The game is solid fun for most of the run. There is a decent variety of weapons, the claw offers a nice movement mechanic, and the relics add variety. The save system is a little silly in my opinion, requiring soul tethers to save except for shrines and level starts. They give you so many, however, that it really isn't an issue. It did end weak, slightly out staying its welcome and having a poor final boss. By the time I was most of the way through the third and final hub, it had stopped showing me anything new. I had a serious case of can I just be done yet. The final boss was disappointing and seemed ill-thought out. If you have a decent stash of relics you won't have any trouble with it. No replayability unless you want to just do the same thing over again. Still, worth a play and it runs great even on an old Linux laptop like mine.
Pros: Good controls Excellent atmosphere Cons: Short May Vary: Very easy. I hardly ever had to retry for puzzles or fights.
Remains is a survival crafting game set in space. You get around in your suit, gathering materials that swing past quickly and using them to build things to help you survive. There is a sequence of "missions" presented through your menus that point you in a direction, but you could also do whatever you wanted if it struck you. There are definitely some bugs and I think it would benefit from more sound effects even though space is silent. Some small audio feedback for collecting items, for example. The big gripe, and what takes it down to three stars, is that the game is not finished and seems to be lagging in development severely on GOG. As of October of 2023, the last update was November of 2022.
I love the premise and potential of the game. Free ranging exploration, build your own vehicles and bases, etc. Building is a bit clunky compared to 7 Days to Die, the closest equivalent I have to this game. I have logged perhaps a dozen hours at this point and would likely do a lot more but...Performance. The game does not lag and playing is smooth which is how I missed the problem for so long. Like pretty much any playable big world game, Plant Nomads loads the world as it comes close enough to be relevant to you. To further reduce the burden they load lower resoluation placeholders for things that are within your line of sight but not close enough to really interact with. The problem is that I could easily outstrip the loading speed and so find myself walking first in a distorted version of the actual landscape then in a featureless landscape for a minute or so before the game caught up. Then I could find myself standing next to a hostile life form or some other hazard. This behavior is a gamebreaker for me. I plan to keep an eye on development of the game they have already performed a lot of optimizations but I will not be trying again until I hear that they have improved it further. System Specs: i5-4210U 16 GB Intel HD Graphics
If you liked and sixth and seventh installments in this series, you will like this one as well. It has many of the same faults and the same virtues. The main difference between it and the previous two titles is that you only create a single character: all other members of your party must be recruited. I actually liked this feature though I imagine some will see it as a minus.
I really wanted to like this game. Desperately wanted to and rather expected to. Day of the Destroyer received a fair number of poor reviews yet still turned out enjoyable, after all. Sadly, I just couldn't make myself like it. After that little blurb, I will start by saying that the game as downloaded from GOG was quite stable: it never crashed on me. Problems: The story. Usually Might and Magic games have a good to excellent introduction with a story and setting that can suck you in. Not here. The introduction fails to be either graphically interesting or informative: things happen. More things happen. Then some other things happen. Not far from the literal script of the introduction. You see a series of images revealed in torchlight that make some sense if you have read the manual and background on the game. That is it. The story doesn't get fleshed out once you are in the game. The environment doesn't pull you in: it might be 3-d but the sheer emptiness of it takes away anything gained from that fact. Character development looks interesting at first glance but you can quickly see that you are effectively pushed towards a certain set of skills if you want to survive. Forget variety. It is behind Mandate of Heaven in that respect.
