I remember borrowing this game and beating it in a weekend, I barely had any idea what was really going on as you can just tear through the levels, shooting everything in sight, without really thinking about anything going on. It's full of lore, but it's so inconsequential, especially considering it's told through audio-tapes which I just let play as I murder waves of enemies. I just feel like the pacing doesn't match the gameplay at all, it's a fast paced shooter with hoards of enemies and a linear progression, but with an attempt at world building and lore more akin to an RPG. Ultimately you can beat the game by just blindly running from 1 objective to the next, and that's what I did. I never felt the urge to slow down and take things in, and audio tapes, I guess just to me, feel like a lazy way to tell a story. I just wanted to offer a somewhat negative opinion to a game that is otherwise universally praised. I guess I just don't really understand the hype. It's a fast paced shooter that you can beat very quickly, with a bunch of fluff that only matters if you care enough to pay attention.
The presentation of the game is pretty slick, but without wide-screen, high resolution support, the cutscenes and game overall just looks very dated. It's a very typical shooter with a cheesy story-line and the occasional "don't hurt these people" objectives that at least makes you think before you shoot. I was kind of hoping for something more along the lines of the mid 2000's 007 games with interesting mission setups and objectives. But it's a fairly standard shooter with a sleek presentation. I find it hard to recommend as there are just better games that do most of what it does now, but it plays well enough, so if you just want to tear through an acceptable arcade shooter, go for it.
I can almost see what people get out of this game, but my experience has been nothing but frustration. The game is PURE RNG, and given how many time's ive had to restart I really don't think I could be convinced otherwise. There just isn't the kind of balancing here that would make this game fun to me. I've died several times in scenarios where I literally couldn't survival, I guess because I went in the wrong direction at the start and got hypothermia. There are a lot of roguelikes out there, and I can usually do pretty well at them, but this game is pure evil.
Man, this game is huge... HUGE. I did an escort mission that took around 15 minutes, but felt like an hour. The map is no joke, it's huge, and full of content. It looks beautiful and it has good controls for that time period. Really, sacred did something so impressive for the time period, but I think the gameplay is not aging well, as it does get very grindy, very repetitive, and very boring. It's a great time waster as there is just so damn much to do, and if that's what you're looking for then I would fully recommend this game, as it will keep you occupied, probably, for over a hundred hours.
I really wanted to enjoy this game as it's such a wonderful untapped time period and setting that video games could REALLY bank on. Sadly this game just feels so very low budget across the board. The world map was the last straw for me, as it just didn't feel like the developers cared much about immersing me in the new world with their, no offence, lazy looking unity world. It's missing visual cohesion and just feels like a tech demo, a prototype, of a bigger idea. The map could have been hand drawn, or stylized, or anything else. It just feels like raw 'we just got this game running yesterday' gameplay. The combat for me was also very unforgiving, but by the time that mattered I was already checked out. I had no real desire to understand the games mechanics. I didn't go into it wanting to be negative, I really felt like there was a great idea here, and still do, but the execution is so far from what I was hoping for. I mean, Pirates! handled land based exploration better, and that wasn't the focus of that game. I hope the devs can continue working on this concept because it needs to be done well, so I wish them all the best in that regard.
I'll update this review if things change later on, but so far I'm very happy with this game. I'm shocked to see obsidian titles having such a love/hate relationship. I really don't get it... Now, the world seems to skirt the line between Dragon Age and literally every fantasy game ever, but it has a few unique touches that I can appreciate, from the Edicts (extremely powerful magic scrolls called upon by people like the main character) to the excellent execution of a new world. What I mean by that is that the dialogue is full of lore that you can hover your mouse over to learn more about. Even early on into the game I feel like I'm up to speed with all these previously unknown terms and can easily immerse myself into the events of the world. My favorite aspect is how you can handle situations in so many ways, from combat to civil conversations to tense exchanges, the games reputation system takes into account how people view you, not just as an invidivual, but as a part of that faction. It's very involved so far with characters constantly bringing up past actions, backstory, and dialogue choices. Now, the game isn't perfect. Already I have seen some bizarre choices with dialogue, for instance I had a character introduce me to someone, and then explain to that person 3 different ways, that they were joining my party. It was strange... "Meet this person, someone you are joining."... "Are you prepared to join this person!?"... "You are joining this person on their journeys" To sum up the odd exchange. It hasn't been the only flaw with the writing either. I find it odd how characters just drop modern swears and phrases as well. While I don't expect them to speaketh ye olde english the disregard for the time period and setting has been noticable a few times. I'm also not blown away by the combat, but it isn't bad. It's servicable and not much more. Id recommend this to people looking for an involved, choice driven RPG. That's where this game shines.
This felt like the kind of game where you could really live within its world. However after spending hours with the same crew, building their skills, and having my own unique story. Multiple members of the crew were killed in a random event that I have no say so in. I didnt get to say "Sure, go do that event" or "Do it, but send these crew members" it was just the game saying "Hey, your crews dead, have fun with that." It totally soured the game for me. Otherwise its a wonderful roguelike that has great gameplay mechanics, which it alone is worth the asking price.
As a metroidvania title, I really enjoyed this game. It's atmospheric, the controls feel nice and snappy. Combat is simple but satisfying. I don't really have any complaints, just noticed some small ways the game could be better... -The game lacks ambient noise. Not a big deal, but would contribute to the atmosphere. -Music sounds very midi-ish. It's understated and ambient, but the low quality sound was constantly noticable, the music itself is nice though. While the game is retro in a lot of ways, i would have enjoyed sampled instruments and modern synths. -Lack of items/weapons/abilities. It just felt limited in that regard. -Limited abilities in general. You can only have a small number of passives and active items. Wish they could have found some other way of handling that. -Lack of lore text... I feel like the game could have gone all out with lore, just finding random bits of text and items that delve a bit more into the world than is currently avaliable. Characters talk to you and wander around the map, but it feels like more of this would have added a ton of intrigue. I really enjoyed the game and would recommend it to fans of the genre, technically though, it could be more robust.
Regardless of the events before or after the games release. This is a "huge" game of repeating assets shuffled around in a lego like fashion to trick you into thinking its an endless universe. In reality you'll have seen much of what the game has to offer within your first few solar systems. Even looking past that, it's a very shallow experience. The new features added by expansions only push the game sideways, rather than forward, by adding new ways of experiencing the shallow universe. You travel around collecting resources to do, essentially, nothing. The short story is padded with massive travel times where you essentially have nothing to do but 'explore' planets. Which as I said, offers little intrigue after a few hours of gameplay. Id describe it as a overengineered tech demo, showing off planet generation tech. It's cool to look at, but the idea that this company feels it's fair to charge 60 dollars for it only shows that they care about money and nothing else.
While I really enjoy the ideas behind this game, of managing a huge empire and only focusing on the elements you enjoy, whether that's combat or the economy, you get to choose. However so far, in my experience, the game does a fairly bad job of managing things, especially in advisory mode. In nearly every game the colonization advisory would wind up losing my new colony to other factions due to rebellion. I feel like, with some work, these aspects could be really cool. The game world feels alive thanks to the civilian sector, but I can't really see any reason to play this over Stellaris. The combat has potential but the freedom of it all actually causes it to be way more chaotic and require far more micromanagement then I think is necessary. The UI, Graphics, and Sounds could all also use a significant upgrade, as the game just feels very, very old. The sounds, actually, are one of my biggest gripes, as they don't really fit into the sci-fi atmosphere that well. I wind up playing this game on mute because of that. The graphics are tolerable, but again, there's so much going on that it tends to just look like a huge clusterf*** of sprites. In my opinion, the things this game does are potentially interesting, but its held back by not working as well as I'd like, with the other aspects failing to challenge other games in the same genre.
