Somewhere aroung the half point mark the budget (or ideas) just ran out... too bad. I liked that first part alot
How did they even do this?? Everything just works perfectly and in concert to bring you the best gaming experience possible: - Story - Open world - Side quests - Characters - Varied play-stiles - 2 perfect expansions - Music To this day games struggle to get to W3 level at one or a few of these, rarely succeed and, if they do, fail hard on the others. It's amazing and a little sad at the same time. I just hope CDPR did not waste all their energy and potential on this but judging from everything that came after... they might have
(Refunded btw) Theoretically this was my perfect game - fantasy, rpg, rogue-lite, strategic, horde-grinder (is that a thing?) But then, past hour 10, I realized that going back to the game felt like a drudge - something that I was really not looking forward to, more like a chore than entertainment. Why though? Because if you take 5 hours for a failed run in a rogue-lite you feel like you've wasted time no matter what you unlock! - You get heroes with random gear and random... disabilities at the beginning. The exact combination has a chance of ruining your run - You do 7-13 horde defense nights before the boss. These are there just to give you money (to build up the town) and xp for your heroes for the final night which is a boss fight - The management of the town and the heroes is very finicky. Each has it's own gear and skills (the skill trees are rng ffs) and you need to build in the town and use the buildings and scavenge remains after each night - Each boss has a gimmick and if you do not realize it or follow some guide it's probably going to kill you on you first (and maybe subsequent) runs. And then it's back to night 1 and another couple of hours of micro-managed grind until you get to try again. - You unlock various items, buildings and orbs (modifiers for your run) as you go along - some of which are useless and will actively make your run worse by appearing as rewards and in shops. Weapons that have only low, single target or mostly defensive abilities are hot trash. DPS IS EVERYTHING IN THIS GAME! - Items are dull and have a pre-set number of stats on them. Legendaries just have more stats than the rest ... yay. TL;DR: the game is a slog that takes a lot of hours for one run and lacks enough interesting ideas past the first 2 levels to make it worth the time investment. Buy only at a discount
TL;DR: This is a decent game that too often sacrifices the "game" part in order to be quirky and meta. I was intrigued by the premise of this - a survival horror card battler?! Sign me right up. The initial experience confirmed my hopes - it's a "Slay the Spire" inspired card game combined with an escape the room type environment that you can explore for secrets and extra cards. This was a lot of fun and I was looking forward to see where it's all going and what mechanics will be introduced..... except that there is also a meta story about some dude playing the game and it being more than meets the eye. I was not bothered (or interested) by that part throughout the game but I think the devs considered that to be the main "gimmick" of the whole thing and they literally changed the game after act 1 in order to service it! It turns into bargain bin Pokemon - I'm not kidding! You have a small over-world map where you explore, solve puzzles, collect card packs and then do card battles that are slightly different from before but in the same vein (you can now edit your deck..uuuuu). I found this very bewildering since it was not that enjoyable for me - the difficulty spike that others mentioned is there but it's more annoyance since you cannot actually lose in this part. And then .. the game goes back to the previous style, except now it's worse (different style and more bare-bones surrounding room). There is the essence of a great game here but the devs needed to be quirky above anything else so we get pieces of a good game instead. They even have a tease at the end of 2 other possible escape the room cart battle environments but it's just 1 encounter each because the game is done at that point and we're just wrapping up. How disappointing - devs should always be careful not to let "the special story" they want to tell get in the way of actually making a good game
And I did 100% it. Not all achievements of course but who cares. Half way through I stopped caring at any rate. I read some positive reviews on Steam and saw the little promotion the game got and thought this was one of those underappreciated gems one finds from time to time. But it's not. It's not bad (therefore 3 stars) but it's also not good. I am having a hard time describing just what is wrong with this game so I will resume myself to saying it's bland. The game is competent with everything it does: combat, story, navigation, crafting, level up etc. but it does not take the ideas it has and push them beyond what is "safe". The skills - you've seen them before in other games; crafting - same; combat is CRPG style with pause replaced by slow time; dialog and decisions - you get a choice with 3 options from time to time and depending on what you choose some of the party might hate you or like you more (this is the one place where the game does something interesting since the heroe's disposition influences party stats) but other than that it's all on rails. Slight spoiler - I always let the party decide hoping for some achievement or varied ending but there is none...another letdown. Technically the game is competent although it runs worse than things like Diablo 3 or Grim Dawn despite being uglier than both of those. I realized after 20 hrs that I was always zoomed out so there was not sense in keeping the settings on ultra, so I turned them down, got the increased performance and did not notice the visual downgrade. There are also a lot of quality-of-life things messed up - like the enchant and craft menus always resetting after being used so you have to re-select everything as well as the inventory re-arranging itself for each hero that only add to frustration. Not to mention the 5 min song that loops and constitutes the "soundtrack". It's no wonder the game failed commercially and it makes the cliffhanger ending seem even more insulting and bitter.
I liked Divinity 1. The combat mechanics were super fun and the story quite intriguing - However I did not finish it because I felt it dragged on and the random difficulty spikes in places caused me some anxiety to actually start up the game (got around 80% through). Divinity 2 is everything Divinity 1 was except everything is cranked up to 11. The combat mechanics have an extra layer of complexity added with multiple interactions, some obvious and some not so much; the story is a bit more personal since you are not playing 2 characters (in solo play) but only one that gets a few friends along for the ride. The environments are more detailed, bigger and the graphics is much better. And this is the main theme of the game - BIGGER. I've spent 160 hrs in this game and I think there are still some things that I missed. The maps are enormous with multiple side-areas and loads of NPCs. It's very easy to get intimidated by the scale of it all. Everywhere you look there is something to do and see. There are hidden treasures, hidden events, hidden enemies. And if you've made the mistake of starting it on a higher difficulty like I did, you will walk very carefully. I do not recommend Tactician or Honor mode for a first play-through. The difficulty spikes have remained with some fights being absurd if you do not know the gimmick. And others just being absurd period. But there is a way (I did finish the game and I'm not very good at min/maxing); it's just steal, cheat, grief and dodge your way through it all. Not noble, but a lot of fun. I also recommend trying some mods. People have found fixes to a lot of the complaints and ways to make the whole experience better overall. Problems? The crafting system is bloated and mostly useless, there are some hilarious and some less hilarious bugs that tend to pop up when you least expect it, and for a lot of the mid to late fights the whole screen gets filled with effects making it difficult to figure out what exactly is going on.
In short: The best version of chess I've played in a long time. Addictive, fun and surprisingly complex once it gets going In long: It's a turn-based rogue-lite. You control 3 mechs with various abilities (these are some form of damage, push and status effect) and have to execute your turn in such a way that the enemy deals minimum damage to your buildings (too much of that and you lose) while you kill as many of them as possible and try to somehow fulfill extra objectives also .You can see what your opponents will do on their turn (giant insects to fit the kaiju theme) and can plan accordingly. Sounds simple right? Especially since the whole things happens on an 8X8 grid. But turn can get very very complicated as you try to fulfill your objectives (that's how you get payed) while not dying or losing mechs. And here is where the chess comparison comes in. You have full information - all you need to do is use it to the max. It's a very simple and fun tactical challenge and the mech variants as well as the equipment that can be acquired adds enough complexity to keep me coming back again and again.
