Before starting FOLON i spend according steam 2050h on FO4 from which I can evaluate another 1000h sacrifice for various modding - reading mod description, understanding how to mod the game avoid conflict and make it stable. FO4 is classic "want to love it, but I hate it" case. I admire a FOLON team work, they surpass Bughesda on so many levels. Main problem is that you can not simply make a good mod/game on sh*tty engine of laziest developer which maknind know. Despite not installing HD DLC, and install Buffout and few other basic engine patches to ensure at least some stability on modern PC, I experienced few CTDs - sometimes after 7 minutes, sometimes after 6 hours, then came famous "brown face" bug, then FOLON become loading screen simulator as any other game on this old Bughesda engine - when you need to wait for minutes. FOLON itself is amazing, I visited personally both Boston and London, and FOLON team definetly winning by 4 levels. Voices of characters I really enjoyed: some are on professional level, some on very good amateur level, generally quite nice. "English" assets like doubledecker buses, famous Brittish cars, tea tables and clutter in general are incredible. London itself and "interior locations" atmosphere is really postapocalyptic. Ambient music is amazing and I enjoyed it much more then original FO4 ambient tracks. It is hard to call this a mod, even total conversion would not be 100% right - this is like brand new 3D Fallout. Considering how much effort must FOLON team put in this, it is the shame they did not made their own engine, or use Unreal/CryEngine with help someone skilled like Viktor Bocan (Flashpoint, Kingdom Come). Quality of quest variate - some of them are variations (feel like parody) from FO4/The Outer Worlds, some of them are quite original. What I´m missing is some natural leveling curve - when you decide to follow Hooligans you soon run to hard enemies. Definetly recommend to try it. Thanks FOLON team.
This game was one of the biggest dissapointment I ever played. It started already with party creation, RPG system is quite good, but character customization is pretty weak. From given assets I had a problem to create a party of 4 and not create a twins. My secondary problem was that environment feels really empty and I do not mention almost zero interaction with environment. Third problem was a different quality and style of assets - it looks that main artist was not present or did not do what should do. Fourth problem was story which is quite linear, quest must be done like creators want them to be played, often without hinting a intended way forward. Mark Morgan ambient music was briliant, but end song was terrible punishing my ears instead giving me some revard. Low budget intro movie with live actors maybe would be appreciated in 1995 but not in 2014. Almost every fight there were graphical glitches from blood splatters, placed in impossible vectors and distances. Camera very often jump to some places from where nothing can be seen. Control of charactes also very often freeze or stuck so player had to go to menu and back to game to reset it. This game is simple cold hard creation. InXile did not deserved money from backers for final result. I returned to W2 in 2021 in believe that Director´s cut solved at least some problems with story. Discount to 6 EUR lure me into it. After I experienced DOS and DOS II, this game is simply unbearable for me and every original problem remained and in 2021 is even more negatively perceived then in 2014. Honestly I´m not able to see any "job done" on Director´s Cut. Everything is like I remember it from 2014. Mods available for this game are practically just portrait packs so obviously this game did not chatch anybody for heart for all this years.
When I played Divinity Original Sin I like the graphic, music, RPG system, inventory system, interaction possibilities with environment. But the story was not exactly my cup of tea. This was the reason why I hesitaded for long time to buy and play DOS II. I started 4 times just to familiarize with the system and find the best suitable character for me. At the end I played this game 3 times just fo explore other characters and their stories and get 100% of achievements. This game is masterpice between RPG games. After huge dissapointment from Wasteland 2 from developers of my favourite Fallout 1 & 2, big dissapointment from Pillars of Ethernity from Obsidian, DOS II is now my etalon how next-gen top-view RPG game should looks like. Basically if Bethesda want me to like their 3D RPGs they should be ispired by Kinkdom Come: Deliverance, if Obsidian, inXile and others want to serve me a good top-view RPG they should try to beat Larian Studio and their DOS II or at least level wit it. :)
