The game has a good foundation and does some things right, but ultimately it is lacking especially with the 20 bucks price tag. The story is not bad, the deus exian lore about megacorporations never gets old. The visuals are simle but nice, it has a good art direction. Solid music. And that's it, everything else is mediocre and tedious. Combat is turn-based. Not difficult, can be enjoyable, but very slow, and there is way too much of it. It basically kills exploration. But to be honest also exploration is quiet bad as the side objectives are randomly generated. Main quests are ok. Companions and side kicks don't have quests, no random story events, only one hub. A nice looking but tedious game which lacks interesting features. Not recommended.
At the beginning I would like to state that I can't rate positively a game which I don't bother to finish despite I like the genre of the game. If I enjoy it I finish it, if not I don't finish it, simply as that. I needed to tell this because I'm sure as hell most of the ppl who gave 5 or 4 stars to Inquisitor they didn't finish it either, yet they rate this game high. The sad thing that the game does a lot of things right. The world, the lore, the writing and the story are all interesting and engaging. The world is an alternative medieval Europe with magic and monsters. The lore is well detailed and clearly has a deep historycal inspiration. The story itself wouldn't be interesting nor innovative, but set in this dark and realistic world with some well made twists, and with a unique religious approach it really manages to be something which makes you invest in this game. You are an inquisitor in the game who investigate after heretics and conspiracy and this part of the game resembles very much to Planescape Torment. The problem is though that this game is essentially a dungeon crawler first and foremost, the story driven part is secondary. There are huge obligatory dungeons in this game and you will spend a lot more time in dungeons than with side questing or investigating. For me it's a fatal flaw because I play rpgs for role-playing (npc interaction, choices, exploration etc) not for dungeon crawling. The combat is slow and tedious and despite the character development and combat has some depth combat remains a boring yet significant part of the game. If the game has turn based or real time with pause combat system with less combat and dungeons and more investigating and side questing I would truly enjoy this game and would recommend it to people who enjoyed the original Fallouts, Arcanum and Torment but as it is I can't recommend it to anyone.
It is considered one of the top rpgs ever made and surely it is if it's functioning. But for me apparently not. First I encountered a bug where enemies didn't attack me anymore, so the game became a sandbox puzzle and point and click game. Uninstalled. Then reinstalled and it was fine until a quest where I needed to return to another city for someone. Always crashed, this little journey took me almost an hour due to constant restart. When I finally reached the city and talked to the guy, saved. Tried to reload after, constant crash, the save is corrupted. Other save is in game months earlier. And this is with the unofficial patch which everyone recommending coz it fixes the bugs. What a mess of a game. In a polished state it would be fine, but I give up on this one now.
Dragonfall is probably one of the best rpgs ever made so comparing Hong Kong to it is maybe not fair but hell the same company made it. Long story short the game mechanics are the same and even improved, the quest design is improved as well but essentially everything is similar and familiar. It sounds good right? If you wanted to play more Shadowrun after Dragonfall, Hong Kong delivers at least in paper. There is one big problem though. The essence of these games are not the gameplay but the story and the writing and exactly here the devs failed miserably. I'm not finished yet but the pacing of the story is terrible, and the plot doesn't seem to be too interesting. The companions were better in Dragonfall as well. On the top of that the game is even more writing and dialogue heavy than the previous iteration and if we add that it has an unintersting story and characters it totally destroys the game. I haven't give up yet, but already skipping dialogues which is a bad sign in a game like this, I don't know if you want to try a Shadowrun game, try Dragonfall because that is a very good game, a future classic of rpgs. With Hong Kong the devs missed the mark though.
Redemption is a very polarizing title. At one hand it is not mentioned on the same level with the great classics (Baldur's Gate, Torment, Ultimas) and a lot of people has negative memories with it, on the other hand the game still has a cult following and mods are still recently made for it. It's a love or hate game, but why it's just not simply great? Well the game has absolutely phenomenal non-gameplay elements. The story is intriguing and interesting, the characters are well written, and have their own personality, and the writing is excellent. The writing is the strongest aspect of the game, and literally one of the best I have experienced in a video game in general. The setting is also spot on. I felt it more desperate and vampiery than Bloodlines. So where the game went wrong? Sadly the gameplay is pure garbage. It plays like Diablo basically. The game is linear, no side quests, very limited npc interaction, no choices, no optional non lethal paths. Every objective is dungeon based. You go down into a 3-4 level dungeon, kill the boss and the story moves forward. Yes it is as bad as it sounds especially if you don't like Diablo style games. At the end of the day the game falls flat on its face yet I give 4 stars because the story and the writing is one of the best you can get in this genre. If the gameplay is more similar to KOTOR with side quests, exploration, choices and not just combat related quests, Redemption would be considered a timeless classic on par with Planescape Torment. Sadly it is not the case yet I had fun with the game and if you are into story in video games I suggest you to give it a try.
I didn't play this game when it came out, I played it recently as a gift came with buying Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms. This game was a pleasant surprise for me especially after the disappointment over Shadows. Inquisition or Kult is an interesting mix between Diablo and classic rpgs like Baldur's Gate. It is more Diablo, but unlike those games, it is heavily story driven. You can't even choose your own race/class, because you are a female member of the inquisition according to the game. Kult has also a lot of well written dialogues with a good amount of humour. Which game is the closest thing to this Kult? Maybe Nox of Westwood, but again this is a unique game. The mechanics of Kult are also unique in the genre. Namely the ability to change between the real world and dream world and the attunement system, which means that using equipment (weapon, armor, accessories) will develop passive skills (attunement) for you. It is a fun mechanic because it constantly pushes you to try different equipment to develop more skills at your disposal. The game is not perfect though: it lacks polish here and there. The difficulty is very high you will often want to rage quit and the game forces you to use cheap tactics like changing between dimensions to trick your enemies, which is fun, but abused way to much. The game is pretty much forgotten so you won't find useful walkthrougs on the web, you need to figure out everything on your own. It is not too long (took me 20 hours) and it doesn't have replay value. All in all it is a very fun but very difficult game with unique gameplay mechanics, and has a good story and setting. On this price it is very much worth to try.
Pillars is a homeage to the oldschool pary based rpgs of the late 90's and early 2000's.If you have played those, this game will be familiar for you. For me this was the first game of the crpg genre. I played on normal and I found it very accessible also for newbies. The game is intuitive, and not so difficult most of the time, hovewer the boss fights are hell of a challenge, be prepared. It is a combat heavy game: 80% combat, 20% roleplaying. I personally expected and wanted more roleplay and less combat, but still enjoyed Pillars a lot. There is a good balance between dungeons, hubs and open areas which make the game varied. The atmosphere is immersive, the music is beautiful, you feel fine playing this game. Story, choices and characters are good but not great. The writing is good but way too verbose and I think huge walls of texts are not the best way to tell a story in a videogame especially when the new engines actually are able to make us see the things. So this oldschool approach of storytelling can't be the future of rpgs. The side quests are too simplistic but people say that this is because of the limited resources, budget and of the old engine. The graphics nicely shows the background but the figures look horrible, and they are very static (never go to sleep, don't sit down to tables in the inn etc). Sorry to say so many negative things because the game is actually really good. The atmosphere is top notch, and also the story is interesting to make you finish the game. The side quests are simple yes, but they make us experience some interesting personal stories and adventures. The characters are not really memorable but have some good conversations, and sometimes make hilarious comments. The game is dark in general, yet there is humour in it which is appreciated. Also the lenght is good, it is 60 and some hours to finish. So this is not the best rpg of all time as the hype sais, but a good start and hopefully the sequel will be a truly memorable game.
Risen 2 was able to bring some freshness in the Risen formula. The pirate theme sounds strange at first, but it is greatly implemented and creates fantastic atmosphere to the game. There are more islands to explore with different people and quests. Exploration is fun as ever and the side quests are better than in the first game. The game is more linear than Risen 1 but in comparison the devs delivered a decent story with some good moments (which they failed with Risen 1 and ultimately with Risen 3). After the patches the fighting system became better than it was, still not so good. This can be the mayor complaint against the game, but who plays an rpg for the fighting? In most of the cases it is good enough to support the other gameplay elements which are entertaining. I enjoyed this game more than I thought, and more than Risen 1 and Risen 3. For me this is the best of the series. If you want to play a challenging and enjoyable rpg grab this. Maybe not for the full price, but it's a good bargain on a sale.
Risen 2 was able to bring some freshness in the Risen formula. The pirate theme sounds strange at first, but it is greatly implemented and creates fantastic atmosphere to the game. There are more islands to explore with different people and quests. Exploration is fun as ever and the side quests are better than in the first game. The game is more linear than Risen 1 but in comparison the devs delivered a decent story with some good moments (which they failed with Risen 1 and ultimately with Risen 3). After the patches the fighting system became better than it was, still not so good. This can be the mayor complaint against the game, but who plays an rpg for the fighting? In most of the cases it is good enough to support the other gameplay elements which are entertaining. I enjoyed this game more than I thought, and more than Risen 1 and Risen 3. For me this is the best of the series. If you want to play a challenging and enjoyable rpg grab this. Maybe not for the full price, but it's a good bargain on a sale.
Personally never playied Piranha games before, so didn't know what to expect. The first impressions were in fact intimidating: My character (who is like Sam Worthington) was a weakling and everyone, literally everyone was faster and stronger than me. Then I realized I needed to slow down, check what I'm able to do, what quests can be done and with progression I return to explore and kill monsters. Patience is required for playing Risen. It is an open world game but strong monsters are like barriers which block your way. So do something else first. And you can and you need to do a lot to make your character powerful. The game lets you introduce to the world offering easier but mostly fun quests to give you the chance to level up. But not so fast: the levelling up costs a lot of money which you don't have, so what to do? I enjoyed how many skills you need to develop to play well the game. Pickpocketing, sneaking and picklocking are necessary to get gold. Alchemy is important to make healing and other potions, smeathing is good to forge weapons, better than your enemies have, and then fighting (or magic) skills to deal with the monsters. I enjoyed this kind of character development that you need to boost up all of the skills to get better. I loved the game's atmosphere: it was medieval, but caribbean as well. The npc-s were fun, you can have some hilarious dialogues with them. The side quests are mostly interesting, some of them are fetch quests though. And the best thing of all: exploration. In every corner you can find chests, loot, caves, other npc-s, even legendary weapon sets. You are on an island, which is not so big but carefully designed so it is fantastic to explore everything. Negatives? Tons of bugs and glitches sometimes in quests and in character's movement. Fighting is underwhelming first but gets better later, and the last chapter is about dungeon crawling which is a problem if you don't like excessive dungeons. But overall it is a solid 8/10.
