This game is an OK tile-based dungeon crawler with turn-based combat. Your party wanders around dungeons, fights monsters, puls levers, search for keys, solves puzzles. Puzzle solving actually forces you to use your brain, at least for a bit, so that is a big plus. Combat is also pretty well balanced, not too hard, not too easy, so it keeps you on your toes. Story is tolerable, nothing to write home about, but I haven't seen any "this-was-written-by-a-5-year-old" moments like I did in some other indie games. What really keeps this from getting more than 3 stars, however, is the overly simplistic design and annoying combat mechanics (not frustrating - just purely annoying). There isn't much to look for when it comes to leveling. Every character has a skill tree with 3 branches, and if you beeline down one branch, you can get the best skill for that branch by level 5 (after roughly 3-4 hours of playing). There is nothing else other than expanding into other branches. So, you know, replayability is poor, and character system is very simplistic. The game also lets you redistribute skill points *at will*, without any limit, or cost, and actively encourages you to min-max some more difficult fights this way. That is not a good design, as it takes away immersion. It also kills replayability, which was a big thing in classic dungeon crawlers. I suspect this was done because there some super annoying monsters (for example summoners who can summon other summoners without limits...). This is the developers' attempt at "countering" their own flawed enemy design. I can't say that I've been particularly charmed by party members, either. Those who are likeable (like Jóska) suck in combat, and those who are strong in combat (like Kela) are annoying. Buy only if you are a die-hard fan of dungeon crawlers, otherwise give this one a pass.
I give Synthetik a final terror level score of 325, which is about to become 350 once I push this button... out of my rapidly depleting health bar.
The developers decided to add turn-based combat mode to the game, which introduced tons of bugs 2 years after release. After a hotfix to fix these, they broke save games... Excuse me, dear developers, are you just doing ad-hoc updates now whenever you "feel like it"? Are you even testing what you're releasing? I've loved this game for a long time, but you just wiped half of my saves and introduced bugs that weren't there before. Why couldn't you let this game rest?
Dragon Age: Origins is now a classic cRPG game. It is decent and has captivating moments (particularly at the beginning and at the end) but it also has a ton of problems. Some things are well done: - The game does archers and warriors with shields enjoyably overall which was quite unusual at the time. - Dialogues and VOs are superbl. Expect a lot of witty banter amongst party members. - The RPG system, although restricted to only 3 base classes, is surprisingly flexible and offers good character customization. - The origin stories are well done and seamlessly blend into the game. You will really have a bit different experience depending on which origin story you played. Some of the (not so small) problems: - The story is "heavily influenced" ( = borderline criminal robbery ) by The Witcher universe. Sadly, it doesn't nearly have similar quality. - The game hasn't aged well in both technical and mechanic terms - for example, the combat often feels clunky and there are identical trash fights everywhere. Unmodded graphics were painful to look at then and are painful to look at now. - QoL improvements RPGs had for years now are non-existent here, unless you use mods. - The engine is horrible and has memory leaks that will force you to restart the game periodically to avoid crashing. In the endgame, you will be doing this every hour or so. With texture mods, ~1/2 hour. - It has extremely long and tedious parts that are mandatory and anti-fun (Deep Roads, Fade). - It has lots of boring back-tracking. - Loot is useless and exist only for you to sell it so you can buy the best stuff. - When you want to loot something you will often unwillingly initiate a dialogue with your party member due to the stupid camera and pathfinding system. - Camera is a mix of third-party and isometric perspectives and does neither well. TL;DR: Wait for sale if you must have a nostalgia injection of DA:O. Otherwise there are better RPGs to buy.
Another overlooked indie gem. Graphics are beautiful and have excellent animations. Dungeons look great and are atmospheric. JRPG-esque game mechanics but with western RPG flavor (higher character customization, for example) and great combat. Sound, music & voice acting are also top notch. Story is decent for a dungeon crawler, it's just mostly there and serves its purpose - it's not anything special but it doesn't offend your intelligence either. Useful crafting and enchanting system. Perk trees that offer real choices. Ignore reviewers who slander the game because of grinding. You can leisurely complete Battle Chasers without any grind whatsoever and even if you do grind unique encounters and equipment for powerful bonuses, it's not a "huge grind" by any stretch of imagination, compared to other JRPGs. If you like turn-based RPGs, give this a chance, you won't regret it.
This is one of the games that blows you away at the beginning with its tactical depth and humor, but as you progress, it gets more and more tedious. Since frontal assault is suicide after the first 4 campaign missions or so, you will quickly adopt the following universal tactics: first you spot enemy units with your long range commander vehicle, then you set up your artillery, you block access paths to the artillery with your frontline units, and if you want, you can mine entrances with your minelayer unit. Then you proceed to bombard the enemy who will then charge directly at you with no regard to its survival rate. This artificial stupidity is needed here because you play against incredible odds. You have a small army with no base building, so any unit lost equals reloading an earlier save or restarting the mission. Enemy, on the other hand, has hordes of elite units with strategically placed artillery support. The need to proceed carefully, use spotter units and provide your own units with sufficient support is refreshing at first. But once you are doing it for like 200th time, it quickly becomes a chore. One mistake will mean a reload so you can easily spend several hours in one late game mission, more than the first 4-5 missions combined. It's not that this game's core gameplay isn't fun, it is. The difficulty is also not a problem why it becomes boring later. It's just that it becomes a tedious chore due to super-long missions.
The title says it all... seriously, whoever thought it is a good idea to bombard player with "press mouse 1 button to continue" after EVERY loading screen (there are millions of those in this game), should be fired immediately.
Today, Crysis is an amazing classical game. That is, if you happen to still rock Windows 7 or earlier. It crashes constantly on 10, making it totally unplayable.
Avoid this like the Plague. This game is the prime example of independent, small studio, whose devs didn't know what they were doing. Extremely clunky, unoptimized mess even after gallore of patches (~35 fps drops & stuttering in towns on i7-8700 + GTX1080Ti), and with chaotic and utterly unfair combat (it looks good at first but then you realize Henry just does not do what you tell him). It's a prime example of how to do everything wrong in game development. If you are a masochist and enjoy games where you have to put up with stupid bullshit at every step, you just might enjoy this. KCD has a decent story and historical accuracy, I give it that. No other game portrays Czech/European history in such detail and accuracy. But if you must know how Henry's story ends, I recommend watching a Let's Play or download a late game savegame. You will save yourself insane amount of time and frustration.
