This review is written after beating the main game 1 time and PotFF 1 time. May main build was mage, but as I saw it, the game push you to give some love to your mage and marksman build. I didn't try or care the multiplayer. You control the playable character, there's no party. You can pause and go to your inventory, craft, make some potions or save almost any time. Even in the middle of a boss battle. After a "training/tutorial" area, most of the world and you can wander a big part of the map. It's not 100% free roaming, some areas will only open after some quests or after winning a battle. In addition, enemies don't scale to your level (I like that). The story is serviceable at best. Don't expect get attach to a character. As a matter of fact, don't expect be drive by the story. That's the work of the looting system. The looting in combo with crafting will keep you going. I did like the leveling and the skill system too. You need to put some mind in it to make a good build but is not too punishing. Alchemy is useful but is not as important like with the first game, where you have potions that increase your stats permanently. You still should learn at least some alchemy in this game. I like the magic system quit a lot. Is simple and complex at the same time. In TW2 you have 4 or 5 kind of spells (simple) and you can customized them quite a lot (complex). And is all trial and error, nobody really teach you spells. Is all experimentation, and that experimentation is inexpensive. You need stuff to put your spell together and you can buy that, but you can also loot it instead of spending money. It has fast travel and it is reasonably flexible. The final battle of the main game, without at least 5 bottles of one specific potion may be unbeatable for some builds. To be fair, the late game gives you tons of the main ingredient of that potion. But I pity those who reached the final battle without working in their alchemy.
Is a good old school action rpg. You won't have a party nor companions of any type. The combat is good for an RPG, just don't expect a souls game. Foes don't respawn nor match your level. You better where you are getting yourself into. The voice acting is kind of bad. The story telling in general never hooked me. The main quest meh, the meat of the game, IMO, is exploring and level up your character. It has a interesting take on gear. You can upgrade armor / weapon by dragging exactly the same kind on top it. E.G. You can rise the stats the "Silver riveted boots" you have in your inventory or that you are wearing by dragging on top of them another pair of "Silver riveted boots". It won't work with "Silvered boots" nor "Riveted boots", need to be exactly the same. This is not explained anywhere in the game. The magic system is not mind blowing but offers you a nice set of tools for combat. Mages are quite viable. I have to admit I made my mage wear an armor instead a tunic and made it learn to swing swords and maces. But I didn't really needed to, I just felt I was more fun that way. Alchemy is also important. Used correctly is another way permanently rise your character stats. My only technical problem is it 100% skipped the last 2 CGI. Not a big deal for me, as I said the story telling is not that good anyway. Sadly there almost no mods for this game. It never really had a modding community behind it.
- - May ##th, 2023 I just finished the main game and I love it. I didn't try the DLCs/expansions yet, but I don't see how could them change my opinion on this game. I came to this game expecting to like it less than DE:HR, given the reviews from other players. My is my build or maybe is my play-style (faces of the same coin, I know) but enjoyed DE:MD more than DE:HR. I play immersive-sims as stealth games, killing as little as I can (not on principle but for convenience) and exploring every nook and cranny before a quest take you there. Is true in this game you do lose the feel globetrotting. You do travel, not to cities, but to building/military-complex. Other than that, you only have Prague. And Prague great, is an interesting city with a lot to explore. I didn't felt the game is short in account of having only one city, I didn't felt is short at all. My graphic card clocked 98 hours for this game. One may do the argument in addition to the city of Prague there is a settlement, but you can also make the argument calling it a settlement is a stretch. The story is on the same level with previous entries of the game. May be is a tad less gritty than DE:HR. I specially enjoy how, as the story develop, is more in your face with the topic: mainstream journalism is just propaganda. This is a matter of taste and opinions, you may very well not be like it at all. PS: the augment to convert items into scraps for crafting is a God send.
- - May ##th, 2024 I just finished the main game and I love it. I didn't try the DLCs/expansions yet, but I don't see how could them change my opinion on this game. I came to this game expecting to like it less than DE:HR, given the reviews from other players. My is my build or maybe is my play-style (faces of the same coin, I know) but enjoyed DE:MD more than DE:HR. I play immersive-sims as stealth games, killing as little as I can (not on principle but for convenience) and exploring every nook and cranny before a quest take you there. Is true in this game you do lose the feel globetrotting. You do travel, not to cities, but to building/military-complex. Other than that, you only have Prague. And Prague great, is an interesting city with a lot to explore. I didn't felt the game is short in account of having only one city, I didn't felt is short at all. My graphic card clocked 98 hours for this game. One may do the argument in addition to the city of Prague there is a settlement, but you can also make the argument calling it a settlement is a stretch. The story is on the same level with previous entries of the game. May be is a tad less gritty than DE:HR. I specially enjoy how, as the story develop, is more in your face with the topic: mainstream journalism is just propaganda. This is a matter of taste and opinions, you may very well not be like it at all. PS: the augment to convert items into scraps for crafting is a God send.
The title of my review is more opinionated than I would like, but space constraints are a b**ch. I do think this is the best _immersive sim_ of its generation, but I fully admit didn't played all there's is out there from that time. I mean, e.g. Instead of combat you can use your stealth and hacking abilities to beat almost al bosses in the game. And I say almost 'cos I never tried with the first one, but I guessing you can do that too. If it is your play through, you may need to peep a guide of advice on how not to screw your character for a stealth run. The story is quite good but it will be less impactful for those who played the first game. DE:HR's story borrows some ideas from the original game. That helps to keep the same feeling, but limits the times you'll be surprised. And on top of that, being a prequel, the decision you must take at the very end of the game feel less weighty. I mean JC Denton is unavoidable. For those who plays the first Deus Ex, this game feels a lot like the first one with a little of streamlining applied. Just a little, it's no "Invisible War" (Deus ex 2 ). The streamlining materializes a comfort sometimes and as plain simplification of mechanics some others. Something has being lost at hand of please a wider audiences but the net result of it still is great.
After having played T1 and T2, this is my favorite "Tropico". Don't get me wrong, T3 is not better that T1 and T2 in every aspect. T1 is a more accurate simulation in some regards. E.g. in T1 roads have its construction time like anything else and you 100% must take that in account for long roads. I didn't really enjoyed the level of detail of the simulation T1. At some point started to feel like a chore. To do well I needed to keep in mind "too many" things at the same time. Take this "too many" with a grain of salt, I more a RPG player than a managerial games player. T2 story and setting is more interesting to me. I also prefer games to have a camping, T3 base game doesn't have one. In T3 every thing felt a little streamlined in comparison with T1. The addition of cars and garages is a welcome change. I like to be able to have farmers to living in "the city" and have the farms far away. Laying road through though tight and or uneven spaces is a pain. I always save before starting to lay road and load those saves more often than I like to admit. I like you can chose the profile of your character at the start of each island. You can reuse the last one you used just by pressing next a number of times or "build" a totally new ruler. I "HATE" the DJ but is safe to turn him off at the game settings. In 2022, running Windows 10 I had zero (0) crashes nor technical issues.
The the hand draw art is quite nice. Music and voice acting are good. It tells a typical fantasy story. It is the quest of the hero for saving the world with a few bitter sweet moments moments here and a few dark twists there. Interesting but not mind blowing. The puzzles are mostly fair and logical. Pressing the space bar you can see all interactive elements in the scene. I did had to peep a guide twice on account of not doing certain interactions in the expected order.
I liked quite a lot. In many regards is comparable to Gothic I. You could say is a reboot but changing the name and the lore and keeping most of the formula. The melee feels a lot like Gothic I/II. Ranged became weak by comparison. Magic is really weak at the start and really powerful by the end and it is quite simple all the way. There 3 dealing damage spells and you are supposed to specialize in one. The rest of the magic spells are small buffs or support magic. Buffs and support spells are available to every one by using consumable scrolls. Music is ok, but forgettable. Is not bad nor annoying music in any way, it just wont give you the chills when you hear the main theme some time after you beat the game. Its, divided in 4 chapters. In the first one you can cover, let's say, 80% of the map and the rest on chapter 2. This unless you are trying to play mage, then you should delay most of the exploration out of cities to chapter 2. Chapter 3 and 4 had few side-quest that couldn't be finished before. This chapters are mostly about dungeon crawling.
It feels more like BS1 and BS2 than the other 2 sequels. The story is quite good. There is zero pixelhunt. You run into familiar faces. I comes with hint system that did a good job no telling more that I did to knew.
I liked M:Exodus better than the 2 past games in the series, but I like games with open world design. This game also has levels. Some of those levels are claustophobic corridors just like the levels of the previous games, and others are open maps. You could argue in one of those maps you start in one tip and only makes sense travel to the other tips, but still is a map. The true open maps let you explore and if you are thorough you'll find the best improvements for your weapons. Also will find settlements where you can "chat" (you don't talk) with locals or deal with foes. Don't hold your breath for Ins, Stores or minigames. The friendly settlements are tinny. You get to drive vehicles at times. The first one I drive I got stuck quite a while 'cos I didn't know how to get out. It's the same key you used to get in, but the other actions you can do in this first vehicle are explained to you. The selection of mutants could be bigger. In general I expected a longer game, I did enjoy my time with it though. The saves systems is a little different than before. You have slots, each slot allows you to keep a different play-through. When you load the game at the main screen, you get inside that slot and and can't save or load in other slot any more. Inside the slot you have just one manual save, and 3 autosaves. Every time you save manually, you overwrite your previous manual save. Each time the game saves automatically, the older of your 3 autosaves is lost. This system worked well for me most of the time. You only need to be mindful about when and where manually save. The story is OK. It's not mind blowing but is good enough to keep you interested. I got the good ending playing in normal at the first try without googling. I feel at least in normal the game is more forgiving than before. There are littler to no mods for this game.
