1) Better love story than twilight. 2) There are some graphical changes that can't be altered from in-game settings menu, but make the game look better, play better, and stop crashing. Go to/users/your_username/documents/venetica and alter the ini file: - If you are crashing, try turning vsync off. Fixed crashes for me completely. - You can change the FOV. Default is 50, around 60 - 70 looks great and more modern. 80+ starts distorting too much. Personally I settled on 69. - Set multisampling to 8, immediate improvement - You get separete controls for Gamma correction, Saturation, Brightness, Contrast and a few others 3) You can also get texture mods on moddb, or mod them yourself, most files aren't encrypted. 4) Game has a cool mechanic where you can die and respawn for lore reasons, and enter an alternative dimension, which is how you are supposed to navigate some fights, so use your brain if you start losing. Skills are fun to use (send swarms of crows to eat enemies over time) Also, always wear the best armor you can find and remember that different weapons have diffrent purpose (hammer destroys objects and is good against some animals, undead can only be damaged by moonblade, etc). There are some glitchy bosses, but you can see how to avoid glitching them on Youtube (don't dodge sideways against tentacles on first boss). 5) I'd take one star away for jankiness except it's more funny than annoying.
I'm giving 5 stars to help offset bomb reviews from challenged people. It's a shame I haven't bought this sooner to play during breaks from other activities. The game is well written, tutorials are clear and concise. Help is easily found (press escape and click the big question mark icon...). Took me very little effort to get into the groove of things. Hotkeys are all listed and there isn't much to be confused about. It's not true that you have to keep moving your characters back and forth in the party order, as the character with highest stats is picked automatically when searching for loot, etc. There is some rng and punishment but that's the part of the fun in such games, and it gives you plenty of time to learn the ropes. Graphics are stellar, animations are simple but nice, nothing that made me cringe or feel like they were lazy with them. Music fits into the rest of the game neatly and even voice acting surprised me with quality (though there isn't a lot of it), Gameplay is repetitive but that's true for all roguelikes. All in all, the game does what it says in the description, and does it well. For 5-10$ it's a steal. The artbook in the extras is already worth this much. I honestly don't know why so many indie games have such bad reviews, I guess people these days are too spoiled to see how lucky they are to have so many cheap and competent games available. Back in my day if you didn't know how to play a game with 72 hotkeys, the devs would tell you to read the 20 page book manual or get off their lawn. Fine print: Don't buy if reading sentences causes you mental discomfort.
Finished it on steam, had a lot of fun. It's not the og torment, but at a discount it's certainly a steal. Must play for story driven rpg enthusiasts. However, there isn't a lot of combat and the general gameplay loop is not the addictive kind of fun, it's more like a slow paced exploration gameplay, so if you are looking for a hack and slash you probably won't like this title. However, remember that this IS what people who funded the game wanted, less combat and a deep, well written video game novel. The setting is great and the story was pretty good and unique. Solid 4/5 at what it tries to be.
This game is seriously underrated and awesome, and gets even better with mods. Game loop and flow is better than stellaris, and replayability is great. It also comes with a pdf full of detailed info on how to mod and tweak the game. You can reskin the game to look like EVE or Star Trek, change tech trees, add species and make an entire resource overhaul (as some modders have). You can also play during different phases of the galactic history: pre-ftl, pirate dominated era, classic and lategame, and each makes for a different experience. Downsides: 1) 2d graphics forever. 2) Not as much "stuff" as in newer titles like stellaris. For example, much fewer spying/infiltration/sabotage options (I haven't found any mods that address this) 3) You may have to edit some notepad file to get the game to work on some systems, which apparently is a challenge for some people in year 2023 pre-FTL era.
This game is great. It's a box of stories, toys and options, but it's your responsibility to use them according to your needs and wants. The depth, the narrative options, the character customization, the writing, (for the entire campaign, companions and quests alike), the replayability, the combat, itemization, the new mythic feats and paths, the music, everything kicks ass. The tutorials that help ease new players into pathfinder rules are much better than in the predecessor (Kingmaker). Many of the annoying features of building and managing kingdom/crusade have been made easier or less important and are optional. Optimization is still a little lacking but this and other drawbacks are a small price to pay for endless hours of highly customizable, challenging, replayable entertainment. There's a whole bunch of mythic paths to choose from which give access to new powers and storylines (as if the gigantic list of possible classes wasn't already fun enough). There is also place for moral choices, all character types have their place, evil, good, neutral, chaotic and lawful all have many unique dialogues and development options that feel great to experience, very immersive. Companions (some of which are hidden and optional) seem simple at first, but get more complicated as you spend more time with them and aren't too cringe. They can also be retrained or you can just hire your own for a fee. I assume people who rate this game 1 either didn't play it, hate reading/ tactical combat or are too lazy to learn pathfinder rules. Or lower the difficulty sliders. Honestly this was a big problem with PF:Kingmaker too, a lot of people want some stupid achievement for completing the game on "hard" and then get surprised when "hard" really means "hard". If you hit a wall while playing, take a second look at the difficulty options (as well as your character feats and spells and consumables, which you can retrain for free if you mess up).
The most common complaint about the game is that it is too difficult, and too close to original pathfinder rules (which are difficult). That's correct, but it also throws a lot of scrolls, wands, potions stat boosting items and gold at you to help you solve all of that. Autopause/slowmotion mode is there for a reason. In any case this issue is completely eliminated by the fact that the game has one of the best difficulty tweaking available. You can literally control damage done to party by .1 increments, use weaker critical strikes option which eliminates the overpowered pathfinder crit scaling (which negative reviewers on multiple review sites are complaining about), and adjust stats for hostile creatures (slightly weaker/stronger,much weaker/stronger etc.) You can change whether encumbrence is a thing, you can turn on injuries instead of deaths and so on. If every person who left a negative review for this game would get over 'hardmode pride' like i did, and tweaked it to their liking, this game would probably be a 4.9/5 After finding party members, an introduction chapter in which you become a baron of a piece of cursed land you will discover a game that's an amazing mix of stortelling, kingdom/town management, exploration, adventure, character development, and combat. What's great about it is precisely the fact that if any of those things stand in the way of your fun, there's an option to make them less relevant and focus on other aspects. Another unique thing about this is that the world is nothing like the boring tolkienesque high fantasy - it's still the dnd fantasy world filled with magic, secrets and supernatural, but it's gritty,cursed land where gods are wretched lunatics with too much power, rulers have their own agendas etc. Playing a neutral or evil character is also completely incorporated. Townsfolk can riot against you, prominent neutral characters can run away or betray you, or work for you.etc. solid5/5wouldwrite10xlongerreviewifgogletme
