Fantasy open-world ARPG, that doesn't feel like Ubi-slop going from marker to marker, or soulslike, is a rare treat. Even rarer for it to be good. This one I now hold in 2nd highest regard after Skyrim. It doesn't quite have Skyrim's depth and scale and crafting is kinda bad, but it absolutely surpasses it in combat and writing quality, and matches the sense of wonder in exploration. It's hardly flawless, much like any scrolls-like it suffers from a lot of minor bugs and sequence breaks when you accidently do thing in wrong order. There are also a few plotlines that feel incomplete. But I wasn't expecting flawless game, I only wanted a good, fairly-priced scrolls-like, and that I got. A joy to explore, fun to delve into lore, and great build variety. Not too long, which is gonna help replayability. You won't build a "master of all trades" type of character in 1 playthrough like you can Skyrim, and reroll is limited, so replayability is important for trying out different things.
It's great from artistic standpoint (art, voice acting, writing, music), and a fine execution on interesting gameplay concept, but after a while it feels like a 1-trick-pony has run out of novelty. I've run out of motivation to keep engaging with it after 10h. Reached 3rd "level". Definitely think such games should be kept short for the sake of pacing.
Think I've played enough for first impressions. It looks great, it sounds great, it has great atmosphere and at the core it's a solidly built open-world shooter. It's a worthy successor to original trilogy, but there are 3 cardinal sins that NEED to be fixed: 1. Performance, as everyone under the sun stated. I can juice 50fps out of my minimal system requirements rig, but at the expense of visual clarity. Makes it hard to see enemies. They have no such issue tho. 2. Combat balance. The bullet sponge is so much worse than previous games, there were 2 mods rebalancing difficulty within 1 day from release. They are both a must-have to make high difficulty challenging but fair. Bloodsuckers tanking half-a-dozen shotgun buckshots to the face while killing you in 2 hits is bullshit. Humanoid enemies also eat bullets for breakfast, but at least those have high enough headshot multiplier. 3. NPC spawning points. Too many times I reload and randomizer decides to spawn a human patrol or mutants near me. Then they kick my ass, I reload, and they are not there. There's no consistency between saves, and those spawning points are active too close to my position. This design can work as bandaid in absence of A-life, but random spawns have to happen like 300-500 meters away from the player, and everything closer has to be kept consistent between reloads. Hide the overreliance on randomizer for open-world encounters by making it work out of player view, else it breaks immersion. I don't even care about AI inconsistencies or physics engine glitching out. Just these 3 issues need to be fixed ASAP.
Spongy, constantly respawning enemies, with no headshot hitboxes Lock-on on the same button as center camera, and center camera takes priority, so can't lock on enemy that's behind you No quick access buttons to items, gotta scrolls through entire belt searching for what you need Limited respawns instead of proper checkpoints Bounty hunting side quest that asks of you to scan literally everything that moves on 2 legs, because there are no distinct identifiers on bounties. Also can't scan the dead, even if the bounty is for dead target. And the reward for this tediousness is just concept art, can't even spend money on some upgrades to make it easier. There's just a lot of things to not like in the core gameplay of this game. It's redeeming quality is that the story is written pre-Disney, so it respects Star Wars lore at least. This needed a proper Mafia 1/System Shock 1 remake, but unfortunately all we got is upscaling, unlocked framerate and PC port.
Took me over 10 years since first trying it to finally have a complete playthrough. Always got extremely bored of it a dozen hours in, and it takes about 30 for full playthrough. The narrative is terrible, all you do is errands for local warmongers with 0 personal stake in the matter because your protagonist is a mute yesman to everyone, including supposed main villain of the game. On top of that it's presented with voice acting as if actors are on call-collect, having only a few seconds to rattle off their lines. No sense for pacing. Over 200 collectible around the world suitcases with 1-3 diamonds each don't help it's case either. So what's it's saving grace? The details of core gameplay mechanics: -Weapons degrade, jam, and explode -Healing from critical health state has you pull bullets from wounds and non-critical is also animated syringe injection (in it's time this was innovative) -To fix a car you pop the hood and tighten the bolts -Map is not a menu, but an in-game item: a folder with collection of maps of varied scale -To buy pristine weapons you interact with an old af PC at weapon dealer and then go to adjacent warehouse and pick it off the wall -In combat explosions throw around the wooden shacks, set off ammo and fuel piles, shockwaves affect flora, fire ignites it and spreads... -If you're downed, you "buddy" can come save your ass All of this combined creates an increadibly immerisve sandbox experience, but it doesn't really ramp up as time goes on. By 10th hour you've seen everything and all that's left is twice as much repetition of the same stuff till the end. It's worth experiencing, but may not be worth completing.
Played it on Steam, been just over 2 years since I finished it. My overall impression is that it has an unfortunately weak start. Human enemies don't impress, hordes you can't yet touch, incessant resource management fixing and filling your bike and inventory, and a weak narrative to boot. But it all ramps up exponentially after you reach 3rd camp. Takes somewhere under a dozen hours to get there, can't remember exactly. The bike and inventory capacity are upgraded, you're outfitted with better weapons, the narrative gets good, the world gets bigger and prettier. It becomes a properly solid experience, worth every penny. Unfortunately it ends on a cliffhanger, and because of the bad release state, we're unlikely to ever get a sequel to tie up the story.
So much of Obsidian's street cred regarding the masterful writing of their games is tied to non other than Chris Avellone, and unfortunately the last Obsidian game he worked on was Tyranny. Obsidian hasn't managed to recapture the magic of THEIR Fallout writing without him. Still a decent start for potential franchise, just flawed in some way in pretty much every aspect. For combat, while status effects of local version of VATS can be quite satisfying, the fact that they can ONLY be inflicted while in it is stupid design choice. Enemy variety could be better too. For Gear, the variety of weapons and armor is quite disappointing. None of the areas stand out enough to write about world design. And the narrative is just so one-dimensionally dystopian. There's just no charm in how depressed 90% of characters feel. They don't have any charisma. The depressing world of Fallout is balanced with mad, cheery and determined to make everything better characters. With outer worlds it feels like most chars have fallen into apathetic routine, which I have enough of IRL, and a few who didn't just don't have what it takes to carry the whole game. Still, the role-play part of narrative is "perfectly Obsidian", so if you know what I mean and appreciate this part of their games, worth buying on sale.
Succubus is de facto a sequel to Agony, but now in 1st person slasher subgenre. And as rare as this subgenre is - Succubus is not a good addition to it. Aesthetically it feels like developer wanted to make Slaanesh domain from WH40k, because the theme of the world is death, pain and sex. That's it. It gets old after level 2. At least Agony exploited the aesthetic to make at least somewhat unnerving horror game. In this game it wears off it's welcome fast. Gameplay wise, as stated above - it's 1st person slasher, but not a good one. The controls and animations feel clunky, enemy tactics offer no diversity besides zerg rushing you, and you're mostly tanking it while taking down their health enough to perform healing finisher, stolen from Doom. Earlier this year I bought and completed Elderborn, a low budget but smooth 1st person slasher, and this feels like a cheap copy. And it's not even delivering anything good in it's erotic aspect. There is just nothing pleasing about this game, if you want good 1st person slasher - try Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Elderborn or Dying Light. If you want a game for it's shock factor - try South Park duology. If you want "research material" - dunno, try Subverse, or maybe She Will Punish them. Better yet - visit PH and rethink life choices that led you to this page in a moment of clarity.
Beutiful metroidvania with a bunch of souls-like mechanics, like stamina-management and levelling and upgrading. The gameplay is done quite competently, the movements are fluid, the enemies are plenty and to various degree challenging, the platforming is MOSTLY fairly designed (with the exception of 1 horrible optional section in Garden location). One issue here is the backtracking. You only gain ability to fast travel between every checkpoint after final boss. Before that there are few points for fast travel scattered pretty far from points of interest you'd need to return after gaining some new skills. The better fast travel either shouldn't exist, or should be unlockable sooner, IMO. Music is too melancholic for me to listen outside the game, but does exceptional job for game's atmosphere. And the real start of the show: the visuals. Damn this game looks great! The art direction, the graphics quality and the animations are all superb and contribute to one of the best looking 3d side-scrollers I had the pleasure of playing. Unfortunately, while most of the game runs with no issues, the visual clutter in boss fights did result in significant fps drops for me, and that messed up my attempts a few times. OVerall, totally worth the money.
