First things first. I have not read the novel. So i had no idea what i was geting into. Overall it's a little bit like a Sci-Fi Firewatch. They are similair in how they play out. More or less constant radio contact with an unseen person while exploring in a farily linear way. The game does a good job of building atmosphere in what is a barren world with mysterious remnants all around. Yes it's mostly cliffs and desert with some puddles of water here and there and thoe mysterious metal constructs. But the story pushes you forward in a somewhat leisurly pace. There is a looming threat that doesn't really realize itself until very late in the game. I probably got one of the more dissatisfying endings. But the game offers a few. There is a chapter replay system if you decide to go after them. But overall it got me interested in reading the book as well. It has some great sci-fi elements. On the technical side the game ran fine. But performance became very spotty after a while. Not sure if it was just some areas or if there is a memory leak or similair. With som choppy framerates and texture popins in a few places. I had no crashes however. I recommend if you like Sci-Fi adventures with little to no action. And if you liked Firewatch and want a Sci-Fi adventure instead of a forest adventure. Otherwise you might want to check out some early gameplay videos to get a feel for the game before diving in. Unsure if the demo is still available that had a short segment from very early in the game avaible.
Definitely a weaker game overall compared to Mutant. Progression is extremely linear even if you backtrack there is rarely a reason to do so. A cleared area is cleared unless there is a side-quest there. The side quests are so-so and the rewards are somewhat lacking. You do get a good chunk of experience from them though. The characters comes with 4 sets of skills/passives that are preset so your build choices are limited. You can freely place and remove spent points however so trying various things out is great. The Stealth gameplay was a good feature. Stealth is extremely powerful making it possible to have really small or no real encounters on a map. Stealthy weapons on the other hand are extremely limited. I found 1 besides the one that one of the party members comes equipped with. Weapons are customizable with scope and magazine modifiers adding stuff like extra range, crit-chance and even buffing damage. Also freely swapable whenever. The story is fairly predictable overall. It has a decent premise and takes some twists and turns but generally pretty bland. Get it on a deep sale if you like a little sci-fi tactical gaming.
Played a fair chunk of it on PS Vita but never finished it. Finally got to play it again and completed the game this time around. The PC port is excellent in terms of options and performance. Gameplay is Okay. the Flash Guard/Move mechanics seems a bit all over the place. You get the guard but still takes huge chunks of damage or you move away and still take huge chunks of damage. The Party system and the various characters are a good part of this game. The characters play differnetly enough and you have to play around with their attack types to get the most out of it. Story is descent. And serves as a good motivator to play the game. Definitely something to get if you like Action RPG:s and the Ys series over all.
I got into the Shantae series when ½-genie hero came out. I loved that game. This game mostly gets rid of the stages the previous game had and is mostly a completely connected world with a classic map. The cutscenes look like they were picked directly from a cartoon. In fact i kinda want a Shantae cartoon now. Because those animations were great and the voice acting was pretty decent for what little lines the characters had. They added a card-system which you can have three equipped at a time. they each give a bonus to things ranging from damage or speed of your spells and such. Some cards require multiple to be usable. And some requires some other steps to acquire. I didn't collect all of them. It was fairly tedious to get some cards. And those i had was the once i used throughout most of the game anyway. I liked the system with the transformations and the dances and how they cleverly put some of the collectable loot in your path after you've aquired the powers requried to get them. You could have passed by and seen it before, then your return travel would take you by and allow you to pick it up. On the difficulty side it's pretty easy. You will have plenty of food and money throughout the game. If you want a pretty relaxed metroidvania this is it. Playtime for me was close to 8 hours. But as i mentioned i did not collect all cards and missed some other collectables.
This is overall a fantastic game. The atmosphere is so eerie and has an aura of constant sadness around it. It adds alot to the overall feel of the game. The game is huge. A lot larger than i initially thought. After exploring and gaining new ways to get around it slowly opens up and just gets larger and larger. And each area almost always brings something new to the game. New hazard, new type of platforms and of course new enemies to learn to read and tackle. The punishing deaths adds an extra tension to the game. Sure it sucks when you lose out on a crapton of geo(i.e. the currency of the game). But in the long run this isn't a big issue. You will have plenty near the end anyway. SPOILER ALERT: The game has multiple endings. First there are the vanilla endings and then there are added endings with the final update of the game one which are the true ending. Took me 19 hours to get to the bad ending but this ofc did include doing a lot of the things from the dlc-updates before even trying to tackle it. Here come the kicker. To get this ending besides needing to do a lot of stuff prior .You need to play through a set of boss-rushes. Which is a huge challenge in itself. This game is far from easy even when you have upgraded everything and feel all powerful. Having boss-rushes as a mandatory part is just frustrating up to the point I'm close to giving up on the game. I don't mind that type of challenges as an optional thing. But adding them as requirement to get the true ending of the game is just terrible. Especially with some bosses being really hard on their own(inb4 git gud). So in short. Great Game with some less than stellar decisions for the end part of it. If you don't care about that or don't mind tackle heavy challenges possibly plenty of times then by all mean do buy this game It's worth it. There is plenty of enjoyment here despise the negatives.
