A lot of people complain about the fact this game is not like other Gothic games. That is not a very fair assesement of a game. I havent played the Gothic series, but played Risen, which is very similar to Gothic since it was made by the same developers. And I am glad it went a different route from Risen in terms of combat. However, it has plenty of issues on its own. Disclaimer, I only played through the starting area, but judging by some other descriptions I think I know what to expect. In regards to Graphics and audio I can say its pretty decent. It goes for a more realistic look, which I enjoy. Some things may look bland, but overall the view was nice. The general idea for the main quest was pretty simple - a revenge arc. And its fine. However the presentation of the quests/stories can be very dull, have inconsistent tone and is too linear. The voice acting can range from alright to weird. The quests themselves are very basic. Gameplay is much more streamlined from Risen. You have the same melee weapon, ranged weapon and magic, but the enemies are easier to handle. They can still block and have strong attacks, which you need to evade with rolls, yet its no longer a duel to the death with each low level enemy you encounter. Attribute wise enemies are suited to the players level. Probably due to the linear character of the game. Using the bow here is much more enjoyable than in Risen. However, the balance here is now way off toward the easy spectrum. Nothing really presented a challenge and when the game tries to make enemies use unique features it is very clunky. Like a bug that hides in its shell to regenerate if you damage it too much. You can get it out with the use of lightning, but it then makes a knowckback and quickly hides again. Turns into a grind situation. There are some small technical glitches as well. The game isnt bad, its just not that good in anything. You can play it, but Im pretty sure there are better things to try first.
Ive played this for about 3 something hours before I gave up and I cant understand how this game can have such a high score. But let me start off with the nice things. The graphics are old, but the art design is nice. You may be in a fantasy setting, but it conveys a certain feel of realism. I didnt quite understand the story or my characters place in it. It starts out with my character being a nobody and having to deal with a lot of more simple, mundane tasks to progress further. I like that approach a lot more than the messiah-chosen one approach. The dialogues/voice acting are generally nice as well. The hardcore elements are generally nice, yet poorly balanced. I like that I need a torch to be able see in dark places and having to rely heavily on food and other craftable items to sustain my character. The progression system also looked very interesting. When you gain levels you need to pay trainers to level up the skills you want with your available skill points. Yet I dont understand why drinking from a barell restores only some of my health when I can drink as much as I want. It just wastes time. Now for the bad. The movement system here is pretty clunky. It may be not so bad by itself, but it fuels the other issues. Combat here is a problem in that its poorly implemented. You need to dodge and block manually, but enemy NPCs dont give indicators on how many attacks they will do in a row, when they will block or counter, etc. Thus making it very hard for you to properly fight them with your limited arsenal in the beginning. And this ties into the biggest offender in the game - balance. Almost everything in the game can easily kill you. You have no indicator of seeing the strength difference. This means dying a lot and having to search for ways to grind. YES, SEARCHING FOR WAYS TO GRIND. From my point of view, thats not fun. At all. The no lifers may find this a worth while investment, but for normal people, look for something else.
Heavily underworked. Thats the best way I can describe this. You are a knight that needs to save his love and the Kingdom along the way. You do this with a party of characters while you explore the map for story elements as well as fight enemies. The maps arent big and usually you will have 2-3 fights in each. Im not going to go into detail how everything works. Im just going to say it doesnt work well. You fight enemies in a turn based format, first your team, then the enemies. But there are numerous issues, ranging from simple AI, that charges your weak characters first, to dubious game design decisions, like being able to pass through tiles that are occupied by friendly units. Its not overly complex, but many things arent properly explained. For example, how is damage calculated? I had numerous instances in the final missions where either my or enemy characters were one shot by a critical. Yet sometimes they deal just minimum damage ..... Short story, its a mess and it isnt fun. Story wise its a mess as well. Conceptually the story is alright, but the presentation, pacing, dialogue, character development, etc. are off the mark. You will be able to follow whats going on, but it will mostly be a chore. In terms of graphics the game is very simple. It went for a cartoonish look, which is fine. But it is also is trying to be dark, gritty, mature possibly? And the art style doesnt help that. Not that it couldnt be, but the tone here reminds me more of Torchlight and it shouldnt. The music here is also repetitive and can be out of place. Like battle music during pre-mission loadouts. I like the concept of this game, but the execution needs A LOT of work. I get the feeling it tries to be Dragon Age Origins, but on a much smaller scale. Which is fine, there should be more games like that. But even within its own limitations it doesnt work well .... There were nice touches within the gameplay and story that I enjoyed, but its not enough to carry it.
I already wrote about Tropico 3, so off the bat, what does this game do better? It has quick build, a bit more foreign diplomacy considerations. While quick build isnt a great way to fix the problem of unpredictable builders, it makes development possible. The tone of the game changed as well. Its more satire focused and doesnt take itself seriously. Most of the previous issues from the game remained. Insuficient data on certain things, weird game balance, a lot of mechanics that you dont really use. But despite that I spent around 70 hours in the main campaign. I enjoyed it quite a bit. The DLC buildings vary in regards to usefulness, but its nice having them. I didnt go through much of the Modern Times DLC campaign, but the premise is that throughout the years older buildings get replaced with newer ones. Plus certain events happen that can effect product prices, active edicts, etc. Interesting concept, but I felt the wobly game balance was being pushed around even more, so I didnt stick with it. If you are looking for some fun, this could be an enjoyable experience. But be aware that it might not have everything run perfectly in terms of gameplay.
Lets start off with whats gonig for it. It has an interesting setting with different mythologies represented, visually looks attractive and has good class variety. There is a story here and side quests here, but their implementation is such that theyre just placeholders for rewards and direct progression, nothing more. Which is fine, the game is not really about that. Problem is the gameplay here doesnt work. If you make the mistake of picking two not very compatible classes in the beginning, then you will end up with an inefficient character and have no way to reset him. The grind here is pretty big and its not that fun. After 20 hours I realised I screwed up my character and cant use gear properly. I also have only 2 active skills close to level 30, everything else is passive. Next problem is the relevance problem. That being, why use the 12% electricity resistance ring, when you can use the +50 health ring? Based on the enemy variety and randomness it is usually a much more efficient choice. There are no zones where a certain stat build is efficient, enemies are constantly random and thus making most loot worthless. The enemies arent particularly interesting either. You have swarms, tanks, mages and variations in between. If there were zones where you can fight certain enemies consistenly with specific strats, then certain gear, skills and approaches would have a point. Otherwise you go for the most effective generic build. On top of that there is a balance issue. In the same area I can face enemies 10 levels lower or higher than me. In act 3 the enemies become way more deadlier. There are also some technical glitches as well. I honestly dont understand why this game is rated so high. I tried it a long time ago and didnt get into it. Thought maybe I didnt understand something or didnt get far enough into it. But no, its just bad. Its not complete trash, but I cant recommend wasting your time in it.
This game is a point and click adventure game and it has a lot going for it. First off, the art style is awesome. Gritty, mature, comic style art. It has lots of detail and is a pleasure throughout the entire game. The soundtrack doesnt let up either. It has the same gritty, mature style, but varies greatly based on the circumstances youre in. It is just as awesome as the graphics. The story in itself is pretty good too. You are an apostle sent from heaven to clean up a city tainted by demons. And of course, things get messy along the way. Aside from the point and click part of the game, where you need to look around for appropriate items and have dialogues with characters, there are also puzzles and minigames from time to time. Theyre not necessarily complex or difficult, but theyre almost always varied and provide variety and keep things fresh. The menu and interface are alright, nothing special, but they dont matter that much here. There are also some grammatical errors in the English language version and that could be annoying sometimes. The game was made in France. There are, however, a couple of significant downsides in this game. The writing has issues. There are some moments regarding pacing and interactions that feel a bit off or that could have been done better. But what is really at issue are the dialogues. They seem very amateurish, some conversations felt pretty out of place. What bothered me most is that I couldnt get a proper feel for the main character. His dialogues fluctuated from being righteous, serious, goofy, slapstick. Considering the tone of the game, they should have stuck with him being mostly serious and focused on his mission. But the most dissapointing part is that the game is cut short by what I feel was about a third to half of what it should have been. The story cuts short quite quick and the ending is rushed. Its very dissapointing. However, it is still a great point and click game for a mature audience and I highly recommend it.
A card based, turn based tactical team fighter rogue-lite with some exploration and management. You get to choose a team of 3 characters to explore space ships for loot and story objectives, upgrading them along the way. The art here is probably the games best aspect as you can see in the pictures. The story isnt that awesome and the worldbuilding doesnt impress either. The gameplay works in the following. Each character you have has actions he can undertake based on the cards he has. The cards depend on the gear you have. Each character(class) can wear specific gear. The characters also have stats, that are upgraded through leveling and gear. Sounds good, but the problem is a lot of the card effects are pretty situational. You have way too few cards that you want to use and way too many that you dont need. This forces battles to drag out. Some characters cards are only good in certain sutiations. This is worsened by the fact that you cant switch out party members for explorations. You need to completely remove a character from your party, as in fire them, only then you can hire a new person. Furthermore, since gear is aimed at specific characters, most of the stuff you find from exploration is useless. Then there is the card/stat dilemma. As mentioned, you get cards based on your gear. But you also get stats. Lets say you get a new piece of gear, which is higher level and gives you more stats. But it either gives you more cards you dont want or replaces cards you want to have in your characters deck. This overabundance of utility cards drags out a fight far longer than you want it, but if you stick with old gear your progress slows down even more. Many reviewers say that once you played the first 2 hours, you basically played the whole game. And thats the impression I got after my first 2 hours. Im not willing to try and prove them wrong. The gameplay wasnt fun enough to slog it out. Its not a bad game, but ultimately, it doesnt bring anything to the table.
Im somewhat on the fence about this one. It is an interesting metroidvania, has deep RPG mechanics, nice 2d style and plenty of places to explore. The story and humour here are very much for nerds. Can be crude. If you are not using a controller, you will probably not like the controls. Even then not everything is smooth. I havent played that much, but I already encountered situations where I need to backtrack a lot, run around back and forth and even do some grinding. There are elements of trial and error as well. Its interesting, has a lot of charm in its style, but its not for everyone. Those who like old school and can handle some tedium will enjoy it.
Got this as a random key purchase. While it could have been somewhat entertaining, there is a problem. The game is meant for co-op play. If you try to play this solo you will be severly overwhelmed by the tasks.. While it could be fun if you have friends to play this with and have a controller (because the main traget was definitely not the PC), otherwise I dont think you will enjoy this.
A fun hack and slash game, where you unlock various weapons and skills in order to progress throughout a a shattered world and find out what happened. Has lovely visuals, great narration. The story can be pretty mature, despite the colourful setting, but that only adds to it. In terms of gameplay, its a good example of easy to learn hard to master. Not everything is perfect thought. Sometimes when surrounded by enemies you shied and targetting system wont work perfectly. Plus the edge where you fall off if not on the pathway can feel quite restrictive and somewhat annoying. But for the price, this is a great game. Undeniably recommended.
