Greak: Memories of Azur is a modern side view action-platformer game that puts a low of emphasis on it's graphics and the end product looks really well. Graphics are gorgeous both in the cinematic movies and the actual game. Animations are very smooth and detailed. The gameplay is very generic and not that deep or engaging overall. Some people say this is a Metroidvania game, but it doesn't even have basic RPG concepts. It has some backtracking, but yet again you don't discover abilities or items, you cycle through your characters to solve the puzzles. For what it's worth it is an ok action-platformer game. The platformer puzzles seem exactly tailored for your party and stick a bit out-of-place. They are intuitive, but are kind of long and annoying due to the constant backtracking and character switching. There are a few upgrades to the characters but the items are optional and easily missable. The "with a twist" in this game is the fact that you can control up to 3 characters at the same time, one being active and the others can stay put or follow along in a semi-automatic way. Again, to be honest, if you look at other games with similar concepts, like for example Trine, you may understand that controlling multiple is hard and often clunky. In Greak, just basic running and jumping around can be hard to pull off sometimes. Because all characters are active at the same time and each of them have their individual health, doing certain actions may end up killing one of your characters which will send you back to your last save point. The plot is very simple and forgettable. There isn't anything special here. Music is fine and it sometimes blends in with the environment. Sometimes it feels repetitive and annoying. Overall I found the game decent but rather bland. It's just mainstream quality game with frustrating controls and difficulty, but lovely graphics. Another game on my finished games collection that I'll probably forget about quickly.
Unepic is a pretty weird and dividing game. At first I thought that this was an amazing game but by the end, it made a pure 180 degree turn. After spending 20+ hours and arriving at the "final boss" area, I just gave up on it. I preferred to just watch the ending online than to spend another few hours grinding and preparing for a lackluster ending. Unepic is a combination of very old-school game mechanics and tropes packed in a platformer presentation. It borrows some inspiration from Metroidvania games, but it is absolutely linear. It features a very old CPRG level-up system which punishes you if you make wrong choices. And that's just the thing... the game is in such a way created that if feels tedious and annoying regardless of your specialization. Boss fights can drive you crazy if you don't have a good build. There's a single save point in the hole game and a long section to travel back to where you were. Also all monsters respawn. In the last part of the game, the developers even make fun of your frustration and expect bad reviews for the game. GG! The magic system is probably the most sinister that I ever seen. Casting magic requires essence which can be randomly dropped by certain monsters. But it is in short quantities and you'll end up buying a lot. Robes are also a joke. You'll pretty much play the game unarmored just to save some essences. Played it on Linux and it works great, but there is no multiplayer and the controller doesn't work... Which makes the Linux version way inferior to the Windows build. Because it was a complete anti-player experience, I decided to give myself some extra resources to lessen the grind. Well, guess what... they went all the way to implement an anti-cheating system for single player... If you try to cheat, you'll die and the pet will troll you until you restart the game. Do yourself a favor and just avoid it. Imho, the frustratingly long and lackluster experience isn't worth it.
Although I haven't played anything from the original YS series I do remember playing a demo of a 3D game from the series and I thought it was this one. It surely wasn't this one because I remember it being a way better experience. This is my main problem with Ys: The Oath in Felghana, namely it feels way to generic. It almost felt like playing an action version of the most generic JRPG that there is. The blue monster is tougher than the red, the next sword hits the new enemies the same as the old would hit the former... basically reskins and the most pure form of stat-sticks. The story is bland, you've seen it a million times already, there's nothing new, nothing interesting, from start to finish. Go there, grind a while, get your stat stick so you can have a fighting chance, do the boss, go to next area. While technically speaking it has Metroidvania elements, a proper map would have been great. Instead you can backtrack after a certain point of the game, but you must remember what impassable element was where. There are also basically two difficulty levels in this game and I don't understand this design: an somehow easy to OK-ish difficulty for regular monsters and an absolutely absurdly hard difficulty for the bosses. And I'm speaking for the Normal game difficulty. There isn't any healing during boss fights so you have to always one-shot bullet-hell difficulty bosses. Absolutely rubbish and drains all the fun from the game. What I find odd is that this is a remake of a game that actually featured healing items... The only good thing about this game is the soundtrack which features very in-detail remakes of the original soundtrack. This is an outstanding feat, but music by itself doesn't redeem the game. In all honesty I would recommend just to skip this game. Try to see a movie of a boss-fight and decide if it's worth the sweat. For me it was a huge annoyance and a big waste of time. Also only play the DX9 version as the DX8 has a progress hindering bug.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky is a clear departure from its predecessor in more ways than one. The thing you'll notice immediately is that the game feels more "full", more "meaty". You are now able to participate in firefights, the armor feels "there". There actually is a repair system with the added bonus of upgrades. The problem is that there isn't anything else. The game feels hallow. You can go anywhere you want (but are blocked by literal closed doors until the specific trigger happens). Radiation isn't really anywhere to be seen but random hot spots that instantly sicken you. Enemies are the same and always engage in the same way. They spawn indefinitely in some per-defined areas and there's no real point in pursuing them. Usually they can just be avoided. Weapons feel really bad, inaccurate and are barely usable until fully upgraded on the "accuracy" tree. The upgrade trees themselves limit your choices and creativity big time. Grenades serve no purpose in this entry and the constant need of the scanner to actually find anything is just annoying. Enemies still drop only weapons, no armor. The faction war serves no purpose whatsoever (as most rewards can be found by playing) and as enemies are of specific factions, you may loose more than half of your reputation when engaged by a random aggressive group. Making guides faction specific and "expandable" makes travelling inconsistent and cumbersome. The game is constructed to work against the player as its predecessor. Difficulty is ramped to extreme and by the end of the game you'll probably be using med kits after every shot as your armour drops to zero. The last section of the game is downright rage-inducing. The overall experience is just miserable. It just feels like playing a rushed sandbox game what was tweaked to make the player's life hard. It's also packed with progress-stopping bugs even with the SRP mod. Would not pick it up again even if fully modded.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is one of those series that you keep hearing good things about, even from your non-gamer friends. So, naturally, I picked up the first game, 15 years later, and yeah... boy was I disappointed... The first thing to note is that the base game (vanilla) is hardly playable. Ridden with bugs and filled with a lot of technical and balance issues. This is such a big issue because when someone is talking about this game, they are probably talking about a highly modded version or a "total conversion", which makes the overall rating system pointless. SoC is not a typical FPS by any means. It's specifically engineered to give the player a bad time. For example: - weapons have an accuracy rating, influenced by a lot of factors, which makes shooting feel like a total lottery - damage is totally inconsistent across the game, raging from one-shot kills to unloading a full shotgun at point-blank and still having the enemy walking. The same can be said about your armor. - there is a carry limit which drastically limits your inventory. This is paired with a stamina system which makes going from A to B, a total nightmare if encumbered. - ammo weighs a lot - stealth is almost nonexistent with the sole exception of using a "stealth" head-shot. Anything beyond that will be impossible as loading a save will load all enemies in a alert state, basically knowing your every move. - enemies respawn after a few hours and sometimes they spawn right near you The list goes on and on but there's a character limit to this review. There are two positive aspects though: the ladder climbing mechanic (which is probably the best up to that period of time) and the music, and especially the guitar songs. In order to have a somewhat good time, playing this game with gameplay mods is essential. Going vanilla (or ZRP mod) up to a point would let you better appreciate various community tweaks. My rating is for the vanilla version, so your experience may vary wildly based on your mod choice.
I had a really hard time with the Witcher: Enhanced Edition. It's a game that I had on my HDD for more than 5 years, playing it on and off every couple of months. Every time I would have to spend a dozens of minutes of to get it to work, followed by a few hours of actual gameplay after finally getting annoyed by it's mechanics. The best part of the game is the story which is pretty interesting and involved although sometimes it can get corny or somehow feel forced. The atmosphere is great. The soundtrack and voice acting further increase the immersion. Characters are believable, even though thought most of them are just flat. On the other part of the spectrum, the gameplay, interface and user experience are very low on the standard. It feels very rough, like the game wasn't playtested before, even though this is the "enhanced edition". Most of my complaints are towards the inventory system that frustrates me to no end. During the 60 hour campaign you'll pretty much get sick of it's weird quirks. The combat system is pretty controversial. Depending on your gaming background, though, it may make you feel alienated. I personally found the talent system to be hard to understand. I never got to understand the charged attacks and their mechanics. I never used most of the signs. Quest are fine although some involve a bit of backtracking. Some don't feature correct map markers or need you to arrive at specific hours. Although the game features a clock, backtracking to get to a place that allows resting can become a huge hustle. Some quests and progress may be forced on the player, possibly loosing access to other quest or key loot items. The Withcer Enhanced Edition is a hard game to rate. The story is it's main attraction while the gameplay may deter a lot of people. From my point of view, you should give it a try and see if you like it or not. It's an interesting tale but sadly, the slew of annoyances drag the whole experience through the mud.
I remember playing Darkstone back in the day and at that time it was quite a hit. 3D environments, classic ARPG interactions, random dungeons, etc. It was quite a sight to see. Playing this after 22 years really changes you perpesctive and you quicky realize thet the nostalgia googles were made on the wrong prescription. Playing this game nowadays feels like playing a very bad Diablo: Hellfire clone. Darkstone copies so many of Diablo's features and limitations that it feels like a total conversion mod rather than an original game. At the same time it adds aditional weird limitations and ballancing issues that make the game worse in many ways. I found a mage walkthrough to be very daunting and paved with a lot of backtracking to town to recharge mana and sell all the items just to move a bit forward. Vendors rarely change their stock. Rarely can you buy something worthwile. Equippment requirements are rather high and hard to fufill during an entire playthrough (I didn't reach 155 MAG, by the time I finished the game). Hunger and aging are additional annoyances that don't add anything to the game. And the list goes on. Also the difficulty is rather pumped up with spells targeting your next cursor movement position. The overall feel is ok. It's a decent ARPG but milage may vary based on what class do you choose and how are you playing the game. That being said, the GoG version solves a lot of the original problems associated with the game like unreadable text, glitches, sound issues (dialogue still skipps every now and then) and so on. It's a good version to try if you're willing to go back to a time where ARPG's wernt that streamlined.
