I don't have this package, but I do have the game here and all the DLC included in this package, but when KLEI has refused to release Hamlet here just know that this is NOT a complete package people are calling it. This is EA level behavior, like putting Burnout on Steam but having Big Surf Island locked to consoles and Origin, while the content that is here works just fine I would say to not support this company (they've made my boycott list even on Switch thanks to this game) until they stop witholding chunks of content beyond the mutiplayer we knew not to expect here. Hamlet is single-player content, and a big expansion to the game, without it this game is greatly devalued.
I liked it. A lot. I definitely want to see more of this. As to this part (it was supposed to be a trilogy) alone it took me seven hours to read through it, so it's not one of the "quickies" you're finished with in under two hours, but then I was taking my time letting the animations finish rather than speed reading so I'm sure you can blow through this MUCH faster than I did if you work at it. I'm kinda torn on the recommendation front since I don't even see a projected release date for the second or third part. If this keeps going I'll definitely be picking up the rest of it, and recommending others take a look at it as well, but I'm kinda paranoid about how many things just end without ever finishing the story. The only complaint I have is that they could *REALLY* do with toning down the fight scenes. They try too hard to describe them and it doesn't work quite as well as I think they thought it would. It ends up seeming overly verbose, not that relevant, and distracts from the story. Tone them down, don't over-narrate the fights, and the only thing wrong with this chapter will be infinitely better in the other two parts. Four stars for an interesting story and decent length, only losing one for the aforementioned fight scenes being excessively wordy to the point of being annoying, but they're a small part of the VN so it's mostly something you can ignore as it's not a Victor Hugo level of excessive details throughout the entire story.
As a big fan of Diablo I & II I snapped up Diablo III in an instant when it was released and have had nothing but disappointment with the generic cliche rehashed story, ridiculous rift grinding for any halfway decent equipment, and obnoxious online only single player campaign that boots me out of those long and grindy rifts if my internet has so much as a minor hiccup while I'm playing. Grim Dawn plays like Diablo II, with a LOT of content across a pretty big map even without any expansions, and has a much more balanced loot system as well as allowing you to play completely offline or (with some fiddling) over a LAN. It's not as fluid as Victor Vran, doesn't have the dodging and kiting of Vikings: Wolves of Midgard, and doesn't start as strong as Van Helsing but it holds a great game for much longer than any of those and manages to keep me coming back long after I gave up on the later poorly made parts of Van Helsing and finished Victor Vran. Grim Dawn and Vikings both hold my interest, even after many hours (most of which Galaxy doesn't seem to have counted) of play, and I find myself picking between the two based on if I want more exploration and loot hunting (Grim Dawn) of faster gameplay and boss fights (Vikings) when I sit down to play. The only complaint I have is that this seems to hit the hardware a LOT harder than comparable titles, I have an i7-7700 and a GTX1060 (way above the system requirements) in my PC and I still run into the occasional lag spike when a bunch of enemies spawn all at once, but since I play a pet heavy build I've not had much of an issue with it as the few seconds I'm not able to respond aren't enough for them to break through my pets and take me out.
This title feels like a bit of Ys with a bit of Legend of Heores laid over the top of Persona. The gameplay is good, though the camera can be a bit wonky at times, and definitely fun to play. The characters are engaging, with friendship events worth watching for mrore than just the stat bonuss you can get from them, and while the story is pretty generic it's still well done and worth exploring. Like all recent Falcom games there's a chunk of ridiculously overpriced IFI-style (read Neptunia) costume and cheat DLC, but none of it is in any way required to play, and you're not missing anything by skipping it. Don't count the DLC against it as you can safely skip it so the presence of excesive additional content remains entierly optional.
If you're looking at this you probably know Ys, and this is just the expected progressing of the modern Ys titles, a good story and an improved battle system that's definitely worth picking up and playing through.. It's sad to see the horrible score for this game as it's a really great title that was released seven months late in an absolutely atrocious state. If it weren't for me being a massive Falcom fan I would've refunded this when it was delayed, or when it released as a broken crashy mess, but I stuck it out for as long as I could hoping that they'd fix it. I'm happy to say that they have, barring a few bugs they're still actually working on, and as of the GOG-3 release everything from the constant crashing to the flickering in certain areas bad enough to make your eyes bleed and make you worry about it trigger a seizure is no longer an issue. That being said, after waiting more than half a year only to receive a game that I couldn't play for over a week until it had been patched multiple times, I just can't give the PC release five stars even though the console version gets it without question or hesitation. This was an Arkham Knight bad launch, though we didn't get a price reduction to make up for it, or even beta access for pre-orders. If they had given us (my $60 was laid down in September of 2017 but I couldn't play until May of 2018) a partial refund, dropped the price by a third to match Vita pricing rather than PS4 pricing, then I would be more forgiving of the long wait and completely broken state of the game at launch. Also, for those of you who care about this kind of thing: There are no achievements via Galaxy like there are for PSN and Steam, and despite the fact that I'm pretty dismissive of those things in general I do hate to see a lack of feature parity (even for ones I never use) on GOG releases.
Since they removed Denuvo I bought it the first day it was released here on GOG, though if I had known it would be less than five hours to complete I may have waited a little longer. It's a beautiful game, though the launch version has a problem with selecting the wrong GPU and playing with the Intel graphics rather than my Nvidia card, hopefully that's fixed soon but even with that problem the game plays well enough with integrated graphics if you turn everything down. I currently have to either disable the Intel GPU and play with the graphics maxed or turn everything down and lock the framerate to 30 so my Intel HD630 will run the game. As to the game, the chapter names are: Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance If that doesn't give you a hint as to how it's going to go... It kinda reminds me of Journey, Ico, and Abzu rolled up into one game, with a side order of extra feels. I'm not sure about the $30 price tag, not for a game that takes five hours to finish, but I don't mind as I look at it as a reward for not only pulling Denuvo but also releasing on GOG.
