If you're a fan of oldschool ARPGs like Titan Quest and Diablo 2 and Torchlight, then you MUST play Grim Dawn. It's made just right - insane build variety, excellent itemization, decent story, insteresting secrets, great endgame gear grind, alt-friendliness and much more, packed with expansions and content made with love - and it shows. The devs are great and listen to their community, and most importantly, they don't have shareholders and investors breathing down their necks, so they can really focus on making an amazing ARPG experience the way they want to, not necessarily what is most profitable, and they deserve respect and support for this! I'm not trying to say the game is perfect - there are things that could be improved, but thankfully, it's also very mod-friendly, and there are a lot of great mods out there. The one I'd recommend most is GDstash, which is basically infinite stash space for hoarders like me - it means you don't have to sift through your loot to see what you should keep and what to sell, you just chuck it all in the stash without a second thought and get right back into the action.
I have no words to describe this. It's basically an in-app purchase (poorly) disguised as DLC. Get this filth off of GOG.
With a focus on story-telling and humor. Even if you're not a fan of platforming and puzzles, it's worth playing it just for the story and humor, the awesome pixel art visuals and amazing soundtrack. Really the gameplay is nothing new or groundbreaking. It did have a few slightly tough parts, but overall it was pretty easy, admittedly to the point of being somewhat boring at times, but it's paced perfectly with the story segments to keep you interested and entertained. It's not a particularly long game either, which is why the price tag stings a little, but you should definitely get it on a sale if that's your jam. The story and characters and their character progressions, as well as the over-the-top humor and more serious lessons and morals later on were definitely the main bread and butter of the game for me, they're what makes a mediocre puzzle platformer into an indie masterpiece. Even though the humor is really over-the-top at times (to the point of being cringe/ unnecessarily vulgar), I've enjoyed every moment of the story. There are even some (not very well) hidden collectibles that tell small bits of story themselves. The characters are very well written and believable and you'll come to love them all (even the "villains"). Overall, not without its faults, and somewhat short for the price, but delightful in every way and totally deserving of 5 stars.
...even if you haven't played similar games in your childhood. This game gets so many things right - the combat is fun, the puzzles are nice, the quests are humble, but interesting, the exploration and discovery of new areas and stuff is on point. Loot collection is nice, as well as the character progression and unlocking of new spells, the mechanic which increases HP cost of repeated spell casts removes spamming as a viable playstyle and forces you to think creatively and use almost every spell in your arsenal to succeed. It's a game humble in its scope, but what it aims for, it achieves with flying colors. That isn't to say there are no flaws though. Leveling the last few levels get excruciatingly slow (if you're a completionist and want to unlock all the spells). Speaking of completionism, this game rewards completing everything, but may also require multiple playthroughs to see all content. Hardmode adds some more replayablility too. Collecting coins also gets really annoying at some point, because you need coins for all the chests, portals and whatnot, but certain types are dropped more often than others. The map could have been done a little bit better, showing underground areas and marking quests in those areas. Overall, the UI is really clunky, with the spell selection being the biggest offender - a simple 3-row action bar with spells would have been so much easier to track what you've used, what you have, and overall prevent the clogging and endless searching for spells in the endgame where you have them all. Sure, time is stopped while you're doing it but it slows down gameplay nonetheless. Overall, a really enjoyable experience if you're into retro RPGs. Despite the flaws, I'll give it 5/5 because it really is a game with a soul, and the good points far outweigh the bad.
