees phase into existence in doors. Animations jerk around. Eyelids disappear. Mirrors only work half the time (and they're usually the first thing you see!) I tried turning off every setting I could and the framerate is still slow and clunky. It's all an atmospheric package begging to be explored and interacted with, but the fundamental engine seems unstable and patchy. I'll still play it for the experience, but for people saying it's fixed, it is still emphatically not.
This series just keeps getting better: better graphics, more options, more scope. Conquistador and Viking were already excellent in my opinion but Rome pushes it into contending with any major CRP and turn based strategy out there. It has more strategy than X-Com, more customizability than Wasteland, and more varieties of gameplay and a better story than Pathfinder. You've got meaningful choices, a band of followers that grows and changes with your decisions, random quests and a meaty main tale of regaining a lost seat of power, the option to play any side of the moral spectrum without the game taking that power away, and that's before you get to the mass scale battles, random encounters, and resource management. It's all tight to control, looks good, sounds great, and plays at your pace. It's not a casual experience but if you don't mind history and want a brilliant role-playing and strategy experience, this is the best right now.
The story comes across as an entertaining B-picture, complete with FMV cutscenes and some absolutely ridiculous dialogue, but I wasn't expecting the amount of innovations in this game I wish were in other games! I really like the fact you gain money by capturing prisoners of war. It changes tactics from boring spam rushes of tanks when that means you kill everyone and lose the opportunity to arrest people. It feels very thematic to send in the marines to cuff survivors after battles and it allows you to manage your resources through your combat decisions. Your units gain experience from fights. It pays to keep an ambulance of medical chopper around to patch up your wounded veterans instead of just tossing them to the wolves without care. There's some surprisingly thematic ideas here like that that makes this game feel solidly like a modern military game. Enemy soldiers are easy to take out normally but when they get into vehicles or fortify a building suddenly you need to alter your approach. You can laboriously blow up the buildings they're hiding in...or if you're smart send in a team of soldiers to sweep the place with minimum casualties. There's so many little touches like that such as building tiers being Defcon conditions you need to activate and picture-in-picture videos showing what key moments in the story look like from the ground. You're dealing with terrorists so don't be surprised if you send in tanks without thinking...only to get them all destroyed by suicide trucks or missile launching enemies. Better make sure your marines are in APCs or taking cover in the trees. The graphics are pretty nice (especially the very pretty explosions) and run very fast! Music is thematic, vocals are appropriately gruff and there's a lot of comments your units can make given different conditions. This game goes wacky places in terms of gameplay and story but this keeps it fresh throughout! A fine tuned, thematic, fun RTS.