Are you tired of power fantasies? Do you want to guess (incorrectly) how to build your character, and reload and save 1 billion times, so you can try the same linear unforgiving storyline again and again, until you maybe get a taste of the rich story and narrative in an post-apocalyptic roman-empire-inspired world? Oh boi, do I have the game for you! Thematically and aesthetically (not counting the mediocre graphics) I adore the world of TAoD. It promises a dark and mystical story about living in a world sundered by magical forces, so powerful and alien, that the people now living in it can't agree on what they were, what caused them, and why they happened. But the story and gameplay is gated behind character stats and (mostly) skill checks. Never player choices. Based on what character you build, you seemingly only have *one* route in TAoD, and if you do not spend your points "wisely" and min/max, you cannot even progress through that route. Also, the dialogue options and paths are way too few, and it is way too inconsistent in its density and description. Also, the writing cannot decide on how authentic, sarcastic, self-aware, or dramatic it wants to be, leaving a schizophrenic story-telling that sometimes is either very engaging or simply too boring to bother with. Navigating and finding areas of interest is also a bother. If you like being bamboozled by the camera angles or the layouts, which does not much to imply what is interactable and what is basically in-game white-space. I got lost and bumped into important areas by accident more times than I cared for. Honestly, I myself would prefer to read about this world in a wiki, or hear some youtube-essay about it, because playing it was only fun for the first hour or so.
It looks great amd moody, but feels like ass to control. Got it for free, so I will not comlain more on that. Played it for two hours, and then threw it in my digital bin.
As a DLC/expansion of the game, BW seems like a hotfix combined with an afterthought. Content, that expands on the main characters, does not even seem finished or thought through. The whole Bastard's Wound area, also seems pushed into the game, without consideration on its impact on the game's pace. It feels like the story's flow suddenly stops, the moment you enter the outside area, wherein you can clearly feel that this small pocket of the world has NO significance whatsoever on the rest of Tyranny's world. I would only recommend this to a fan of the game, who simply wants their playthroughs to be longer. If you do not get tired of the combat, or the idea of dungeon crawling in more old-wall areas, with even more of the same kinds of enemies you have already seen in the game, by all means, go nuts. Honestly, Obsidian really disappointed me with this addition to the game. I hope to one day to play through a new story in the world of Tyranny, but this expansion, does not scratch that itch. It actually only worsens the itchin'.
At the best of times, this feels like an epic story in the Witcher-universe, played through a good reinvention of the gwent mini-game. At the worst of times, it feels like a too stretched out glorified commercial of the gwent multi-player game. I liked how the choices seemed to affect the story and plot. I disliked how most of the puzzles felt more like gimmicky mini-games than actual puzzles based on the mechanics of gwent itself, and I especially hated the fact that the game constantly had to remind me of the existence of the multi-player version of gwent. I tried this for the solo-palyer experience, not for being aggresively advertised at by CDPR. In spite of that, a few bugs, and some sloppily used artworks that did not fit with the story's timeline, the rest of the game and its mechanics feels polished enough for me to recommend it to any gwent- or witcher-fan.
So the world and its lore is cool and all, but the gameplay is very slowly paced. The puzzles are uninteresting or archaic (which I guess some point-and-click-adventurers might find great, I dunno), and the animations are slow, clunky, and outdated. I find it hard to be invested at all in this game, unless you are already such a fan of the series that you *must* know what happens in your own version of the story. I am simply gonna watch a playthrough instead of playing this, because I cannot be bothered with the game anymore.
This god damn game. I have as many problems with it, even though I have spent about 30 hours on Wasteland 2. Thing is, even with the director's cut, the game feels so janky and badly designed. I cannot even fathom where I should start or end this in details, so in the spirit of how the game likes to simplify things, I'll do a pro/con list (which of course applies to my own tastes and feelings about this kinds of RPGs). PROS: -Huge ass world, or so I've been told. I had enough shortly after exiting turorial land. -The combat seems like a neat evovled version of what I remember from the old Fallout games. -Total freedom in how you would like to build your team. -Well written dialogue for the most part. CONS: -The combat always feels unfair. Either you feel overpowered, or the enemy feels overpowered. In my case, it makes most combat feel like something you want to avoid. This would be fine, if combat were not at least 60% of the whole game. -The character creation, aesthetic-wise, is infuriating. Nothing matches the portraits, and the choices for character looks are minimal. I also just do not like how they portrait quirks. -I cannot for the love of Christmas understand the tone of the game. The combination of a deadly serious survivor-setting and the dark humor is not done well in my opinion. I sometimes have a hard time giving a fuck about the stories, when about a third of them suddenly act as if the game was Deathspank-like (fun series btw). -Walking around and doing tasks/checks/anything TAKES FOREVER. I feel like 5 of the 30+ hours of gameplay have been spent on looking at progress icons and my party walking across a map. -The game constantly makes up new unintuitive rules that you to save-scum, in order to actually have a chance to understand and then follow. -Old school ways of doing skill-checks, with % chance seems like waste of time if you give people punishment for failing, while providing them a save button. Just. Stop. It.
Not much so write, since telling too much about this game would spoil the fun of playing it. It is close to perfection, and also good fun for a cheap price.
I'll keep it short. The plot is less interesting than in PoE1. The open-world aspect makes a lot of odd quests seemed forced and lazely written. There are gamebreaking bugs keeping me from ending the game - which seems more interested in distracting me with tedious ship-battles and uninteresting encounters, than actually telling an interesting story with flow .
I simply adore the new Torment. It was everything I wanted from a new single player roleplaying experience: -Weird, punishing and interesting combat -Odd and intriguing world/lore -Some of the best writing I've ever experienced -Great characters, both conceptually and functionally -Open and deep plot, despite it being very linear This game made me love the Numenera RPG universe, with it's mysteries and wonders. I would recommend it to any experienced roleplaying gamers or any kind of player who enjoys sinking deep into an unknown world, ready to accept the rules of it. ...abd that's all I can say about this game without rambling.
