As far as games goes, this is very much a game-lite. I haven't... played?... many visual novels so this mode is new to me. Aesthetically, the game is rather nice. Kind of a souped up EGA but looking way better than anything did in that area owning to the higher resolution graphics. Audio is... well, it doesn't really fit. I don't remember a PC speaker ever sounding so good, the sounds this game makes are more akin to what I might have heard on an Atari 8bit. For the most part, you're doing nothing but reading, and enjoying high resolution EGA style graphics. Which as I've noted are pretty nice overall. Occasionally you're asked to make some sort of choice; a wrong choice often has game ending results (but with instant retry). And there are some mini games. Such mini games are as a rule absolutely awful to play - the games themselves aren't that bad, but the interface to play them must be a high contender for "Worst Way To Perform Input Ever". I have never come across a keyboard interface so bad - playing the Solitaire game was absolutely dreadful. Most of the narrative was interesting, seeing the viewpoints of the ongoing story from several different perspectives. Sometimes the writing felt ... off, I couldn't really pinpoint why. And the ending was... well, I didn't enjoy it. And it barely clarified anything. Perhaps the follow on games do? Other points. Saving the game broke the display every single time, so the images didn't appear and the text overlapped. By the time I got to chapter 5 I decided that such an obvious bug could have never had made it past QA, so assumed it was a "me" issue. I used command line arguments to force a 1920x1080 resolution (my primary monitor is 2560x1080) which solved the problem. Seems the game really doesn't like ultra-wide. I was also annoyed that the auto play functionality reset after every manual interaction. Conclusion, short and sweet - doesn't outstay its welcome. Will be interesting to check the follow on titles.
Here's the thing with me - the last thing I remember about any game I play is its ending. This a bad ending will always ruin a game, even if I enjoyed it immensely up to that point. And so it with with Return. The art style didn't really grab me, and aside from Guybrush, the voices didn't match what I (perhaps erroneously) remember of voices in previous games. But I enjoyed the game... I don't know if it is time or experience, but I did find it much easier than usual point and click affair (although I have to admit, for the first play-through I opted for casual, with the idea to complete the game first before trying to hardcore mode). But as I alluded to at the start, the ending just _ruined_ it. The way it played out I was half expecting it to be the tired old trope of "this entire thing was just a dream" but it wasn't even that, it just ended with zero resolution, at all, of anything. I feel cheated!
I think Piranha Bytes are my favourite game developer after (old) Blue Byte. Gothic opened my eyes to what a 3D open world interactive and immersive RPG could be all those years ago and Elex certainly doesn’t disappoint. It has some rough edges to be sure, but this is a gem of a game. Graphically, it looks stunning. Sadly my 650 can’t even begin to keep up with Elex and ultra settings so I ended up playing at a lower resolution with less detail, but even so the world is stunning. The way the pre-comet world mixes with the post is a joy to see, and exploration is key. As this is a PB game, it’s bloody hard. Right up to the end of the game despite all my levels and powers, I’d still get splattered by some of the enemies. There are a lot of settings to tweak the difficulty, but I just left them at the default. The companion system is excellent and helps offset some of the difficulty. I really enjoyed building a rapport with the different characters, although I was fairly cheesed off that the loading splash screens kept trying to lay a guilt trip on me over my decisions with Duras. It’s a big world, but I wish there were a few more side quests – I think I found everything although I probably would never know. But there’s huge areas of the world that you don’t really do much with except explore, learn lore and fine map pieces. That actually back fired in a way, as I explored so much that by the time I was ready to choose a faction it was clear I couldn’t join the Clerics based on the Old World literature I found. And the Outlaws are just scum. But each to their own! In short, a fabulous game and I really hope PB follow up with a sequel.
Disappointing game. Visually, it's pretty bizzare - the character animations range from ok to awful, and the reset of the art isn't much better. I thought the voice acting was fine but the script... again, some of it was good and some of it pretty bad. Gameplay wise, it's straightforward enough, although I kept forgetting to try powers for the first episode and most of the second, making it harder and more frustrating. It also really annoyed me trying to skip dialog - sometimes you could, and sometimes you had to sit through it. The story itself was interesting enough and the way the different plots wove together worked for me. That's one thing the art had in its favour - some of the story is extremely dark, but it never felt like true horror. Although the game was originally episodic, it would have been more convenient of the Game of the Year Edition combined them all into a single coherant game instead of breaking off into bits of episodes.
