Witcher 3 + the expansions is a huge huge HUGE game to play. It also offers lots of interesting mini-stories and fairly atmospheric world to discover. The problems with the game are it's fairly simplistic and not well balanced or subtle combat system, extremely simplistic AI and the fact that even though on paper there are lots of different monsters out there, most of them are copies of each other so fighting them does not feel different. Also the main game has quite a lot of filler content.
Decent old school isometric tactical RPG. Recommended to be played with a friend.
Now with his second game Jonathan Blow has made it evident that he is an excellent puzzle game maker / developer. The Witness is a great first person puzzle game with little exploration and a lot less story. Pros: + The game has tons of optional content so it can be finished by practically any adult but still offers a lot of challenge to those who are willing and able. + The average quality of the puzzles is great. + There is a surprising amount of variety in the puzzles regardless of the simple basic concept (drawing lines on a grid). + The game doesn't use tips, manuals, guides or anything else in teaching the mechanics to the player. It uses the player's own deduction. Cons: - Some of the puzzles are more about eliminating impossible approaches than figuring out the possible ones. - Due to the game challenging the player in so many ways, some people will have limitations that can make some of the puzzles feel impossible, unfair or illogical. - At least I wasn't able to find a proper story or similar experience in the game.
Age of Decagence is a very difficult game to review due to the fact that pretty much everything is executed badly if not horribly. This means that all the wonderful, exciting and interesting ideas the game has feel at their best awesome (when you don't let the bad execution distract you) but tedious, boring and just plain bad at their worst (when you pay attention to details and execution). In short the game is a combination of old old school text based adventure games, turn based combat on a grid and general roleplaying. All of which will feel great and aweful during the course of the game. I really wished that the devs would get a proper budget for their future project because that game could end up being a real gem. Unfortunately with the resources they had at their disposal during the making of AoD, they didn't even get close.
Audio and atmosphere are great. Controls are very simple and fluent. Puzzles are nice but often very simple. Often the hardest part was not to miss something due to slightly awkward use of 2.5D. The game is fairly short.
I feel that the team clearly tried so hard that 3/5 feels unfair, but I must remain truthful. From a technical point of view it becomes obvious that these people have done cRPGs before. They have implemented so many usually very small but very useful and clever features in PoE. The first 2 h I would all exited again and again and again when I found a new little thing that seemed so obvious now that it was there. So from technical point of view PoE is grand master level product to all Infinity Engine fans out there. Unfortunately it's the roleplaying, quests, NPCs, conversations, storytelling, pacing, etc. that is not really that great. Don't get me wrong. PoE is definitely not a bad RPG (when the emphasis is on roleplaying) it just isn't especially good either. It lingers in the boooring 'nice' area. It took me 107 h to complete the game (without starting the game over or anything like that), and I didn't even complete all the quests, so it definitely is a long game if you are interested in its lore, characters and communities. On the other hand I really felt that much of the gaming time was spent on things that weren't interesting or engaging. There is quite much of grinding and not the good kind. I played the game n hard and only a few boss battles and a few clearly 'this quest was made for those who think this is a combat simulator' side-quest battles made me really try but most of the combat was too easy which made it boring. And since there is so much of the grinding I literally stopped every now-and-then to think 'why am I doing this. I don't actually have to look under every nook and cranny to move on with the story. Especially when there seems to live a community of random hostile creatures in every single one of them. In short: interesting, nice, tribute to Infinity Engine cRPGs but unfortunately not great.
FS is a unique combination of combat environment awareness, tactics and psychology with the emphasis being on the last. It has a very deep (start playing other modes other than dark extermination as soon as you dare) gameplay with tons of variations. I have to warn though, that many will find the game to be way too difficult / having too steep learning curve. I really feel that people are exaggerating this but it is true that the game has a seep learning curve. But as long as you play the game as it is meant to be played (against other people) the difficulty is set by your opponent not the game itself.
I'm a sucker for story-driven entertainment with great plot, whether it comes in the form of a movie, series, games, books, etc. In the past have had a tendency of liking the Japanese weird. I heard a lot of good about this game. So I got excited and bought it. Unfortunately it could not meet my expectations. The story and characters are interesting but the presentation is not good. Also the pacing in the story is fairly bad. The gameplay mechanics are everything between tedious to ok. If well get a season 2, I'm interested to see the reviews and if they are still liking D4, I'll end up buying the second season too but I am no longer expecting anything special.
The fact is that the less you know about this game before you start playing it, the better. So I won't spoil it for you. It definitely is not for everyone. Buy it if you like - story-heavy games - narratives - it when a game does not hold your hand and assume that you are too young to play the game - Heavy Rain Don't buy the game if none of the above is true. If you don't know your answers to the four points above, then wait for a high sale-percentage and get the game without a chance of losing much money.
I think I encountered 2 clear graphical glitches during my playthrough and neither prevented me from advancing in the game so bugs? Like always, some encounter them some don't. I read a review of the game back in 1998 when it was released but I was just a kid, with no money and no PC of my own and I wasn't able to get the game. Later when I finally had my own PC I tried to find a copy of the game but for some reason this "legend" had vanished from the face of the earth. So you can understand how excited I was to hear that a remastered version was released. I feel that the game is overhyped / just like with everything, the fans exaggerate. It is a nice, fun point'n click adventure game where you neither point nor click. If you like those, get it if you don't you'll probably not like this one either.
