I bought the whole series in the mid 90s except for number 5 which wasn't out yet. I wish I bought them sooner. Now that it's on Gog it is a must buy. You play a hero, a thief, fighter or magic user, trying to save the land from an evil curse. Normal fantasy stuff. But this has the Sierra charm and humor to it, so don't take it to seriously. That said it is not slapstick comedy either. It takes itself seriously enough with a few jokes in it. This is in part because it is not a hardcore RPG, instead it is a point and click adventure with light rpg elements to it. Which means the focus is on story and puzzle solving, not combat. So the combat is easy and intuitive, but still a lot of fun. Just be aware it was made before autosave was a thing, so remember to save often. You gain money by doing some quests, of which there are few, and killing monsters which there are a lot of. Gaining experience is done like Elder Scrolls, practice your skills to increase them, but without levels. Instead your character gains health, stamina and magic by increasing the correct skills. All and all a great game for an ultra light rpg with more focus on story and puzzle solving. Recommended for everyone.
The animation is bad and the gameplay is only so-so. Given the low quality animations and general cheap feeling of the game I would wait until a sale. That said the story is incredibly intoxicating, too bad they didn't put more effort into decent visuals.
This is the go to game for space combat/dogfighting. You play as a privateer, a bounty or merchant or whateve you decide. You buy and sell goods to make money and upgrade your ship. Eventually you get the ship good enough to accept some lucrative contracts either hauling goods or shooting pirates. And finally trade that old clunker in for a brand new ship, after all you can only upgrade it so much. It has a decent story to it which begins in a bar in New Detroit. Be aware that most of the story missions are hard so have a good ship to start them. The graphics are great for its time, as are the sound effects. But it is form the early 1990s so it hasn't aged well, which cost it one star. This game far surpasses the sequel or any other game in its genre. Even 30 years later they haven't come up with a better space combat game. I highly recommend it , but beware that if you fail even one story mission you are out fo the story for good and are stuck with only the random contracts. Fortunately this was corrected in Righteous Fire, also included in this package, where it allows you to repeat a failed mission.
Castles 2 is a resource management game where you gather resources, build an army and take down the enemies all in real time. The goal is to become king, which can be done by conquering all territories or by claiming the throne with the backing of the pope. While a decent game, the problem is primarily its age. Modern games have more features, far more features. For instance there are no real commands to give the army, other than telling them which unit to focus there fire on. Which means you usually sit back and watch it play out. The interactions with the enemy is limited to attacking them and declaring war, or giving them gold to improve relations. But usually you end up declaring war either way so all that does is buy you time. The graphics and sound are good for a game over 30 years old. But still, Ultima 6 and other games from the era can do better. But they do the job. Then again no one buys an old game for great graphics and sound, do they? The interface is clean and simple, you can design your own castles just like castles 1. But it usually isn't worth it, just use a premade one instead. For the price it might be worth it. But be aware that due to its age it has none of the features a game 10 years old would have. So if you want a nice relaxing strategy game which takes little effort and has minimal features, then this game is just for you. But for any real strategy fan this is a hard pass.
Draugen is a nice game but a little short. The main characters could use some work. Alice, for instance ,is not at all independent, as other reviewers have noted she basically rushes ahead to the next story point and waits for you to meet her. The main character, Edward, is boring and feels a bit two dimensional. In fact he is basically always gloomy and most of the time inconsiderate as well, not to mention obsessive. As for the story, it is basically a generic "are you sane?" concept. As a result the main mystery of finding out what happened to the villagers is sidelined halfway through the game before being dropped altogether. This is made worse by the fact that you can expect to finish it in less than 10 hours. No granted Red Thread games is not a major AAA publisher like Activision. Therefore I should be a little lenient as a result. But these are the same guys who gave us The Longest Journey and Dreamfall before branching off to make there own company. And when they did they created Dreamfall Chapters. And with a portfolio like that behind them we should expect better. Much, much better. So while I would usually give it three stars, I will only give it two. Because after the great games they have made in the past, I hold them to higher standards. In fact if you do not own those games, I highly recommend buying them instead. They are some of the best games ever made, and you'll see what I mean by higher standards.
The game is badly bogged down by numerous bugs and a glaring design flaw: It follows the PNP system too closely. And I hope you are familiar with the Pathfinder system or the D&D 3.5 system it is based on, because this game does not have a useful manual. The worst bugs have to with do with poorly written quests. I failed a quest to help a companion because I did not respond in time. There was no timer on the quest, no indication I had to do it by a particular deadline at all. Worse yet this problem repeats itself in a quest where you kill the troll king, but this time if you fail it you lose game Worse yet is that it sticks too closely to the PNP version. There is a feat where you roll two dice and keep the highest number. Fantastic concept in a PNP game. But this is a computer game, what dice? This is a fundamental flaw that haunts the game, numerous feats, spells, and combat mechanics are directly copied from the PNP system. But computer games and PNP games are two different beasts and what works in one doesn't work with the other. And the designers don't seem to get this. One of the worse culprits is the RNG system. Of course there is some bad luck seems to happen a lot in any RNG system, but here it seems too much. Worse yet some monsters get buffs that make it harder to them, and easier for them to hit you. And the only way to remove those buffs is to turn the difficulty down. It is like the game has two settings, ridiculously easy, and "might have a chance if the RNG likes you." The best example is with Kingdom management. I had an advisor do a series of tasks, each one took thirty days, which translated into several days of real time. She failed three times, and each time one of the Kingdom stats took a hit, and after the third one I lost the game due to the bad RNG system. In its current state it is unplayable and some of this issues may never be resolved. Which is a shame, since had such promise, and I really wanted to like it.
Overall it is a good game, well written, interesting characters, nice premise. I really enjoyed the game. I was really enjoying the game, following the main quest by tracking a traitor to Old Sycamore. That is where it all went wrong. Old Sycamore has an optional fight where you can attack a group of talking wolves. They are easily several levels above your party. He one shotted my tank and then went on to take down the whole party easily. This wouldn't be so bad if it was an isolated instance. Just level up my party and come back, right? Wrong. There was a tremendous centipede in an underground dungeon nearby, as well as a giant spider. They both one shotted my entire party. It seems there idea to boss fights is to buff them to the point where your party is nothing but cannon fodder. I also lost several random encounters due to bad rng roles where I missed dozens of times and they kept hitting me. These were not boss fights, just random mob fights along the side of the road. I wish I could recommend this game, I really do. But until they fix the horrible balance issues please do not waste your money. Note that I have played Pillars of Eternity, which had some combat problems, but not as bad as this. I also played Tyranny, Divinity: Original Sin, and Torment: Tides of Numenera, so I am not new to this type of game. Also, I was play on easy mode.
There are a few things in this game to like. Shadwen seems to be a decent character, and so is the little girl. And the humor is nice at times. Unfortunately the gameplay is so bad that I ended up uninstalling it after only an hour. The controls are not very intuitive, for instance you have to toss a grapple at an object. The object is highlighted so you assume you can toss it. Unfortunately no, you have to have the crosshairs in the exactly correct area. The sad thing is that the crosshairs are almost impossible to see, and you do not want to have to move the joystick around in slow circles in order to pixel hunt for the exact spot when a guard is bearing down on you. In addition, the game automatically pauses if it does not sense any input for about 3 seconds. While this is a minor gripe, I personally find it distracting. The problem is that there is no way to disable this feature in the menu. If you are hiding in the bushes, the only thing you can do is hold down the RB button in order to move time forward. Otherwise the game pauses. The long and short of it is that there are better stealth games out there. Ones with more polish, and a better intrface. However, if you have the patience to fumble through the awkward interface you might find a decent game as so many other reviewers here have claimed. Sadly, I could not. I would avoid this game unless it was on sale. Even then, I would think about it. Spending an extra few bucks will probably get you a better game over all.
Dreamfall Chapters is the conclusion to the story that was started ten years ago by Deamfall. It takes place in the twin worlds of Arcadia and Stark. For those who don't know Arcadia is a world of magic, where Stark is the world we know today (well, 200 years from now). Consider them sort of parallel dimensions. You follow two characters, one is Zoe, who was put into a coma at the end of the previous game. She lives in Stark and is a dreamer, a person who can project her consciousness into Arcadia. The other character you follow is Khian, he lives in Arcadia and is an Azadi soldier who left his own people to become part ofa resistance movement. In the world of Stark, Waticorp is trying to sell their new dreamer and even use their influence to insitue marshal law and get every one off the streets into their dreamland. In arcadia, the Azadi have erected a huge tower which seems to be collecting dreams. Why are these two entities working together when they shouldn't even know about each other's existance? And to what end? Dreamfall Chapters is a 3D adventure gamet. The puzzles are relatively few and most of them are watered down and easy to solve. The focus of the game is obviously on the narrative, and even though you do make a few decisions in the game they are mostly for flavor since the main story is fixed. There are no clumsy combat/stealth mechanics like in Dreamfall this time around, and the interface as whole is a lot better. But there are a couple of timed moments in the game. Unfortunately being an Indie game on a ridiculously low budget the graphics and most importantly the animation is a bit off. In fact some the characters in the cut scenes appear . . . wooden. I cannot possilbly stress how good this game is, it certainly belongs in any Good Old Gamers library. In fact it is better than most AAA games out their and is so good in fact that, in my opinion, it should have gotten the budget of one.
Pillars of Eternity is a fantastic old school RPG. I will admit that I never like Baldurs' Gate and I still don't, I prefer the over-the shoulder look of Neverwinter Nights. However, I could still recognize this game as the classic it is . So why the low score for such a classic? In three words: Party Artficial Intelligence. It does not have any. Now when I say it has none, I mean zero, zilch, notta. Yes you have to tell the wizard to cast this spell, and tell the fighter to use knockdown and so on, but it goes way beyond that. If an enemy atacks your guys, they will just stand their and not fight back unless you tell them to. Also, if you tell a party member to attack the enemy, and another party member is in the way, the first one just stands there. There is no pathfinding, he won't try to find a way around, he just stands there. This level of handholding combined with fast paced pause-and-play combat leads to a lot of frustration very fast. If anyone has ever played Dragon Age: Origins they know they tactics system in that game. You could tell Alistair to find the biggest enemy and attack him, or tell Morrigan to wait until three enemies are together and then hit them with a fireball. And after you set the tactics, they will automatically do it in EVERY combat. This game would have benefitted greatly from such a system, or simply a better AI in general. In fact, if you want to know more about the combat problems in this game I highly recommend watching Angry Joe's review, he does a fantastic, if hilarious, way of explaining it. That said if you tire of the dumbing down and streamlining of so many RPGs today, this game is for you. It has depth and substance and drags you into the game world immediately. It also does not shy away from darker themes that most mainstream publishers shy away from these days. A must have for any RPG fan. This is truly a five star game, but for the bad party AI, I am forced to take away a whopping two stars.
