Is a TPP Action RPG, I.E. you control only you, there is no party. The combat is OK. I played pure mage, is quite viable if you don't mater to run a little to keep your distance. I used only 1 (one) summon through most of of the game and added a 2nd in the late game. You can pause and save at almost any moment, in middle of the combat too. The graphics are good for the time of its release. The storytelling is good within the game, I'm not sure I like the path franchise takes with this game took. I can't explain without expoilling it. It has a couple of unique mechanics, dragon morph and mindread. Mindread is the chance of getting extra info in exchange of lossing some experience points. Dragon morph is the ability of becoming a dragon and fight flotating / flying foes. Comming from Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity, I missed visiting cities/settlement from other races. There's very little of that in this game. It seems it was planned content that Larian had to cut off to meet the deadlines set by the publisher. Such a shame. If you want to play at higher resolutions, the size of the font may be an issue. You may wanna check at videos on youtube of the game. The only mod for font size I found was optimized for 1366x768 so I played at that resolution. My sight is far from 20-20. You may use the same mod for higher resolutions and be confortable. PS: Some other reviews say so, but it doesn't feel like Gothic I nor Gothic II to me. Their controls schemes are similar but Larian's and Piranha Bytes' world building is quite different IMO.
Is not the perfect RTS, but is certainly the best in the Star Trek universe. The campaign will take you the TNG, DS9 & VOY era. It is set just after the events of ST:Voyager to be more precise, but the 3 series are referenced. Each faction has its own campaign so each map you play feel like an episode. You can also play a selected map outside of a campaign. Once you played the campaigns, if you are willing to forefit the 3D combat, you can install the mod "fleet ops". "fleet ops" its free full revamp of the game. You need to own Armada II and then you install "fleet ops" on top. It doesn't have a campaigns but it can play a map of your selection with random initial placement of each faction and all the other factions controlled by the PC. You can parametrize how many faction will be in the map and the difficulty. I have spend over a thousand of hours playing in skirmish mode, playing with harder settings every time.
In "Finding Paradise", as its predecessor "To The moon", you spend most of your time learning a story presented in non-linear way and exploring stages. You also resolve low complexity puzzles and you may engage in a handful of short combats (100% skipable). It is fair to say its RPGMaker game with 6 hours of gameplay and very simple mechanics. It's also fair to say it has very good story structured in a very smart way. The story not only will evoke emotions also invites to philosophical reflexion. I do admit "To The moon" story was a notch better in my opinion, but just a notch. If you enjoyed "To The moon" you can't afford not playing "Finding Paradise". The music is excellent and its carefully used to set different moods at different parts of the game.
You know those games that are know for showing you the story, the mechanics, the objectives rather that tell you about those, but sooner rather than later you are googling stuff? This isn't one of those. It is build in such way you'll figure out what is happening and what you need to do from what it is shown and what you did in previous puzzles. I didn't search for a walkthrough, I never needed to check one. The story is quite straight forward, you could argue it has 1 twist. I completed the game in around 4 hours without caring for achievements. And that number may be inflated, I began the game wasting time trying to loot boxes and barrels as it was an RPG. The challenge curve goes up slowly and never becomes seriously challenging. I never tried to perform anything more that 3 times before succeeding.
When I want a point&click with tidy mechanics, funny story, cool puzzles and despise for all what is politically correct I go for the next entry in Deponia series. Keeping that in mind Deponia 3 doesn't disappoint one bit. IMO is as good as Deponia 2 and better than Deponia 1. I saw the controversy about the protagonist's fate and some negative reviews in that regard. IMO that is 100% anecdotic and reversible, give some thing we learn in this very same game.
This is a great turn based strategy game. It has variety of enemies and maps, the first time player on a blind playthrough will be surprised for sure. There are different approaches for every situation. You can develop individual characters and the technology available to you. You can build you bases and you need to consider the space devoted to research, manufacturing, habitation, etc and the location (your ships need time to reach places). I have spend hundreds of hours playing this game, still I never make it to Mars (final level/stage). Back then, before the wide spread adoption of internet this game was shipped with a weird bug in its technology tree. Some very specific combination of researched tech made for the player impossible to research the technology need to beat the game. The patch was available reasonably soon, but I found about it years later.
I give it 3 starts and no less 'cos it may be this games is just not for me. May be, if I had choose a different road out of high school i'd love this game. With the things as they are, this is like work, but a little more limited. The hole mechanics of the game is about typing and clicking stuff in a time constrained fashion. If you gonna go down this road, at least give me some kind of scripting or advanced text edition functions. That way at least I get to automate the repetitive shit.
You will understand the title of this review after you play the game. Is related with the the fact some people resent the game has become more cruel. This is true for some events in the game. What I have to say about that claim is: If you come to a Deponia game looking for kindness or political correctness you are searching in the wrong place, please leave. With that out of my system... Deponia II is a great point&click. The mechanics are the same the first game has, so they are smooth. The puzzles are logical. I only peep a walkthrough twice. Almost nothing by my standards. The story is comical, absurd and acid. The main character is an inconsiderated delusional jerk . The rest of the characters aren't too deep but are interesting any way. There are a couple of argumental twist. Happily both of them are well justified.
