It kind of pains me to give Diablo such a low rating as I have really fond memories of it. I remember there was a time where I insisted that Diablo 1 was better than Diablo 2, I prefer the idea and memory of the horror-themed, slow-paced dungeon crawl of Diablo 1 over the more action-y sequels. But I tried to play this game and man it just does not hold up. The fixed low framerate, bad UI, really ugly (if atmospheric) graphics. The thing that kills it for me is that the game-play just isn't that good, it's super repetitive and simple as hell. It's kind of boring. If you want Diablo 1, this is a decent way to run Diablo 1, and I think it's fair for 10 dollars. But don't get this expecting anything like a modern Diablo game. I kind of regret buying it, but I think nostalgia, a little fun, and getting my rose colored glasses broken was worth 10 dollars.
Shadowrun: Dragonfall is a really tightly focused, story-driven game that uses unusually good writing, atmospheric 2D backgrounds, and striking music to create an immersive, fun game. It doesn't do scope, like a Baldur's Gate. It's got a lot of freedom and branching paths, but it's not a particularly open game in the sense of having a giant world - the 'world' of the game are a few detailed blocks of scifi Berlin and the various interesting locations you visit on missions. The underlying systems are fairly simple - there's no massive loot or inventory system, there's no massive list of spells or skills. What the game does well is telling a very specific, focused, small story with a real sense of detail. Most big RPG's are like the entire run of a TV show, with multiple 23-episode seasons, multiple arcs, huge casts of characters coming and going. Dragonfall is like an 8-episode miniseries. It's fully committed to telling one, highly detailed, reactive story, and after 15-20 hours of gameplay, it's done. The writing is also strikingly good, juggling a fun balance between a "real" "gritty" modern-future cyberpunk setting with elaborate flights of fantasy and a sense of fun. The game mechanics are good, and elegant. They're hugely improved over Shadowrun Returns, which had pretty bad 'gamefeel', and a lot of unbalanced choices. The game's graphics are straightforward, but the 2D backgrounds exude a lot of atmosphere. 5 Stars may be a bit much for such a straightforward game, but I feel like this just a real perfect, polished kernel of a game. It's great precisely because it doesn't try too much. There's nothing to add, and nothing to subtract, and that's rare with RPG's, which can be bloated or fall into grinding tedium. There is absolutely no grinding here, very little grappling with trying to min-max game mechanics, just a very tightly focused, reactive science fiction story with a great sense of tone.
I get there are people that like this, and I'm sure they're genuine, but for me, this is a okay game ruined by an abysmal interface. Even people who like this game admit that the interface is poor. The UI for an RPG is critical, it's like having responsive controls in an action game, it's not something you can afford to screw up, and this game screws it up big time. This is a game about navigating menus. Navigating menus to fight, to cast spells, to use and equip items. And the interface to do so is _terrible_. It's laggy, it's obtuse, it's ugly, and it's genuinely worse than a lot of the games it's trying to copy from decades ago. I can't play a game where the core action of the game feels awful. It would be like trying to play a platformer where the jumping felt awful. Another big problem I have with the game is that the soundtrack is - in my opinion - awful, and _you can't turn it off_. I could totally forgive a bad soundtrack, but there is no option to turn off music in this game. Again, this is a basic feature that games were getting right _decades_ ago, why is this game made in 2014 worse about it? Finally, I didn't like how the game was less exploration driven than most first person RPG's. There's no map, for example - that would be crazy in most 1st person RPG's, but this game doesn't actually need a map because the levels are so tiny and linear. So the main reason I play this genre, the sense of exploration, is neutered and the focus is on the combat, which involves going through those terrible menus which I hate. If it wants to be different and be very linear, that's okay, but that just leaves the awful game-play. I'm sure there are people that are able to look past this stuff, but I can't. Why would you play this instead of any number of better games, new or old, that do the same thing but way, way better, some of which are on GOG? It's impressive that this was made by basically 1 person, but this is a commercial game. And in my opinion, it sucks.
Baldur's Gate 1 isn't a perfect game, but with mods (check out BGTutu that lets you play BG1 in the BG2 engine), it's pretty damn great. Baldur's Gate 1, Tales of the Sword Coast, Baldur's Gate 2, and Throne of Bhaal is probably the most perfectly realized RPG series ever made. This is an RPG subgenre that basically was invented from scratch in the 90's, and has a lot to offer.
