Stasis has a lot of issues, the biggest ones being horrendous voice acting and a cliche main plot. It's biggest strength is presentation. The pre-rendered backgrounds are beautifully made, while the music and overall soundscape improve the atmosphere even further. This game is very cheap on sale, definitely pick it up if you like point and click adventures.
Stasis had very weak voice acting, in Bone Totem it's fantastic, for all characters Stasis had a meh plot and a cartoonish villain, Bone Totem is A tier horror, which puts most movies to shame Stasis had amazing art direction, but some technical issues, like the main character standing out like a sore thumb made it look a bit cheap at times. None of that is present here Stasis was a fairly short game, Bone Totem is about twice as long The list would go on and on. The first game is very atmospheric experience and I still recommend playing it, but this one is just improved in every single way. Definitely the best point and click adventure game I've ever played.
The city looks exceptionally good, both when it comes to graphics quality and style, but it's just a hollow shell. All quests are either mediocre, or good but with mounds of wasted potential. Most characters are boring and the plot will make you yawn. It's just not worth it, maybe in a couple of years when they finally patch up everything and release some expansions, at a big discount. As of now, this game is just not anywhere close The Witcher 3.
A very short (2,5h if you do absolutely everything) story where you play as the Bachelor. I recommend playing it only after finishing the main game. It has some interesting story tidbits, but nothing major and it's not as good as the main Haruspex storyline. You can safely skip it or pick it up on sale.
It's a shame it sold so badly, while run of the mill AAA trash rakes in billions. There's literally no other game like this one. It has the most interesting and eerie world I've ever seen, the story is gripping and the clock ticking mercilessly takes the whole experience to another level. You can't save everyone, you can't do everything you want, but you'll sure as hell be trying to. Only here after tending to a patient you end up having to cross an infected district with no immunity boosters left, and then breaking into people's homes to steal food, because you are starving and you spent the last of your money on antibiotics. Do yourself a favor. Play on the difficulty level labeled as "intended". It's brutal, but that's an important part of the story and only makes the game better. After finishing it, I feel like playing on easy would impact the experience very negatively.
ABZU offers two hours of extremely simple gameplay. The visuals do look amazing, and the soundtrack is top tier, but they both feel pointless, because there is nothing to do in this game besides staring at them. Only pick up at a heavy (like -90% with the price listed here) discount
1. This game has MIDI music, but there is a way to replace it with high quality recordings of original tapes. To do this, you must use SCUMMVM, the DOSBOX version sold here on GOG doesn't have the option to swap music files. To get this game working under SCUMMVM, do as described in this post: https://www.gog.com/forum/i_have_no_mouth_and_i_must_scream/scummvm/post6 To get better music: https://www.gog.com/forum/i_have_no_mouth_and_i_must_scream/enhanced_soundtrack_ingame_howto 2. This game is sort of like an "interactive movie", only done in adventure game fashion. The focus is on the story and the characters. DO NOT follow a guide verbatim like people are suggesting in other reviews as it's very distracting and makes the story less surprising and enjoyable. Try to beat every character's scenario by yourself - some times you can get things wrong and die, or get to a point where you can't progress further. Save often and think carefully. Look at everything and talk to everyone, this often triggers events. And watch out for actions that lower your "spiritual barometer" (pay attention to changes to music and your char's portrait). 3. Only use a guide when you get stuck, or, if you really want to make sure you will get the best ending, look at your character's portrait at the end of every chapter. If its background gets white, you did everything the way you should. If it does not, then you can use the guide to check and replay the "correct" way. 4. The best ending can be unachievable when you make mistakes early in the game, and there are at least a couple of points where you can get stuck with no way to progress. However, those quickly become obvious. If you will need to start over, you will have to restart only one chapter, and you can get through it quickly when you know what to do and skip all the dialogue. You won't need to replay the whole game, don't worry. 5. Enjoy one of the most atmospheric and memorable games in the world.
Other reviews are pretty good at describing this game, so I'll be brief. - The campaign is about 20 hours long (at least for me, someone who already beat this game like 8 years ago) on medium difficulty. I had not played multiplayer. - The game has widescreen support, I had no problems playing at 1080p, but UI was already pretty small and hard to read. I'm pretty sure it's almost non-existent on 1440p or 4K, so beware. - The game has an annoying bug that happens in some missions, where if you destroy enemy ships in certain orders your game will crash. The solution was to change the order and find the "right" one, or if that didn't help, revert to an earlier save. Keep it in mind - save your game often.
