Skald is one of the few CRPGs that tries and succeeds in maintaining essential elements of table-top RPGs. It's all here: 1. Quick turn-based combat where you can only do one thing a turn (besides moving). 2. Many stat-altering conditions that occur often. 3. Constant (2d6!) skill checks. 4. Encumbrance-based inventory and excellent resource management. 5. Solid character customization. 6. Time-keeping (EVERYTHING is turn-based). 7. A functional stealth system in an isometric RPG. Skald manages to maintain all of the essentials of tabletop RPGs while modernizing and improving many traditional and modern CRPG issues. For instance, you can move around with WASD, and since everyting is turn-based, this becomes a blessing when stealthing. What's more, every part of the diffiuclty is completely adjustable, so you can turn off the things you don't like. I REALLY hope we get more games like this. Strong recommend.
The gameplay options, combat, graphics, sound design, and voice acting are great. Unfortunately, the UX is the worst in the business. Each character has their own inventory, and each character's inventory is overwhelming on its own. There's always way too much on the screen, causing many miss-clicks with varying degrees of consequences. Every character can wear way too many items and has way too many abilities. In actual D&D, you can only wear 3 magical items at a time, preventing you from getting over-powered and keeping things manageable. The inventory has a search function, for Christ's sake. If you need that, then something has gone horribly wrong. The animations are slow, which is greatly compounded compounded by the lack of overworld map travel, too many interactive items on the screen, and the long 30-character battles. Every time I turn on the game, something annoying happens. Maybe the party will notice and run into a trap before I can react (and THEN the game will pause AFTER I triggered the trap, not after the party noticed it). Maybe one campanion will refuse to jump after the rest of the party, requiring me to click on them, separate them from the party, jump manually, then reconnect them to the party. That's 5 clicks just for ONE party member to jump over a chasm. Everything is tediously slow and manual like that, making the whole experience exhausting, like trying to balance a glitchy spread sheet for 3 hours. It doesn't help that there's no pause button. Sometimes friendly NPCs would start combat without me, getting killed before I can join the fight in a good position. The writing is cliched and cheesy. It's fun, I guess, but it takes itself way too seriously, making the overall tone confusing. The music is very cliched as well. It's your typical Western RPG orchestral sountrack, just with some pop added. This could have been one of the greats, but the weak story and the CHORE that it is to play just don't make for a good experience.
The myth of Sysiphus as a game. You can commend this DLC for trying something unexpected for its genre but the execution is bizzare. Creative, maybe, but in practice it seems to be hit or miss. This is a rogue-lite WITH permadeath but WITHOUT procedural generation. So each time you die you start over, but ON THE SAME MAP. Now, this can be pretty creative (for instance, you can leave excess items for yourself in the future) but 9/10 it's just loading a game with MANY extra steps. You're given limited ways to do things and I ended up taking a similar approach (rush through everything) with each of the 5 different characters (each with their own stragnths and weaknesses) because you're literally following the same path repeatedly. It's really just one big chore. The whole game is you just trying to achieve one goal, ON A TIME LIMIT, while constnatly redoing it and getting set back. You're just pushing a rock up a mountain and watching it roll back only to push it again. Maybe I just don't get it (not a huge fan of rogue-lites, timers, or repetition), but this really isn't the DLC I was expecting from such a textbook immersive sim.
I find it strange how people just decided to collectively crucify this game for every imperfetion it has. No, it isn't perfect, but it is great, and I hope the devs keep making games with simulations like this. The simulation aspect of it works exactly as I expected. I don't understand people who complain that it's underwhelming. The factions fight and impact each other with or without your help and the game does a great job at making you feel like an unnecessary part in something much bigger and stronger than you. I LOVE that. This game doesn't feel like it was designed for you, but rather that you're an unwanted guest who's struggling to fit in and stuvive. And that exactly the point, because that's who your character is. The ludonarrative in this game is excellent because it not only compliments the plot but blatantly overpowers it. Another thing this game excels at is emergent gameplay. Early on it feels impossible to take on the factions' foot soldiers 1v1, let alone when outnumbered. This forces you to improvise and adapt. In an early quest you need to get specific items from the dead bodies of faction members. I felt like I couldn't take them in a fair fight, so what did I do? I stalked and waited for them to run across a hostile who would weaken/kill them for me and then swoop in and grab what I needed. The game wasn't holding my hand - I had to figure out creative solutions on my own, using the game's systems and simulation. The combat gets a lot of flack but I don't understand why since it's nearly identical to the combat of the endlessly praised Witcher 3, just a bit slower and jankier. Honestly, I prefer Pine's combat because the AI really does change its tactics and isn't nearly as predictable. It really makes me treat my enemies as actual thinking enemies and not some robots running the same simple script no matter what I do. All in all, great game. I hope the devs will make more like it and won't get discouraged by the overblown hate.
A solid continuation of the series. A nice throwback to the original with much better graphics and more intuitive and approachable gameplay. Armies get huge and the formations and actual tactics you can employ make this game endlessly replayable and fun.
No, it's not as good as New Vegas. No, the writing, story, and characters are not as good as what we've come to expect of Obsidian. BUT The core RPG gameplay is intact and improved and worth defending in the day of adventure games that like to pass themselves off as RPGs. It's New Vegas with better gameplay and visuals but without the excellent writing, story, and characters. If that's a deal breaker for you I completely understand, but you can't deny the game is nevertheless a good FPS RPG. All the freedom and excellent systems are still there. It's far more fun, interesting, and effective than most modern RPGs. The gameplay is damn good, with smooth controls and performance and a dodge feature that I wish more FPS games would adopt. This game has a LOT of potential, but what's there is already excellent, just not in the ways we've come to expect from Obsidian. I hope they take this success to make more FPS RPGs with this game's gameplay just with the beautiful writing of Tyranny or New Vegas put back in. Until then I will happily play Outer Worlds and its DLCs.
There are many great things about this game: - the gameplay is responsive and precise - the art, music, and sound are all top notch - everything is wonderfully crafted, the devs obviously cared a lot BUT Jesus does its pacing suck. Being a Metroidvania, this game expects a lot of backtracking and fighting the same enemies over and over and over and over again. Fine, except unlike Metroid games, you move slower, primarily fight with melee, and have to cross MANY damage sponge enemies repeatedly. What really rubs salt into the would is that save points are much more spread out AND the game is MUCH more unforgiving than Metroid (5 hits and you're dead, and there are no health pickups). The problem with this design is that all fights, especially boss fights, rely on pattern-recognition and trial-and-error. But the game punishes you for for error by taking away your resources and your time. Save points are often placed pretty far from bosses, which is an issue because it breaks up how much practice time you get with tough bosses and pads out the gameplay like crazy. What makes this worse is that you can't mess up on your way TO the boss because you have so little health and the bosses are huge damage sponges, so every boss fight becomes a war od attrition that is as nerve-wrecking as it is tedious. I don't blame the game for being difficult, challenge is nice. I blame the game for wasting your time doing and patting out its run time with your failure.
I don't know what made them go THIS simple with the graphics. Reading is rough when every letter is 5 pixels. And seeing things can be tricky at times because of it, and the browny greenish color pallete doesn't help. That aside though, this is a surprisingly well made game from a gameplay perspective. It's super smooth and viceral. The gameplay has a certain loose feel to it while all weapons feel like they have a lot of weight behind them due to nifty little visual effects, solid sound design, and the way the camera moves along with the gameplay. I really can't stress enough how FLUID the gameplay is and how well it feels. The crafting system is simple and easy to understand yet is more complex than it seems at first glance. The survival aspect is definitely there with permadeath, and every playthrough is fresh due to AI-generated levels. A surprsing game from Paradox to be sure, but not unwelcome.
This is hands down the best-written game of all time. It's essentially a deep, creative, unique, and highly interactive novel set in the most interesting Dungeons & Dragons setting, of which the writing makes sure to take full advantage. I'm not even sure how to describe this game, but it's on par with the greatest novels in its writing, plot, and message. A unique story in a unique setting. There really is nothing like it. You can just TASTE the words as you read them, with the ambient music setting the mood and the simple but effective colors setting the stage for your imagination. The spells are also really cool because hey, it is a D&D game after all. That said, there are two problems: 1. The game drags in some areas, such as the VERY BEGINNING. I quit the first time I played, but I am so glad I tried again. I am now on my third playthrough. 2. The combat, spells aside, sucks. You have all the control in the world when it comes to conversation, but almost none when it comes to combat. Combat is real time and the AI for the enemies, companions, and YOUR CHARACTER is awful. All you can do is click on enemies to tell your characters to attack them, but the actual attacking is down to them, and you just have to hope they'll actually do it. There's a reason why D&D is turn-based, and I don't see why this game isn't because it would have benefitted greatly if it was. Also it's really easy to cheese the combat by using the main ability of the comapnion you start the game with. That aside though, the primary gameplay here is dialogue trees, which luckily are the BEST I've ever seen. So if you want an emotional, intelligent, and interative story, look no further.
This is a great step in the right direction for modern immersive sims, and I want to highlight three things that especially impressed me: 1. The level design is BLESSED. About on par with the original Deus Ex. 2. This game really rewards you for trying creative solutions. It wants you to approach combat and areas like a puzzle, not a shooter. 3. That said, this is the best-feeling FPS I've ever played. It's super smooth with lots of options, and you have a lot of control over your movement, such as sliding across floors when sprinting or leaning around corners, etc. Everything feels great and is responsive. It's a proper immersive sim through and through... BUT This game has a terrible double whammy: constant backtracking and respawning enemies. Holy hell does this game start to feel like a chore after a while. Exploration is great, but going back to a now repopulated area you've already explored thoroughly just to grab something or go to the one room you couldn't get to before feels pointless, grinds the pacing to a hault, and makes me feel like a janitor just trying to keep the ship clean. This is a space sation with tight corridors and rooms, so avoiding combat is difficult. This is further exacerbated by the aliens being kinda boring with not much variety and a lot of repetition. That said, still a great game and a worthy addition to the immersive sim family. I hope it inspires future immersive sims and RPG FPS's because it got ALMOST everything right.
