I liked this game from the start. It is easy to get into, a lot to discover and motivates to dig deeper into the game world. There's no excessive management to keep track of e.g. the character can carry infinite items. Still it's far from easy, many areas are inaccessible in the beginning, when the character is yet too weak. It is still fun to try and beat some more difficult enemies early on. There is no voice output but the style used in the game with the NPC showing gestures is fitting. Dialogs are not too lengthy while there is still an interesting story to follow. There is little handholding in some areas, for example no fast travel and no map markers that show where to go. Sometimes this can lead to difficult situations when you don't exactly where to go next. This have been only a few instances, though, and generally it feels natural to navigate manually. Although lots of places can / have to be visited multiple times it doesn't become boring. There is not much offered with regards to choices in the game. You can choose one of two factions and I believe the outcome with both factions will be pretty similar. One major story development is kind of bad development / decision that cannot be prevented, has to be actively contributed to. This was a bit unexpected but still has an interesting touch to it in the end. The player can show remorse afterwards and try to act better.
I played the origin Stasis shortly before buying this title. I generally like both titles a lot. Still they differ a bit in style. The horror aspect is lost a bit in Bone Totem due to a three character setup and also a bit due to the interface. In the original Stasis there was no hotspot highlighting at all. Deliberately as the devs said back then to create better immersion. This was sometimes annoying since one can miss interactive hotspots that you need to hunt for to progress in the game. Here in Bone Totem the hotspot highlighting system is finally there, also logically kind of well integrated as a "ping" into the game world that highlights interactive and non-interactive hotspots not only on the currently visible screen but also beyond the corners of the current view. This is actually quite distracting the gameplay and immersion. You no longer have to pixel hunt but I find the approach a bit too distracting. The game turned out surprisingly big for me and I had a long and fun time playing it. Even if it is not feeling as lonesome and frightening as the former Stasis title the story stays interesting and I had fun pushing forward. The characters are really memorable. Even if some aspects of the story are a bit too far fetched or unlogical the overall game adds up and makes you think. It even mirrors some or our real life present, where our society and humanity is or might be going to.
... or Desperados III. I subtracting one star because of this special disappointment. The game has pretty much the same mechanics as the other games. So this is certainly not the problem. The problem is in my opinion that this game is missing its heart, or the love put into its story and level design. Someone else already said it: It's quantity over quality. The story is progressing too fast and with too little introduction into this new universe they created. The mechanics for each playable character are surely creative, but the individual characters lack heart. Playing all the levels feels like boring work. There's nothing really special about any of the missions. Most of the islands are visited over and over again with respawned enemies. Large regions of the islands don't even have to be visisted for finishing the missions. It's just kind of arbitrary. This is all far away from the depth the caracters especially in Shadow Tactics had. There was really a mood setting that is somehow missing here. It feels like mimimi games went to Hollywood. Even on "Legendary" difficulty setting it's not really a problem just charging forward in most of the missions. Finishing the missions rarely feels like an accomplishment. That you can play each mission with mostly arbitrary character selection is probably at the root of this. The levels have to be playable by all kinds of character combinations. While in the other games the level design was more intricate and you e.g. had certain characters in different locations and had to join them first. Not even talking about the bonds that the characters had through their missions and the story telling. This is - again - just kind of arbitrary in Shadow Gambit. I really hope mimimi games is not continuing on this path.
