Ganz nett. Es bleibt ziemlich nahe am ursprünglichen Titel von 1994. Was sowohl gut als auch schlecht ist. LBA hat und hatte schon damals einen Charm, aber es war nie ein herausragendes Spiel. Das Remake hat einiges an Sperrigkeit und Frustration aus der Steuerung genommen. Dabei ist auch das Steuern über die 4 Bewegungsmodi (Normal, athletisch, kämpferisch, schleichend) verloren gegangen, was vermutlich gut ist aber auch der Nostalgie etwas schadet. Auch der Graphikstil wurde überarbeitet. Der ursprüngliche Stil war ein frühes vorgerendertes 3D was der Welt etwas Playmobil-haftes gab. Hier im Remake sieht es eher wie Bastelpappe aus. Beides hat seinen Charm. Die Story ist größtenteils gleich geblieben mit kleineren Abwandlungen, war aber nie wirklich großartig. Die Welt Twinsun wird vom bösen Diktator Dr. FunFrock regiert, der die Welt mit seiner Klonarmee und seiner Teleport Technologie kontrolliert. Unser Held Twinsen wird aus kleinlichen Gründen als Aufrührer ins Gefängnis geworfen. Er bricht aus und kurz darauf wird eine geliebte Person entführt. Im Original seine Freundin Zoé im Remake seine Schwester Luna. Twinsen zieht los sie zu retten und stolpert dabei in den Plot des Diktators sich die Macht der Götter Twinsuns - der Sendells - anzueignen. Es erinnert ein bisschen an ein frühes Zelda. Tiefgehende, gut ausgearbeitete Charaktere gibt es hier eher nicht. Aber das Abenteuer ist trotzdem ein Riesenspaß. Sound und Musik waren passend aber weltbewegendes gab es hier nicht zu hören. Ich hab dem Spiel 4/5 Stenen gegeben, wozu ich stehe. Für jemanden ohne Kindheitserinnerungen an das Spiel könnte es aber auch eine 3 oder 3,5 sein
I hate to say it, but I don't like this game all that much despite loving the first Commandos and games like it in general. It just feels awkward to me. Like I am more busy fighting unintuitive controls and design instead of actually strategizing how to best proceed. This frustrates me a lot and hurts the motivation of actually continuing.
Trails Of Cold Steel 2 pretty much starts off right where ToCS1 ended. Civil War has broken out, Rean was split from the rest of his class and awakens far from civilisation. His goals: reunite with his friends and find a way to fix this mess. Story-structure is a bit too formulaic for the game's own good, creating a certain level of predictability. Not too bad but it is notable. It worked in ToCS1 due to the rigidity of school schedule but makes little sense in the context of an underground organisation in the middle of a civil war. Otherwise the story still is emotionally investing and the world-building is top notch as usual for Trails. Gameplay-wise it also is a direct continuation to ToCS1. Mostly identical with some tweaks. The only real new thing is the Divine Knight (mecha) battles that were teased at the very end of ToCS1 and are expanded upon here. Unfortunately they still lack a bit of depth and cannot quite compare to the normal combat system which can be frustrating at times. But if not they make for fresh scenic moments. If you liked ToCS1's gameplay you will like this one too. If not this game will not convince you otherwise. Also minor minus points for patch problems. The most recent patch broke achievements. Steam got a fix, GoG unfortunately was forgotten. But downgrading to the patch before that fixes this problem. Still annoying.
First things first: Unlike the "Sands Of Time" trilogy this is not an action game. It is more a platforming game. Combat is relatively rare and has a puzzle structure. The platforming is similar to how it was in Sands Of Time. Overall quite fun, but imo not quite enough to stand on its own. Also there is a minor issue where your character stops for a second in safe places to allow your NPC companion to catch up. Nothing major, but it breaks the flow. Weird choice is that you basically cannot die. You always get saved at the last second by your companion. Kind of removes the tension for me. Story is overall quite weak. Evil god is about to escape. Stop it from doing that by going to several places and purify them. The characters stay pretty shallow. A few quips, a few meaningless lore-of-the-area dialogues, all very shallow. Game runs without issues on GoG. (Had a few problems with the steam version) Overall I would rate the game 3.5/5 stars. Another half star for it running well on GoG
Hm, I am pretty bad with words, but here we go. Franchise games have had a terrible reputation for the longest time. Loads of shovelware all of them. Then this game came, smashing all expectation. With a very simple promise. FEEL IT. YOU ARE BATMAN. And the game delivers on that front. You are Batman. You are powerful, you are prepared and Joker's henchmen are nothing against you. Under the hood Batman: Arkham Asylum is a good action game with some stealth elements. The combat feels fluid and the Predator (Stealth) sections offer a variety of ways to solve. The sequel Arkham City improves on most of the things that don't work quite well here. Most notably movement between areas, which often feels boring here, and some tweaks to combat (still feels slightly clunky in big fights) Story-wise Arkham Asylum is nothing special. Joker and his gang are running amok on Arkham Island and the insane asylum being there. Stop them from doing whatever it is they plan. With some guest villains, and lots of notes about various other characters from the Batman universe. Graphics and sounds are nothing special anymore, but still do their job decently. Maybe a bit stiff when it comes to facial animationss in dialogue sequences. Who cares in an action game.
I really want to love Spellforce, and in a certain way I do. This game offers a lot. The base foundation is rather simple. A CRPG hero with the power to summon armies. So Baldur's Gate meets Warcraft. Sounds awesome, but the implementation is mixed. Spellforce maps tend to be pretty big, and that creates long waiting times just to run from A to B, made even worse when quests send you all over. Also in the Strategy parts controlling your units is a bit sketchy, in particular the path finding seems to struggle with bigger groups of units. While a formation option is present it does not work properly. So be prepared to manually prevent kongo lines of units. Another thing about the strategy part that it less than ideal, specifically in the first campaign. You almost always start with a fresh base, meaning the game is rather low key at the start of a new map. Build your base, tech up, attack, reinforce, attack... In the 2. and 3. campaign they improved that. Up above I compared it to Warcraft, but that is probably a bad image. It in many ways feels almost like a Settlers game, more focussed on base building and ressources than the leading of armies. A bad fit for what they wanted to go for, a hero and his troops. Overall, it feels a bit slow and clunky, but functional. The same can be said for the RPG part. The skill system is relatively simple. You level up and get a couple points to increase your character stats and invest into skill lists. Skills allow you to equip better gear and learn spells. However some skill categories seem inherently better than others. And while the game technically allows to create hybrid characters that is a terrible idea for the most part. So wrong skilling is possible and no respecc. Best to stay in one category. Now all I said is bad but that is how I am. Overall it is a good game. If you can see past the flaws listed above you can have a wonderful time and many adventures in Eos.
