I expected a tactical challenge with lots of decisions to make. Instead I found nothing but getting ambushed by superior number of enemies, spamming characters special attacks (because their basic attacks on average do 2-6 damage) which kill them all in 2 turns, or boss fights that you have to look up the trick to win. There were no tactical decisions. Its designed to spam multiple special attacks, buffs and debuffs every turn. You do it in the right order and combat is over. Its never a back and forth tides of battle encounter. Unless its a boss battle then you have to figure out the trick because its can down your characters in one attack and sometimes attacks twice a turn. Level up choices were very unclear and made no sense, so good luck making a viable build. This should of been a visual novel. An RPG is supposed to give you different ways to solve problems. This game railroads you into situation after situation with no prep or input from you.
Patch 2.0 brought a lot of controversial changes (and old bugs I haven't seen since 1.3). It really makes me wonder who is overseeing the whole project. How do you reintroduce old bugs in a new patch? The game was fun pre 2.0. There was a lot of freedom in playstyles and the systems made some sense. Now, so many changes force you into certain unfun paths. Its like each team in charge of changing systems never talked to each other. Hundreds of clothing don't give armor, but one specifically does. Perks now unlock at lvl 4, 9, 15 and 20, instead of at roughly every 2 levels, but the lvl 20 perks are worse than lvl 15 so no reason to get 20 in anything except tech. Skill checks are broken. Mission balance is broken. Perk balance makes no sense. The police system is broken, despite their marketing being all about the new police system. A lot of builds are broken, leading to more railroading. Previous patch had a lot of variety in play styles, whereas now players are railroaded into a combat build because all of the feats they showcased in the ads had to be pumped up in power essentially nerfing other builds because enemies scale now. These won't be fixed because CDPR does big untested patches instead of a lot of little ones. You had one job, CDPR. Build and improve on the base game, not create something from untested scratch.
I enjoyed the base game and all of the DLC's the state of the game pre latest patch was great. Had a lot of fun and its exactly what you want in a stompy robot game. The most recent patch of this writing has ruined the allied ai to make this completely unplayable. This could be the last patch since there is no news they will fix this. AI is broken and now the game is unfun.
I want to preface this by stating I like MW5 and am happy with the other DLC's. This one seems very undercooked. I can tell they had good intentions of fixing some problems with the base game but didn't pull it off. Like having a use for light mechs late game. The new infiltration missions are way too risky, putting all your light mechs far into enemy territory surrounded by enemies, for a long period of time for very little pay out. When I can make millions on a quick raid mission in under 5 minutes. I understand they wanted to make more varied, interesting missions but there is absolutely no reason to take this mission type, so I avoid it just like beachhead missions. I am level 7 into a new game and still haven't run into other mercs. The reputation system is still broken so you are quickly chased out of lower level areas so You'll only be interacting with late game merc companies. New mechs and new missions are always nice, still haven't seen them in game yet tho. No new terrains. It's not a bad DLC, its just completely unnecessary unless they fix the design mechanics.
The art style, story, voice acting and mechanics are all good. The tutorial was brief and effective. I really liked all of the locations and characters. The mystery had enough twists and turns to stay interesting. I really enjoyed the personality system and puzzles. This game learns from the past and has utilized the best mechanics of previous adventure games. The one complaint I would have is that I wish there was more puzzles because the game had a good foundation. To be fair though, there are 3 different paths to take with 3 times the puzzle solutions in total and the story is concise. You aren't left wandering lost. Thumbs up. Can't wait for a sequal.
This game had a lot of potential and now I regret buying it. First the parts I liked are the art style, the atmosphere/setting, and the protagonist. There are two main problems that I did not like. First is that you get a constant companion whom comments on EVERYTHING you do. A trope that is taken from the Blackwell series, except in this one the voice actor is annoying and talks with a long island accent. Most of what he says is very modern real life sounding that jolts me right out of the game. Imagine playing and George Costanza commenting on everything you do in a sarcastic way. I wanted to play this game on mute. It ties into the problem of about half the characters are good and the other half have terrible modern issues dialogue. Its very heavy handed and not atmospheric. The other problem that made me write this review is that you can get stuck on a mission and cant advance the game. Mission 4 to be exact. It is so easy to fail in this game and you have no idea why. You have to talk to people in a certain order and avoid certain topics or else you fail. The first puzzle was a music puzzle that I couldnt figure out, then there were no other puzzles that I found. Failing an earlier mission can force you to fail later missions. This is not fun in the least. I was expecting branching consequences and real detective work. It could have been excellent but bad writing, bad voice acting and poor implementation drag this down.
I was in the mood for a complex deep game that had building elements that mattered. I could not find anything to fit the bill anywhere. I picked this up on a whim and when I first tried it I thought it was a simple transport simulator. Wow was I wrong. This is a deep rpg with skill trees that matter. A variety of tactics are used depending on your situation, whether you have passengers/cargo or not. You can even try to outrun enemies. The game got deeper the more I played and building up your train is addictive. You can go with a slow lumbering tank or a light and fast set up. The upgrades you can have on your train really make it feel like a home base you care about. There is even a story mode where your choices can really change the tide of war. Right now the game is extremely difficult, which I consider a bonus. It took me three restarts to figure out the best strategy. Money is tight in this game and you get attacked often. It would be better with a difficulty adjuster. Like I said, strategy is important and you can replay battles. Do you keep your passengers safe or sacrifice them for an advantage? Is it worth it to put someone on the machine gun or to fight them hand to hand? Right now there are four factions. I do wish there was more enemy variety but I haven't finished the game yet and haven't even played with the cannons yet. I just won my first bakery in an auction and hope to buy another caboose so I can hire four more fighters to add to my team of five right now. No more transporting cotton to Cleveland for me! Oh and there are random side quests and encounters you can pick up which can hurt or help you. In closing this is a very difficult game but lots of fun when you get the hang of it. I highly recommend it as a base builder rpg. It's still in development but well worth the money now. I look forward to more content and would buy dlc if they add the wild west.
I lucked out and got this game on recommendation when it first came out. Like other reviews say, great story, great atmosphere, memorable characters. But none of them talk about the locations. The locations are just as cool to explore. There are traditional crypt dungeons with traps, shadow castles, city slums, a maze prison, literal Hell, a robot spaceship, sewer societies, a brothel, a church/foundry, some sort of heaven. It really mixes it up. The characters you meet really make the places unique. You can't die because you will just come back to life somewhere else, but your companions can't. And they are so engaging that you would do anything to keep them alive. Great game.
This is an old-school game. This is not hack and slash action RPG with quicktime events and hand-holding missions where you just follow along without any real failure or consequence kind of game. Everything you do matters. There is no "right" way to beat a quest. If you fail a quest to kill a target or find an artifact the story moves on and that target might turn out to be your best ally down the road or that artifact was just worthless junk anyway.. You can get through the merchant questline the quickest, then some of the others are much more complicated and stabby. The combat is grid based isometric. Lots of good attack and death animations. Huge choice of weapons. There is truly no "ultimate" weapon. You want to keep a variety of favorites. Each armor actually shows on your character. You play solo but sometimes you have allies. Tactics are a must. You can't rush three guys at once hoping to knock them out with one hit each. This isn't Diablo. So the pluses will be minuses for some; -Rich story, great art style and music -High replayability with multiple questlines with each questline having three or more outcomes. -Different ways to complete quests, failing quests intentionally or unintentionally unlocks new quests (or has better rewards than completing the quest). -Exploration and side quests are optional, you can betray your bosses and pick who you want to work for at any time. -Combat is challenging, must use tactics, variety of weapons and armor, you get the spoils of war so whatever your enemy had is now yours. Kill street thugs for fun. Or join the army and jump into the middle of a war. -You have to really think about what you want to do next. The only goal of the game is to benefit yourself, not save the world. You won't find a cliche ending where you are hero who won the girl but tearfully lost your best friend. -Old-school RPG meaning you have stats, you have action points and HP, you must heal yourself. You must learn and adapt to excel.
