I had a hankering for a nostalgic rpg and tried to get Ultima vii running, got tired of the hassle and loaded nox instead. ran perfect right from the start and the rest was easy goodness fun. first time play thru, no nostalgic glasses. played as conjurer Pros: excellent voice acting, joanna cassidy voiced hecubbah and did a fantastic job of manically laughing at you the whole way. beautiful lush landscapes, all hand drawn, great animations and spell effects. Many different spells to try out, easy inventory, secrets to find, can play as three classes each with their own diff spells. great music, many different levels with different environments. you can charm monsters, summon monsters or just bash their heads in. different armor sets do different things. looting and the list goes on. Cons: looting got a bit tiresome as you just collect the same armor types to replace ones broken by use. which brings me to durability issues, stores are few and far betw long dungeons, armor is constantly being used up, costs to repair are very high. to afford keeping a high resistance set i had to resort to ferrying loot back to store to sell repeatedly as you cant carry it all. you have 2 slots for weapon switching, i used one for melee other for range, but to conserve durability or arrows you had to manually switch out to a 3 cheap bashing weapon which got old. playing as a magic wielder was tiresome too as your mana pool is drained by just 2-3 spells so you end up running back to mana recharge spots over and over in order to combat. as for glitches, quick save often fails so you have to go into the menu and save manually or else repeat game time since last save. all of this makes me rethink playing it again as another class all those cons above are not as bad as they seem, overall the game is very fun, pleasant.
My star rating was more towards 3.5 than 4, there were alot of glitches, character getting stuck, broken hot links etc to warrant better. Pros: easy to navigate, decent graphics, big giggle factor playing the son of satan and all his nasty tricks, bewbs and other bits to goggle at, decent story, lots to do. decent ambiance sounds and music, ok voice overs. Cons: actions are not easily figured out, honestly without a walkthru I would have given up at times as the solution was pretty bizarre at times. becomes a bit formulaic after a bit, the end scene (and throughout game) had numerous bugs and glitches, and had timed actions that forced many retries to the point it ruined the flow of the game and became just tiresome with long wait time for it to reset. game is pretty short, i finished it in two days but to be frank this was not a bad thing as the premise had worn itself out by then. good to buy on deep sale
I was excited for this game and preordered it, I adored Inside and looked forward to this. After playing for awhile I find it irritating, not immersive and not scary or disturbing enough. Keyboard controls are iffy, often times the camera gives little input as to whether you are facing forward, backwards etc and that makes for many failures which increases platform annoyances due to bizarre autosaving. There are lanterns to light to supposedly put you back into action nearer but I dont see any advantage to that, as you invariably resurrect into the game at some earlier point, leading to replaying long stretches over and over till you figure out the 'trick'. Inside was way more generous with save points and limited the irritation factor immensely. Camera angles often obscure your character and what they are doing. The good points of the game is the art style and for that alone its worth it to buy on deep sale. However, the soundscape isnt that good, music is limited and the ambiance sound is not very scary or immersive. disappointing. As for the story.... I havent a clue what is going on, its not scary at all. There are some disturbing scenes but I expected more of a dread feeling from the promos and trailers. The game play is interesting, trying to avoid baddies and explore but once again, actionable areas are hard to find and discern from background art. Many areas look explorable but are not. In fact, exploration is something i started to avoid due to check point saves punishing you and making you replay long stretches. all in all a disappointing offering after the stellar Inside. get it for the art and style but skip it if you hate platforming with wonky controls and camera.
I hate platformers. Avoid them like the plague. but was given this game as a preorder goodie for little nightmares, their next game. Inside blew my freaking mind. Disturbing on so many levels, out right shocking at times and a fun puzzler to boot made this my GOTY. And did I mention I hate platformers? Pros: Vast changing environments, although seen from 2d movement were still awesome. Incredible music that only added sub bass tones to deepen your anxiety or long stretches of just your characters heavy breathing or grunts. Other times a crescendo would peak then fade out, sound scape at its finest. The graphics were seamless and the animations were very well done, cue disturbing shocks of dismemberment of children etc. The story was incredible, from the outset you were drawn into a survival bid without knowing what was happening, only that it was very bleak and dire. Best part was when you died, and you die often, the game was very generous with putting you back into the game near where you died. limited frustration runs. you are able to key map your limited controls, I did wsad and right enter for mine and space to jump. very intuitive to use. Cons: it is a platformer so there are stretches of platformer annoyances where you repeatedly have to run the same stretch until you 'figure' out the trick to get out. The game doesnt hold your hand on what is going on, you are left to interpret it at your leisure. this is usually annoying but i found it only deepened my game. This game deserves any of the many awards Ive heard its gotten. It is very original, horrifying and yet breathtaking at times with some of the most fluid movement animation Ive seen in awhile. The last bit of game had me laughing out loud (tho it was far from funny) at the absurdity of it all. brilliant
Playing this immediately after release with the finished game and I can tell you this is an astounding game as far as immersion and storytelling. Pros: Lots of ways to tweak the interface, graphics and sound. Very realistic graphics, the trees howl with the wind, ice crackles, snow obscures your vision, the truck used for driving is spot on. All this adds a level of immersion to the game that I havent seen since The Vanishing of Ethan or Last of Us. Add in a music score that lends a sense of foreboding to the environment plus perfectly tinny radio 'songs' for that era to enhance the feeling of being there. Movement is also intuitive, you can toggle on effects such as head bob or blending to your liking. FOV can be tweaked to limit nausea which ruins many first person game for me. The story is unfolded thru found evidence, letters, notes while a voice over narrates the background. Its very much an adventure story with some survival, you will die of cold and need heat, which adds a frantic feeling at times when you are lost in the woods. Heat sources are where you can save the game, the only place and this can be restricting. Cons: lack of tutorial, I died several times before I got the hang of action prompts, which leads to the next problem, saving. If you die before you can access a heat source you will have to redo that stretch from last save, its check point saves. I had to spend quite some time to tweak my graphics to match the opening scene. for some reason once in game they became highly washed out and hyper bright. The Radial UI is pure port nonsense but is not that awkward to adapt to. By far the worst bit of the game is the narrator, I dont know why they insisted on it to be voiced, he only rips you away from immersion.. The voice actor tho decent, is not a good match, no Geralt of Witcher quality here. Its annoying but they do allow you to mute him somewhat overall a beautiful, haunting game and well worth the price
There are many gems in this old game, lots of puns, pranks and great voice overs. For those and some decent art (for its time) this game is one for any adventure game lovers library. I adored the elevator robots for some reason. That said, I recommend playing with a walk through open from the start to save added aggravation from trying to navigate the interface, confusing maps, long animation sequences related to just traveling around and some very very obscure puzzle solving. There is no way in Hades I would have even made it past the first 15 min without a walkthru as the game more or less dumps you into the ship with bare instructions. With a walkthru the game took me around 8 hrs, and even using that cheat it was hard going due to the twitchiness of some of the puzzles, some timed, lots of backtracking thru long animations and of course illogical adventure game puzzle solutions. etc. Pro tip: make good use of saves! Glad I have this game, it was fun to wear 2D glasses lol, but I am even more glad for a walkthru.
I came into this game a huge fan of the Divine Divinity franchise but this offering so annoying I've given up on it. Pros: Same nice art, decent dialogue, nice music. Cons: fiddly UI, often sent careening off map as I try to target the tiny portraits in order to open up the potion panel. no hot keys , have to click a small icon by the portrait of each member, then each has their own potions, by then you are dead. Constantly having to reorder teammates to follow as just taking a potion or looking into their inventory loses that function. Extremely annoying skill tree with obscure skills and procedure in order to 'unlock' just to be able to train one day. Every skill is broken down into subsets and each requires its own unlock and then skill point. Want to wield a sword? put a point into piercing, crushing or slashing or a myriad other subset for that one skill. Want to use a shield too? well guess what, a whole lot of other subsets and slashing damage etc to each skill out. I pity poor archers who have to unlock and then train for each type of arrow. Obscure skill sets with no explanation or tool tip to guide. same with charms, potions and so on. but by far the worst part of the game is that its BORING. Ive cleared out the 1st battle dungeon and I can say that it was by far the most unchallenging, boring, repetitive, unrewarding action ive done in a game. i honestly cant be bothered to finish the game. Will skip it and go on to DOS. dont know what they were thinking about.
Enjoyed this short game, the style is very nostalgic and having a meta game within a game is a novel idea. To be honest, I played this wearing headphones and it had great sound effects. Scared the bejeebers out of me at times. One has to be already familiar with the game concept of text input or a new player may be lost what to do. I had to think hard to remember the basics and had me scrambling to look up further tips to get the most out of game flavor text. There isnt any tutorial either, you just are plonked down in front of a computer in game. Text games lend well to immersion as it forces you to use your own imagination to visualize whats going on, which leads to great jump scares and such. The sound of someone breathing as they creep up on you from behind is intensely personal and frightening. great game, due to short length might want to get it on sale.
I am not an avid rpg game player, found Baldurs Gate tedious etc which is heresy to most, so I avoided this title in my library for years. I found myself bored with my usual fare and hunted round for something different. Boy am I glad I did. This is my first play thru, no nostalgic review. Pros: Interactable open world. There is a whole lot to do, fiddle with, read flavor text, move and manipulate. I spent hours just finding books, collecting recipes and other frivolous activities. There are secrets to find, hidden caves to loot, and a great story to explore. I even took a few days to search out items to decorate a couple of houses to make them my own. Easy fast travel. Alchemy is intuitive and enjoyable. Upgradable armor/equipment. Lots of loot to find. Due to the rng nature of the game you can save, open a loot bag and if the equipment stats are not what you want you can reload the save and try again. Cheese factor or no, this can be enjoyable. Lots of skills to try out, with nice effects. skill books to buy from vendors to augment regular leveling points. Clever conversations with npcs who react to your reputation. More than a few very humorous moments. Lots of monsters with different skill sets and resistances. Beautiful art, I mean seriously, some of the assets were lovingly painted. The music was very good, and for once I didnt it mute it. Vendors employ an unique bartering system, it took awhile for me to understand it, at first I raged then I got it. The vendors dont always have cash on them but are willing to trade items for items. Cons: its very easy to be OP for the game, in fact I often didnt use spells as it made the game too easy. endgame becomes repetitious and grindy. Underwhelming end fight. Barter system with vendors can be trying. npcs need to react more to stealing. Fidgety targeting, minions impede gameplay often. VERY EASY TO BREAK QUESTS. recommend a walkthru to aid puzzles and avoid q breaking.
After completing this series I am left with a bitter taste regarding the game. About mideway I was enjoying it but the lack of dungeon design, regurgitated npcs and game assets and the ending battle was so bad that it ruined the game for me. Add on extremely boring dungeons and my final feeling is that I cant be bothered to replay and go with another char and skill set like I had been planning on. Pros: great beginning levels, character development, fun skill tree to mix and match, a dragon tower to call home, enjoyable characters and funny writing, deep dialogs and long running char development with other npcs. Playing as a dragon is a blast (at first), lots of mini quests and armor to collect. crafting is enjoyable and buffing up your gear satisfying. Cons: extremely repetitive dungeons and levels. game recycles the same assets and level designs over and over. that would not be so bad but the graphics look very dated and underwhelming. big empty fortresses full of the same tired 3 barrel tucked under a tent, or bed roll. same monsters too, only they change their color. towns are better as far as graphical detail but even those reuse the same house plans, furniture, decorations per house. The worst bit was the same faces on npcs, it was disconcerting to see that. I think they had 7 faces and outfits and just reused them for all the npcs. Skill tree at first was fun but playing as a battle mage I quickly learned I only needed 3 skills to finish the game. Making monsters at first was fun but then its easy to gain the best body parts and from then on you rarely make changes to your monster. the final battle, the devs decided to throw out your hot key setup, trained game strategy and carefully decided upon skill tree to just throw at you a predetermined guantlet with false buffs and new skills not listed before. seems like they threw the two expansions together hastily, cutting corners. still recommend the game, dont expect it to end great
