It took me 7:30h to get through it and I stood around and watched the environment a lot! But it was quality time. Especially the last level was so magnificient that I didn't want to continue playing, I just stood in awe to try to wrap my head around everything I could see. Gameplaywise it is a mix between Myst and Resident Evil 7/8 and there is definitely room for improvement combat-wise. But in the end this game is much more than the sum of its parts. I probably will give it another run, because I'm sure I missed a lot of details, especially in the scarier areas. Please don't watch a let's play like I feel it's common in this generation, experience it for yourself. While it has its shortcomings, it is one of the most amazing games I've played in a long time. It puts a lot of so called "fantasy" games to shame. The sheer crazyness of the stuff you'll see is just beyond comprehension. I'm still in shock. PS: Played it on day one and I didn't see a single bug or glitch, ran absolutely stable. My proudest pre-order.
If you play only the main missions and a few side quests and don't look at anything else, you'll have a great time. The illusion of the world falls apart really quickly when you try to find anything else in the world. Hell, even Ghostrunner has hidden collectibles, but in this game you will find doors you can't open, NPCs that say one line if you can talk to them at all. And this I find very painful for what was advertised. Also one big problem is the game world itself. I turn off the minimap do get fully immersed in the game and unfortunately a lot of places in the game look similar. A regular organic city has different quarters that evolved differently and at different times and have different art styles, but here you'll have a hard time telling the different districts apart (except for Pacifica and the huge mega building). The stealth system isn't perfect and the gun game doesn't feel right, but it's okay for what it is. So while I loved the main story line which would deserve a 5/5 I can't just brush away everything else which feels like playing an unfinished game. I have very high hopes for the addon, so let's see if they can deliver on that.
This game is veeery short, I just played it in one go and it took me 6 hours. I didn't run through the game, I looked at everything there was etc. There is a longer part in the game where you're relatively passive and mostly reiterate the story without new revelations. I didn't like that. Besides that, this game is genius, so much detail, such an interesting story, german soldiers who actually speak german, great italian voices, gruesome story, fucked up but human motives and very detailled world. You run around in ego perspective, find items, do stuff with items, overall you don't have many choices, so I see it more like a visual novel. Why only 4 stars? - I think one choice changes the outcome of the game a bit, but overall I think the replayability is quite low - The performance is really bad. I got an RTX 3080TI, turned off the RTX and it still stutters a lot. What hardware do I need to run this game in 60fps? This can be fixed with further patches though - Links to replayability, but due to its shortness I'd love to have more bonuses, hidden rooms with extra lore which are really optional. Maybe I missed something, but I tend to look at everything and interact with everything. For the current price I'd recommend to BUY IT! It's a unique experience and you'll see stuff you won't forget. (This game deals with war, mental health issues, murder and all sorts of disturbing imagery, you have been warned)
This game is a masterpiece. The story is incredibly captivating, interesting, philosophically deep. The voice acting is superb, the main characters are great and the ending is just genius. I played ~13h. Cons: - Very little collectibles that are actually useful, so even though you can examine a lot of objects, the world feels rather static. If you played "Deliver Us The Moon", it's the same thing here. - When you are low on health, everything looks a bit defracted and I really didn't like this effect at all, but that might be a matter of taste. The pain points are practically neglectable Do yourself a favour and buy it.
Other reviews already mentioned that the gameplay is amazing. But for me also the setting is way better than the fairy tale setting of the predecessor. This game is really dark and I like it. The soundtrack is also amazing. Heavy metal mixed with oriental vibes. It's like 300 as a game. A real classic that aged well. 15 years later it plays as fluently as it did back then. Buy it. Now.
