The bad part: the ending feels rushed and you get a message like "continue exploring while the story gets finished" which was probably not the smartest idea, especially since the story feels kind of complete, even if leaves a door open to a sequel. Other than that it is pretty much what I would have expected from a King's Bounty game: a sequence of battles aimed at minimizing army losses, wearable items influencing you stats, leadership, a spellbook.. It lacks a tiny bit of the charm of the older games, and it seems like the development effort that went into a nice looking 3D world with voice acting is a bit of an overkill for the dull "Walk there and fetch that" quests that fill your journal... Overall, not a masterpiece, but something you buy on sale and you kill time with for around 30h.
Geneforge is such an amazing saga that even minor changes to it may feel blasphemous, and yet... This title is the perfect mix of respecting its predecessor and boldly introducing significant changes. The story and old maps are still the same (with new esthetics), the mechanics however are new and refreshing. Two examples: 1) there is an entire new line of spells specifically dedicated to Guardians (full disclosure: I am a Shaper so haven't tested the new skills); 2) if Spinecores and Pylons were your nemesis in the old games, wait until you see them now... I am also really glad that the creation system has been kept in line with what done in the first remake: if a creation dies no big deal, after all we can shape a duplicate at will (even if you are the kind of shaper that feels bad about it). For those new to the series of to the developer, I give my usual advice: definitely go for it if you like rpgs where your character has a hard time choosing a side, well written dialogues and stories, a well characterized universe, meaningful choices.
Don't get me wrong, I am still annoyed at the neverending Early-money-Access, but bad business practices aside, what an *absolute* blast!! Best 116 hours of my life! I would have to put so many spoilers here to explain why this is heaven for old fans of the BG series, but even not mentioning any of that, the incredible combination of music, memorable fights, great acting (voices and body), Faerun setting, well written companions and story, and so on makes this game my no.1 of all time (cannot believe BG2 became third in just a couple of years). Immersion is definitely one of the game's strengths, and if you are the kind of hero that loves bonding with your companions, well, this is for you. For people who are familiar with the Divinity series, and are not into its tendency to be a parody of the RPG genre, I would still recommend to give this a try, the divinityzation has been kept within reason and this is NOT DOS3 as many say. For the old BG fans, I will just say that the moment you hear familiar punchlines, accents and even enemy battlecries gave me the goosebumps... Have not done an evil playthrough yet, but I hope it will deliver as it seems to be promised. The huge amount of fun and tears can even make you forget those small slips, like conversations not updating properly, enemies taking ages for their turn (Boo even complains about it).. that said, the game has not crushed a single time, even on my struggling laptop.
I've played plenty of older-style RPGs but none of them was so unbelievably boring as this one. go around switching between left and right click, with the most uninspiring story ever ("fetch this piece of scrap or we all die"), a "tactical combat" that means repeatedly shot and miss on rats... Not for me, sorry
...even if this is a reasonably priced DLC, and well worth the sequel campaign, you cannot shake off the feeling of having bought some half baked thing a couple of years ago, so that you could finance them again now. In addition to that, every single update of your machine or of the game seems to come with an increased probability of machine freezes: Solasta CotM-> runs great + Lost Valley -> frequent freezes + Palace of Ice -> very frequent freezes + latest update -> freezes 2min after start every time Additional negative feedback: please do not make all decent loot require attunement, that is not fun :( Other than that, had plenty of fun, if you loved the game so far you will probably love this as well.
The game is a must for the people that loved the first one, but my playthrough was over in only 5 hours!! The fights are a bit repetitive, and some sequences are a bit over the top (is this Star Wars or Dragon Ball?), but man do you feel strong in the Force!!!! Buy it on sale, and only if you loved the first one.
The game keeps in with the atmosphere of the Witcher series, and delivers that in a completely different format: a nice combination of moving around making decisions and playing Gwent-like minigames. A large portion of these games do not follow the standard 2-out-of-3 rule of Gwent, but rather require you to perform a certain task in a 1-round game by playing a certain sequence of special cards. If you like brain-teasers and Gwent this is definitely for you. The only thing I did not appreciate was the waste of effort on looking for chests: they do not contain loot for you current campaign, but eye-candy to be used in the multiplayer.. That said, I had too much of a good time for this small detail to cause and drop in rating
The only reason I had to remove a star is because of the annoying machine freezes this game causes. Quality assurance should not be optional... That said, the game is an ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE! You are a nameless one, on a self-discovery/self-loathing journey, there is a case to solve, lots of quirkiness, factions to join with dubious views on the world, a world that can be strongly affected by beliefs.. if all this rings a bell you are probably a fan of Planescape, and you will probably love this game. The game is not for everybody, there is a lot to read (or listen), and it may be more enjoyable if you are into politics, intellectually stimulating discussions, and are not bothered by extreme non-political-correct. Being a lover of lost causes may also help. You are constantly pushed in both reasonable and crazy directions by the different parts of your damaged brain talking to you and you may find yourself saying things you'd never dare (literally because your brain told you so). It was also able to surprise me several times. My playthrough was only 17h, way less then my usual RPGs, and still it felt completely right this way.
- 230h of play time (turn based mode) and thoroughly loved 99% of it (the exception being only the extremely sharp difficulty spike on the last map -- but nothing tuning down the difficulty setting cannot fix) - Lots of BG2 and Planescape Torment vibes and references - none of the stupid timers that are still preventing me to start a second playthrough on Kingmaker - even being fresh from the gigantic campaign, I am already looking forward to several other playthroughs: the 10 Mythic Paths alone promise to provide a significant different experience, and from what I can see Good/Evil/Ultraevil, Chaos/Law, plenty of class choices also contribute to replayability - RPGs for me are all about the party: I haven't felt such a connection to my companions since BG2 and Planescape, they even made me enjoy the company of a Paladin! - Crusade management is also an improvement respect to Kingmaker: if you have ever played King's Bounty, most of the crusade is fought in that fashion, which provides nice breaks between your dungeon adventures
