I can't recommend it enough! Give it a shot, especially since it fills in SOOOOO many plot points in the later games.
Amazing graphics. Great music. Not bad characters. It starts on a decently high-note, but it's all down hill from there. The threats are projected but unworrying. There isn't a real puzzle to speak of. Your character is dedicated to getting the crap beaten out of him without resisting. The first half is pretty good. Then there's the second half... They seem to entirely forget the "noir", the mystery, and the idea that maybe as a player, we should have something to do with the ending?
If only the gameplay would stop getting in the way of this interesting world.. *watches the show* Ffs, maybe this is the worlds most elaborate scheme to get people to read novels.
Game is riddled with bugs and glitches. Hope you enjoy playing a telltale game where you have no background, foreground, and randomly disappearing characters. Couldn't even get 2 minutes in. Yes, everything is patched and updated on my end. Current feedback from telltale is, "We are aware of the problem. We have no timeframe for a patch in the future."
This game pulled from a lot of common JRPG elements and was very reminiscent of the early "Tales Of" games, which sounds great! I mean, it's pulling from solid roots, it's pretty to look at, the battle system shows promise to develop across the game. Awesome! 10 hours later. ... grind.. grind...grind... grind... do our characters even have motivation? I mean, I know where this paper-thin plot is going and where my next objective is.. but does ANYONE have ANY personality beyond being a hollow cliché? grind... grind.. grind... Disgaea grinds less than this. In the end, I put 20 hours into this game. I got partially into chapter 2. For a game that took more than 10 hours to get through chapter one, there was less than 30 minutes of plot. It's an RPG where you play no character because the characters have no character. Your choices are virtually nonexistent. Your ability to customize your party is severely limited by each battle having such a small amount of exp that you never feel progress. I don't even want my money back, just my time.
Although this series does contain epic amounts of content, play time, and a fantastic plot, I can't say I like it. It's a remake of another series by the same company called Exile. In the Avernum remake, you have a smaller team, fewer options, and a graphics update that gives you a pseudo-3d 3/4 view, but frankly makes the combat terrible. Aiming any AoE spells is a nightmare. Fortunately, the company has a free copy of Exile 1-3 on their site. Unfortunately, you can only run it if you install dosbox and a win3.1 emu and I can't seem to get them to want to cooperate together. The original is definitely worth it though. Skip Avernum. Get Exile. Substance over graphics.. and these graphics are actually from the past few years. They don't even have the nostalgia value to cover for them.
If you ever played the shareware version as a kid, you know how simply awesome this game is. Good soundtrack. They updated the resolution a little and added a filter to smooth out the graphics, but honestly, I turn the filter off. I prefer my pixels un-smudged. If you need something to compare this too, it's probably the Raiden games. You have a ship. You shoot other ships as the screen scrolls up. Get power-ups and be awesome. Where this game differs is that you don't get points for blowing things up, you get money which you can spend to buy upgrades at the shop between levels. You can also sell upgrades you find for extra cash. Another difference is the ground. You can blow up buildings and bridges and vehicles for extra cash. Some weapons only attack air, some only ground, some both. You need to learn how to fight the enemies in the air while most of your basic weapons may focus on the buildings they're flying over. Mix your tactics and dominate the sky!
Never before has a video game ever so thoroughly exemplified the majestic importance of being a Canadian, getting drunk, and fighting wolves with an axe. Sang-Froid brings a fresh take on the old Base Defense genre. It's like putting Dungeon Keeper's trap system into one of the old Rainbow Six games where you actually had to plan the mission yourself, but then add RPG style skill development to the characters. The gameplay is challenging but extremely fun. I really enjoyed playing this. The story on the other hand, is terrible. I mean, the plot is flat and the dialog is just abysmal. The characters get little development and not one of them has a decent line of dialog either in text or in voice acting. That being said, so what? After my first play through, I skipped those scenes anyways. It's the gameplay that I enjoyed the hell out of. Aside from that, I feel as though I should bring up the art style. Although not the most developed style, a large part of the graphics are hand drawn or painted. That and the music is atmospheric and entertaining. I love the main theme.
