Tha game has its flaws, for example the incessant waves of enemies spawning can get tireing in the end; severe difficulty spikes and saves as a ressource (although on normal difficulty this is not an issue there are plenty save opportunities), but I judge it on what this game made me feel, and it made me feel good. Love the art style as well.
Lets start with the negatives, most will blame its gameplay as lacklustre. I would reframe it as just competent. It does what it needs to do without being great. My biggest gripe is finding the right spot to take or leave goods in the kitchen. The more gamey aspects like upgrading your abilities do not change much or present interresting gameplay opportunities, but it does not get in the way either. Another thing that I did not really adhere to, is the black & white graphics. This is a personal gripe, I have fairly bad vision, and understanding what was happening on screen was sometimes difficult for me. Now for the positives. Well, the art style also, when the image is clear it is mostly beautifull. Sound design is simply masterfull, probably the best artistic & technical aspect of the game. The athmosphere of the game is amazing as well, the story is a classic in its genre but well made. To sum it up, this game gave me flashbacks of Death strandiung and Eleusis, good references in my book but I understand if you are not that interrested in the story, the gameplay solely will not keep you entertained the whole way through. For me, when taking into account the (probable) low budget, they definitely made the best game out of it. This is a masterpiece in my book.
I really want to like this game. The atmosphere, the "steatlth" focussed gameplay, the graphics, sounds, the setting are some of the fators I'm enjoying. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, it seems like the creator of this game never played the finished product him/herself. There is in particular an infuriating issue with one of the 1st puzzles. This is a minor spoiler, believe me, but if you still want to experience the incompetence on display, be my guest, stop reading and play the game. So, for those that want to know, in the beginning you have to interact with a phone. next to the phone, is plainly written that you can't reach exterior numbers, only hotel room phones. Then you stumble uipon a closed safe, with a note mentionning an EXTERIOR number and other info. A sane person would deduce you can't call the number from that phone. So you search, and search, and search but nothing else works. So just by sheer disgust you finally go to the phone and dial the exterior number, and it works!... The number goes through, and an automated message gives you the master code for ALL OF THE SAFES. Besides the totally illogic fact you are not supposed to be able to reach exterior numbers, what safe company would print on its safes, a number that when freely called will give you a master code via an automated message? This makes no sense... Also, stealth is not always feasible, that means, brute forcing your way out is way more effective. Also, it is often difficult to perfom the action you want, meaning, the gameplay can be cumbersome. Finally, my last gripe is that there are way too many "defense items" that you can't distinguish from story driven items, and given that you can only bring 3 + 1 weapon wioth you, you will constantly switch items and get confused about what you have or not. Besides that, I can say I did not encounter any bugs and the game still draws me in as. Strange, this is not a bad game, it just needed more time/money/talent to make it complete justice.
The enemy of excellence is perfection. Yes, the game has flaws, mainly: 1. New players will have a hard time understanding the premise of the story, I'm 20 hours in and still don't understand it very well, you probably need to read all the available documents but I consider this a flaw, I don't like reading on computer screens that much. 2. Combat system, movements and UI are serviceable, just not great. At least the UI is better than in Death Stranding. 3. A bit of a joke, but I spent 7 hours modding the game, it's an absolute time sink and I ended up with the conclusion that besides better viewing distance, vegetation density and texture quality, nothing else is needed for the game to look absolutely gorgeous. I do wholeheartedly recommend at least the textures, they are an absolute must. The rest, mainly, story, writing, quests and immersion in general are the best I've seen in any game. Every quest I've been on in my first 20 hours of gameplay felt like fully fledged stories with believable caracters, interresting premises and satisfactory resolutions. Every quest I've been on is treated with the same quality as the main story, with attention to detail, twists, humor, drama, even a bit of horror and every resolution feels satisfactory. I never felt 100% immersed and on board with the narative in any game after 20 hours. Usually there's a drop off after the first few hours, that drop off still hasn't come for me here, I hope it never will. In conclusion, I usually don't like role playing games, fiddling with potions, stats, grinding (I HATE grinding) but grind doesn't feel like it in the Witcher 3; everything you do to buff your stats feels purposefull. crafting and potions is easy so that you don't spend an eternity fiddling with it. In short, progression is meaningfull in this game, through the story AND new abilities. I thought I wasted my money buying the expansion packs, but I can see myself finishing it all now and enjoying every bit of it.
The short version is, if you like a story driven atmosphere rich experience with frictional's special touch, you will like this. The graphics are the best the studio has ever produced, sound is as good as ever, the setting is quite original for a horror game, at least for the desert parts. I went into this game not remembering much about the Dark Descent's story and maybe that's why I have nothing negative to say about it. So why doesn't it deserve 5 stars? Well, first thing is, it is a refinement of what came before it. Everything works well, but there's nothing groundbraking. The story gets pretty good half way in, before that I was not very much engaged because the beginning is lacking a hook. Then there are some graphical bugs, not many but every one of them took me a little bit out of the experience. The light and darkness mechanic was ok in my opinion, I never lacked any matches or oil for the lamp, but it also introduced a habit of sprinting forward with you match to try and light as many lamps as possible. This is contrary to the slow and scary crawl forward that such a game is supposed to elicit. In the end I think that the plastering of Amnesia in the title, while understandable for marketing reasons did this game a disservice as comparisons will inevitably be drawn. This is a great game on its own, just not a particularly impressive Amnesia sequel.
After reading many glowing reviews for the game, I thought this would be 100% my cup of tea. Alas, this games has flaws that hindered my enjoyment. For starters, the intro is vague and loooong, very loong with very little tangible information. You just press forward listening to the ever present voices that in the end did get on my nerves because I had no thread of story to attach to to understand what was happening. I almost quit because I did not enjoy the first 1-2 hours at all. After that, you're given a bit more context and story to chew on but not enough in my opinion, i did not like the way it was delivered. My enjoyment did increase though, but not to "exciting" levels. Then gameplay, it is simple, which I don't mind but gets very repetitive. The big stand out is one boss fight that I did really enjoy (you'll know which one if you play the game). Also the puzzles get old very quickly, and do not add anything to the game. So to summarise, don't expect flawlessness, soldier on through the boring beginning because the game really gets better and is worth experiencing. As a side note, I got really tired of the way the Norse mythology was delivered, I think that linking story to hidden objects is weak because you might miss them and as such, miss some story details. At the same time, I was not a big fan of the mythology at all so, I don't feel like going back and find the bits I missed. I know this might all sound very negative, but in the end I had a positive experience, this game did make me "feel" the events and story, which in my book, is the greatest achievement a game can have.
I almost skipped this one given the very middling reviews it received. This is undersatndable as, if you put "Lovecraftian" in front of a video game, you trigger a thousand different expectations based on who you talk to. The truth is, this game nails the atmosphere as very few of the Lovecraftian games managed to. This is perfectly explained by painticus on youtube. Thanks to his review i gave this game a try and I had a blast. The existential horror in this game is palpable, no jump scares, only a very finely crafted dread that permeates through the experience. So, not only is the atmosphere great, but the graphics are top notch too. Very detailed environments with great lighting and effects. The character animations are a bit janky though, but nothing terrible. I think the biggest flaw of this game is the way it doesn't communicate the various mechanics. For example, the dialogue. You get these garbled dialogue options, but no explanations on what these are meant to do. Also, the experience system doesn't seem to have much impact on gameplay. Concerning the different styles of gameplay, I think the first monster/stealth encounter was not very good. Stealth doesn't really work as the monster can see you even if you peek while crouched, so you have to do the section running even if it ruins the atmosphere. For the gunplay/stealth section, everyone points this out as being "bad gunplay". I quite liked it, for these are not gunplay sections but, "push A to kill" sections. This is an "adventure first" game, no skills required. So this is a gem of an existential horror adventure game, with an entertaining dialogue system, a somewhat varied and relaxed gameplay, a good story, even if a bit overdone but that's what you get when you use 100 yo material. If you hesitate because of the negative reviews, I highly recommend to watch Painticus and his review of the game on youtube, if it resonates with you as it resonated with me, you will love it!
A Plague Tale: Innocence is a refreshing video game experience. It nails the graphics, the story, even if a bit straightforward, is still gratifying, the characters are very good (except maybe for the Sauron like right hand of the villain, which lacks a bit of depth), even some gamplay aspects are original and pleasing. So why not giving it the full 5 stars you ask? Well, the gameplay never takes off. There are a few good mechanics introduces (light/dark, the stealth, shooting and crafting mechanics) but they stay way too simplistic to be gratifying. This is a set piece, a story first experience which introduces some light gameplay elements. For what it tries to do it does it very well, but as an interactive experience it could have been better with a more refined gameplay. All in all, highly recommended, it's better than 99% of the AAA stuff that comes out these days.
