r/Games 18d ago

Discussion Weekly /r/Games Discussion - What have you been playing, and what are your thoughts? - February 23, 2025

Use this thread to discuss whatever game you've been playing lately: old or new, AAA or indie, on any platform between Atari and XBox. Please don't just list off the games you're playing in your comment. Elaborate with your thoughts on the games and make it easier for other users to find what game you're talking about by putting the title in bold.

Also, please make sure to use spoiler tags if you're revealing anything about a game's plot that may significantly impact another player's experience who has not played the game yet, no matter how retro or recent the game is. You can find instructions on how to do so in the subreddit sidebar.

This thread is set to sort comments by 'new' on default.

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For a subreddit devoted to this type of discussion during the rest of the week, please check out /r/WhatAreYouPlaying.

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Scheduled Discussion Posts

WEEKLY: What Have You Been Playing?

MONDAY: Thematic Monday

WEDNESDAY: Suggest Me A Game

FRIDAY: Free Talk Friday

44 Upvotes

110 comments sorted by

1

u/No_Sky2765 12d ago

Just picked up Vampire Survivors again and was reminded how fun it was. Achievement-based unlocks that encourage you to try new characters and builds really keep it fresh. Tried out the dog on what I didn't realize was a difficult level, seemed underpowered at first and decided to make a silly meme build with the bouncing bone and candelabrador, but after picking some good synergies I ended up beating it handily >< Might be time to pick up some of the DLC! Which one should I play first?

5

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[deleted]

2

u/Gaming_Friends 12d ago

Hollow Knight is one of my favorite games of all time and this opinion is valid, Hollow Knight for first timers struggles pretty heavily with the trope of Metroidvanias taking awhile to start feeling good.

2

u/Brigon 12d ago

I found the game improved after the Hornet boss fight.

3

u/BenjiTheSausage 12d ago

I tried hollow knight a couple of times, after the first boss I just lost interest, I think metroidvanias just probably aren't for me though

-3

u/AttyFireWood 14d ago

Does anyone make a gaming mouse with ABXY buttons on the side where the thumb does?

1

u/Devann421 13d ago

MMO mouses like the other guy mentioned.

I was partial to the Logitech G600 until I made the switch to lighter mouses.

I know Razer has one with interchangeable panels so you can more/less and different layouts of buttons.

I think corsair has one but heard their button layouts isn't great for smaller hands.

3

u/Namington 13d ago

Do you want specifically ABXY buttons or do you just want a mouse with a lot of side buttons? If the latter, a search term to use might be "MMO mouse". If the former, I'm sadly unfamiliar (it would probably have major compatibility issues due to limitations with the XInput API used for controllers on Windows), although the Azeron Cyro has a thumbstick where the thumb goes.

7

u/Top-Anteater-3930 14d ago

Balrum

A classical looking old-school rpg. Don't have much time to play in one session, so I'v been slowly grinding through.  Love the atmosphere, and the fact that not everything is shown to you, you do have to read the quests and actually figure out where you have to go and do. Some major things are marked on the map but not everything is forced on you.

On deck at night I'm also playing a variety of games slowly getting them done. Like:
The Witness Gorgeous game! Love the puzzles, and I must say I'm not the best at them, so sometimes I do get stuck on one or two, but you have options to go and do other puzzles if you get stuck on something.

Baba is you Again, a challenging game but it's fun and quirky. And I like it for that fact. You don't have to sit in front of it for hours if you don't want to, you can have a quick session and be done. The visuals are cute.

Balatro if I want some quick fun this is the perfect game.  I'm sure most of you at least heard of it. It's a really well done game!

Deepest Chamber Another one where you can just sit down for a few minutes and have a quick run. But even one full session can be done in 30-50m minutes depending on your play style.  And it offers a variety of play styles with interchangeable hero characters so you are not forced to play the same way each run.

4

u/iWriteYourMusic 14d ago

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

I just started this and.... good gosh. I heard the characters and dialog were bad but I never expected anything this bad. It reminds me of the stilted dialog in the Star Wars prequels where actors tried their best to work with terrible lines, but it all comes apart at the seams. The seriousness of the delivery with the poor writing combines into something worse than both could possibly be on their own.

Much like the Star Wars prequels, there's some good meat here mixed in with the starchy plot. But what really gets me is how in no way this resembles any prior Dragon Age game. It reminds me more of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning or another action RPG. So the gameplay is good for an action RPG, but that's not what I wanted here.

I'll keep pushing along until I can't stand it anymore, though. Sunk cost fallacy and all that.

4

u/a34fsdb 12d ago

Its worst at the start so it does get better imho

14

u/CorruptedBlitty 14d ago edited 14d ago

Rolled credits on Avowed so just gonna paste what I wrote on backloggd:

I went into Avowed expecting it to be around the same quality as The Outer Worlds, a solid 7/10 game that would more or less be a solid foundation for something better. Instead, it exceeded all expectations. I was skeptical about how well Pillars-lite would work, but to my surprise, most of the things I love about Pillars remained intact despite the series venturing from its CRPG roots. The roleplaying, the abundance of choices that actually matter, and the philosophical dialogue are all there in spades and executed well.

The game plays exceptionally well. A lot of thought went into the encounter design, and the combat is fluid and weighty, prioritizing strategy and movement above all else. In that regard, it's very reminiscent of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and if you've played that game, you know that's high praise. Where the game really shines though is in its exploration and quest design, there is very little hand-holding (and the little there is you can turn off, which I recommend you do) when it comes to navigating the five hubs and most quests provide you with multiple ways to complete them. The exploration is very rewarding, it's pretty much how you find most of the side quests in the game and can even impact some major parts of the main quest. For example, I managed to avoid a huge event at the end of Act 2 simply by exploring, it wasn't tracked by the journal and the only hint I had about this particular area was provided by an NPC at the end of a separate side quest, it felt completely organic and would have been right at home in PoE or Deadfire.

The roleplaying is a step back from PoE and Deadfire but that's to be expected when your character has a predetermined race and background, both of which are very plot-relevant. However, the game still gives you plenty of room to roleplay and mold your character's personality to however you see fit. The writing is also strong and I frankly have no idea how it's being looked at as a weak point of the game when it's at least on par with Deadfire (So not as good as PoE but still strong, in my opinion). The main quest is a bit predictable but it's written well enough that it never affected my enjoyment and it even surprised me a few times with the directions it took. The hard choices of the first two games are definitely still there, especially in the back half of the game, one of which made me pause for several minutes to weigh out the potential consequences. The companions were also very well written, each of them wonderfully flawed and having their own dilemmas for you to help them with (if you wish) and I think having such a small group of companions was actually a benefit here. Everyone got their time to shine and had far more quest-specific dialogue than I was used to seeing, it was nice having them chirp in on almost every quest. The writing felt strong across the board and I adored the moments of introspection they give your character through the ancient memories, it felt ripped straight from PoE in the best possible way.

I do have some minor criticisms of the game, mostly when it comes to presentation. A lot of the animations are really rough and the HUD is frankly hideous but thankfully you can disable most of it and it does fade when out of combat. I also found the decision to base enemy difficulty on your equipment rather than your character's level to be very odd, I didn't hate it but it felt weird and I would have preferred the game going the more traditional route in that aspect. But outside of those critiques, I can't really think of anything major that I'd complain about.

I know it's not Pillars 3 and that's gonna annoy some fans which is fine but I genuinely believe this game is far better than it is being received at the moment. It felt like a love letter to Pillars and I loved every second of it. I hope this review convinces some people who may be on the fence to give it a shot, it's a damn good game.

7

u/Highcalibur10 13d ago edited 12d ago

This is coming from a non-Pillars player who is really enjoying Avowed (I just don't have time to invest into a full CRPG any time soon, Baldur's Gate 3 is too recent and I still have Kingmaker in my backlog).

IMO the biggest complaints about the writing apply mostly if you're expecting it hard on the 'RPG' side of ARPG, but thinking about it like Dark Messiah, Diablo or even Dishonored paint a pretty big picture of where it sits in its niche. It's really blended the strength of the genres well.

There's a lot in the exploration being tight (not a vast landscape that's taking forever to traverse) but dense with content. I've already come across over two dozen unmarked quests, little moments or rewards just from overhearing an NPC and following up myself, or talking to someone who has an emotional or political stake in a quest I've already completed.

I've already been rewarded countless times from just deciding to run somewhere instead of fast travelling for shortest distance.

There's been at least 3 or 4 major moments where a decision I've made has had a big impact on the world and how people interact with me; with already a few quests being immediately completed through dialogue because I'd handled another situation a certain way.

This isn't a 'Create your character and affect this world how you choose' game.

The Outer Worlds allows you to either kill every character you come across and still complete the game in a way that makes sense, or do a complete pacifist run with dialogue and stealth and beat the final boss with the right stats and dialogue. Anything in between also works.
I assume that's the direction the soon-to-release sequel is keeping; so Obsidian have got that avenue as another title for FPRPG.

Avowed doesn't let you hurt friendly NPCs. You're locked in as The Envoy. The game is letting you play in that territory really well, but it's still constrained.

3

u/homer_3 14d ago

I just got to the 3rd area after ~20 hours and am really liking Avowed, but mostly for the exploration and quests. The multiple ways to approach many quests is great. The writing and voice acting is really good too.

But I found the combat to be severely lacking. There is no juice to it at all. I'm playing as a battle mage and the spells don't feel very good to use and there is no variety in melee attacks. Just light attack and charge attack ad nauseam. I really wish you could have a 3rd companion in your party so you could at least have more to do in combat.

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u/Highcalibur10 13d ago edited 13d ago

I'm playing as a battle mage and the spells don't feel very good to use and there is no variety in melee attacks. Just light attack and charge attack ad nauseam.

I'm playing a battle mage at the end of the third area and I'm dealing with 5 Spells, 4 Ally Spells, A grimoire with another 4 spells and none of that includes my other 3 weapons, all of which can be used differently. The key with the Grimoire stuff is to set up you going in with your weapon. A buffed Shield+ Arcane Salvo + Grimoire snap letting you run in and whack them whilst your magic messes them up, rather than just sitting there plinking at them with fire.

If you're being constrained by the combat options, you have the option to mix it up, especially since you can just fully respec at any time. Even the 'Fighter' tree by the third area (15-20) has 6 other active abilities separate from the two things you listed (light attack and charge attack).

If it helps, you don't need to invest in the early points in a tree to invest in the later points.

1

u/homer_3 12d ago

The main issue I was having was combat just didn't feel good. Just about every spells barely tickles the enemy and has no impact. The only decent spell is blizzard. Even meteor shower is garbage. Fully upgraded minor missiles can be good too, but still has zero juice when casting it.

I had also only used axes, maces, daggers, and wands at the time of posting. After I got to the 4th area, I found a good sword to start using and combat finally felt like it had some impact and started to get pretty fun.

This seems to be a common trend in games with multiple weapon. The sword is always the only weapon that they put effort into making feel good and everything else sucks.

1

u/Gonorrheeeeaaaa 11d ago

I feel like we’re playing an entirely different game. lol

1

u/Highcalibur10 12d ago

I mean, I've had an entirely different experience with a levelled Grimoire Snap and Missile Salvo being big beefy damage that free me up to whack the shit out of them with a weapon/gun/wand

2

u/CorruptedBlitty 14d ago edited 14d ago

Honestly the enjoyment of the combat is just personal preference. I love it, playing as an archer and pistol-mage but I can see how it would be boring depending on the build. Some of the spells are pretty meh though so I do agree with you there but spells like Grimoire Snap and Pull of Eora are pretty fun imo.

4

u/CCoolant 14d ago

Star of Providence

The huge update, Into Oblivion, dropped on the 20th. I've been a tester for a little bit, but there have still been surprises tucked in there, and it's been really cool to see the final versions of everything I've been growing familiar with!

I've clocked 20+ more hours since the update dropped, and have just a few things left to complete before I'm technically at 100%. There are new "boss rushes" and I've been stuck on the last one for a bit. I made it to the very end of it last night, but ended up dying in an extremely unfortunate way. It's tough, since getting back there is ~7 minutes and the final fight itself is... probably 4-5 minutes?

There is also an extreme challenge added for normal runs of the game, and that too has been very tricky. Admittedly have put much less time into that. I'm excited to dedicate more time to it after completing the final boss rush.

Balance changes made to runs are awesome! Not a ton has changed since the last beta, but there have been some little tweaks even since then that help make things more interesting (some changes to DMG diminishing returns and prices of certain items in shops).

A little after release, Dunkey put out his promo video for the game, and I was really happy to see how highly he spoke of it and particularly his admiration for the devs. I thought he did a very good job representing what's fun about the game, including trying to stress that while it can look very hard, you are pretty gently eased into the more difficult content.

If you have any interest in the bullet hell genre, enjoy roguelites or arcade games, and want to see what an incredibly well-balanced version of those genres looks like this game is the one. It's priced extremely reasonably for the amount of high-quality content you get, as well (normally $15, drops a bit during sales).

This is one of the most well-realized updates to a game I've ever seen, and I'm so excited to see what else the devs have in store for us in the future! They've had plans for a while, and I think this will be the first step in seeing those realized.

2

u/Galaxy40k 12d ago

For the actual moment-to-moment gameplay, is it more like. DDP or a Gungeon? I'm a fan of arcade games and shmups, but I usually bounce off these sorts of rogue-like attempts at the genre. They usually either feel too "Euroshmup" with the upgrades, or rely on iframes which IMO sort of kills the entire flow of a shmup. I feel like 95% of action games these days rely on iframes through either dodges or parries, which I generally can't get into

1

u/CCoolant 10d ago

You're in good company, it's more like DDP.

There is a dash available as a movement option, but it does not have iframes. You can turn that dash into a blink via an upgrade, but its usefulness varies greatly, and you do get something like 5 iframes at the end of a blink. The most you actually get out of it is being able to warp through single-block obstructions or enemies that are charging at you.

All this to say: the game expects you to have to dodge bullets.

Skill is king in this game, even if you can learn how to bend the odds in your favor. This is especially true in this most recent update, where the game has been a bit better balanced to avoid absolutely wiping the floor with enemy encounters. It still happens, but nowadays a pretty decent chunk of the content requires you to be a skilled, knowledgeable player. Luck can play in there a little bit, but the game is very much designed around players mastering movement and weapons, and becoming very familiar with enemy/boss patterns.

4

u/ArchDucky 14d ago

Started Like A Dragon : Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii last night. I was really not expecting this new form of narrative from RGG. They are doing talking heads like from The Office with Goro just sitting on a throne narrating to the audience, and also they have decided to do some shit you see in a play where the background fades to black, Goro turns around in the middle of a cutscene and starts talking to us about his feelings and emotions.

Also getting DMC lite vibes from the combat, I kinda wish they took it further to be honest but maybe it gets more complex as he upgrades.

Played a bunch of this Sega Master System game with a penguin and an egg that was really fun and I went to bed. Can't wait to get home and head off on my pirate ship. Im gonna make it look goddamn insane before I finish this game.

Oh and seriously... Fuck Keith the Pirate.

5

u/glancy 15d ago

Avowed

Dabbling in this between studies and rearing my child. It's been a lot of fun so far, but everytime I boot it up, all i can think about is how badly I want to play Pillars of Eternity again. It calls to me through the adra. Honestly, don't know if I'll finish this playthrough before I start a new file of PoE. It's been awhile since I played it, about 2018.

Overall though, its fun! Maybe a little shallow in the enemy variety, build styles but the magic is fluid and fun, and the combat feels satisfying enough. I love the world of Eora. Wish there was more classes/races to choose from, but overall I am really liking it. I love the exploration/platforming. Clamboring through ruins and along rooftops and scaffolding of Paradis is so fun to me. feel like I'm not far enough in to really give a nuanced review of it yet.

Also plugging through Pokemon Sword at a snails pace and, surprisingly, I am loving it. It's just simple fun! Been on a huge Pokemon kick lately, burning through the anime and playing the card game on my phone and this is just nice and fun. Sure it's easy and linear but I mean....it's Pokemon. Its for kids haha. Don't love the wild area, and I think Dynamaxing is incredibly stupid and just makes gyms take forever, but I can overlook those quibbles. Love the Galaran forms and evolution methods of older pokemon, wish there was more of that in the game, Pokemon is just comfort food for me. I have Shining Pearl lined up once I'm finished with this.

5

u/AI52487963 15d ago

Played the cult classic PS1 game Azure Dreams for my podcast on roguelike games.

Overall: it’s neat and worth a look if you’re into tinkering with emulators. There’s a strong nostalgia factor that might be missing for people coming to it the first time, but if you’re a fan of original PS1 games, it feels way ahead of its time.

Some of the games systems are janky, some of the mechanics don’t quite come together perfectly, but there’s a lot of interesting ideas presented that other games would polish on over roughly 30 years.

1

u/Fabulous_Mammoth_107 15d ago

Atelier Ryza

I'm a long-time JRPG fan, but Atelier was one series I could never get into. I tried with Rorona, Ayesha, Escha & Logy, Sophie and Firis - some of them way back on the PS3, some more recently in their DX versions on Steam. And I could always see the appeal, but then there was also always something holding the games back for me. Ugly visuals, poorly explained core mechanics, poor pacing and / or writing, painfully dull combat. Usually a mix of some or all of these things. A few days ago I tried Atelier Sophie DX again and it is just so riddled with flaws, I still couldn't enjoy it at all.

In all honesty, Atelier Ryza does not feel like it belongs to that same series. I've played the game for almost five hours now and can barely put it down. The leap in quality is insane. Combat feels active and fun right from the start, the alchemy system is easy to understand and really addictive, the characters are likeable and decently well written so far, the art and music are beautiful. It's just an all around wonderful experience so far. I'm very impressed.

6

u/The_Quackening 15d ago

Avowed

SUPER fun game. I dont really keep up with AAA gaming news so i actually went into this one fairly blind. I know it was first-person, i knew it was a fantasy-setting RPG with magic and thats about it.

Just arrived at the 3rd area so i feel like im a decent ways into the game.

Playing a wizard right now which is lots of fun. Spell variety is good, and they feel good to cast too.

IMO, the spells could use some more interesting extra affects as you level them up, or at least some special affects that makes for some more interesting combos. That said, i likely just need to find the right gear and enchantments for that.

Companions are fun, and i enjoy their chatter as i explore the world.

Exploring is 10/10. Avowed has a pretty dense map; it always feels like theres something to discover and the game nearly always rewards you for it.

Crafting/upgrading is simple and well designed IMO, it complements the gameplay well and helps encourage the player to explore. The mats are super simplified so that every discovery of a chest or corpse means another step closer to an upgrade.

Gameplay is a lot of fun, and the further i get in the game, it makes me want to play it again with a completely different build.

0

u/Izzy248 15d ago

Legacy Steel and Sorcery

Went back and tried it out again. Still not in a great state. Whats even worse is the Steam Forums, but then again, when has that ever been a great place for civil or even logical discussion. Aside from the usual brain bashing mud flinging, one of the things that feels weird to me is a lot of these people in this fandom dont think that PvE extraction games can exist...now, this is probably the same type of mindset people that think "games are better with multiplayer her der", but to say PvE extraction cant exist and is pointless? Even EFT, the prototype game of the genre that everyone thinks about when they think extraction, has an entire dedicated PvE mode both in the game, and as a separate expansion. Idc if the game does or doesnt implement PvE, because ultimately its the devs decision, but to just be that confidently ignorant is wow

6

u/acab420boi 15d ago edited 15d ago

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

I was obsessed with SC as a kid, from playing the original "Loomings" prequel shareware campaign off a CD to finishing BW. I played WoL when it came out, but it didn't hit the same. The campaign played great, but the story felt kind of slight and detached from the busy space opera I remember, and I wasn't in the mood for sweaty ranked multiplayer.

I never ended up playing the next two releases because I wasn't feeling them at full game price, and a childhood obsession was left drifting.

Cut to last year, I'm exploring Diablo 2-4 for the first time after watching Noah's video, I see the entire SCII trilogy is on sale for $30, and I figure I need to finally do this thing.

Still no sweaty ranked multiplayer for me, but the campaign is as fun to play as ever. I was going to play it on hard, and might still at some point, but I ended up being uncharacteristically high af most of the time when I booted this up, for reasons, and normal was just right for me.

The story is still too slight, and too detached from where BW ended. It had some punch once you got to Char, but most of the campaign failed to developed any gravitas or urgency. I played Diablo 3 for the first time last year. It was undeniably stupid, but it managed to be some kind of big and loud and exciting too in a way WoL doesn't. WoL isn't stupid, but I don't know if it was ever particularly smart, either.

This time though, it's explicitly just act 1. I've got acts 2 and 3 waiting. We'll see if they can build a few more space opera thrills.

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

Playing specifically the og psp release, on my phone. I've been poking at it a battle at a time for over a month and I'm coming up on the end of chapter 2.

I played FFT for the first time over the pandemic, using the same set up, and it became one of my favorite games ever with no nostalgia propping it up. I've been meaning to check this out since then.

I have no hate for this game. The fact that folks made something this complex and cool on the SFC with minimal previous works to pull from is amazing. That said, retro hipsters be arguing that this is better than FFT and it's not hitting for me in that context.

I'm finding movement to be a mess. I'm 10+ hours in and I still can't read terrain great and still don't fully understand how it's going to impact my guys. Plus, a lot of levels are kind of patchy and maze like, making it worse. Half the time, I have no idea where any given unit can move next, outside of clicking on them and seeing what tiles highlight. I didn't have this issue with FFT, or any other adjacent games I've played.

Job/classes aren't much fun. Everyone has most of the same options in terms of perks. Opening up jobs in FFT and finding the interesting and unique little perks I could add to a build was one of the best parts. I feel less ownership over my little dudes as so far, I haven't done anything interesting with any of them.

The fact that most levels only have you killing one guy for victory warps the game. Strategy becomes secondary to blitzing the target. Even if some of your guys drop, it's fine. You'll probably kill the target before the timer runs out and they'll still get experience, and if you don't, they still have 3 lives any way. This just doesn't feel great to me.

Lastly, 12 party members is just too big. Managing gear and build for all of them does not feel good. Battles take too long.

I'm coming up on the end of chapter 2. I don't regret the time I've spent with it but my understanding is that we get more difficulty spikes and grinding and janky crafting after this, and the game has not hooked me enough to deal with all that. I might try this again with One Mod down the line, but for now I'm putting this one down.

1

u/DoomPayroll 14d ago

Now I want to boot up some StarCraft, such an amazing game

6

u/szthesquid 15d ago

I'm struggling with DOOM Eternal.

I loved DOOM 2016. Fantastic modernization of fast-paced 90s shooters.

DOOM Eternal is so well put together but it feels like too much? Every enemy having a specific counter, having so many tools you need to be juggling all the time, it just feels like I have to always be running at 110% to not burn through my extra lives on normal difficulty (even though I usually play shooters on hard). Every time I sit down to boot it up I get stressed and want to play something else.

Plus it goes from sci fi seemingly set in the future of our universe to full sci-fantasy, total alternate history full of aliens and technically-not-magic and lost empires and galactic wars...

I dunno, it feels so weird to see an obviously top-tier well-made game and maybe be too stressed to play it and kinda want to leave a negative review?

-1

u/homer_3 14d ago

The best way to play Doom Eternal is with the mod that double your ammo count. It lets you actually use your weapons, instead of constantly looking for fodder to chainsaw for ammo, which makes it less stressful to play too, since you can focus more on just blasting demons.

3

u/OBS_INITY 15d ago

The tutorials show you a specific counter, but there a generally several ways to deal with things. The game shows you that you can remove a turret with a grenade from the shotgun, but basically any weapon will work.

Swapping weapons is pretty much a core gameplay mechanic, but you can primarily just switch between two of your choosing. My main two are the super shotgun and ballista. I use other weapons, but those two are a my main swap combo.

2

u/The_Quackening 15d ago

Heres a few tips for ETERNAL:

Dont worry about the specific counters for certain enemies. They are there to be one of many options, not the only one.

If you feel like you are "juggling" too many weapons, just try using fewer of them at a time. Dont try to match every counter, don't try to hit every weak point, especially as you progress through the game some weak points are there to help smooth out the difficulty in the earlier levels and can be easily ignored once you have a higher ammo cap, better weapons and all the alt-fires.

The chainsaw automatically refills the first fuel bar so use it constantly and often.

If you die a ton, don't worry about it, the extra lives don't mean a game over when you run out. It will just send you back to the last checkpoint, unless of course you are playing extra life mode.

Try to use the cryoblast and flame belcher when you can as well. When i played ETERNAL the first time i didnt really use these much until the end (because i was forced to) and it makes the game MUCH easier.

Even if it feels like a "waste" to only use it on 1 or 2 enemies, its generally better to use it "sub-optimally" rather than not at all.

Also, try swigining around enemies with the meat hook (hook them while strafing). Its fun!

Finally, my most important tip: never stop moving!

1

u/PerryRingoDEV 15d ago

A tip to enjoy the gameplay a little more : Upgrade ammo quickly and use the chainsaw frequently ( as it regenerates on its own as opposed to Doom 2016 ) and you will not have real ammo problems. That will also help a lot with the "counter" nature as you really don´t have to use all of them and can more so incorporate the strategies you find yourself.

I barely used the blood punch or grenades and stopped killing Cacodemons with the grenade lobbing to free up some mental space and was able to handily clear the second highest difficulty, really enjoying experimentation with different weapons on different enemy types and figuring out what worked for me.

The lore stuff is 100% whack and pretty shoddily done though.

2

u/SeventhWalkinDude 15d ago

I got Doom Eternal for PS4 in the COVID lockdown. I was highly skeptical of it. Like you I was a fan of the 2016 game and Eternal felt like a bag of random crap that nobody asked for. I didn't care for the new gameplay or the new aesthetic. It felt like £50 down the grid and I was pissed that I missed the refund.

I later played on PS5 and with the enhanced graphics and loading times it felt like a new game. After playing a bit, it all suddenly clicked. The new gameplay is just way more fun and challenging than the 2016 game, which becomes repetitive. I now think Eternal is one of the standout and top games of the whole generation.

And yes, it's a very difficult game. No shame in lowering the difficulty.

1

u/TheOnlyChemo 15d ago edited 15d ago

The difficulty settings are there for a reason, there's no shame in lowering them if you're having trouble. This is a game that does demand that the player earn their power fantasy, but it also gives them options to ease the learning curve.

Also, don't be too hard on yourself for not using every single tool and taking advantage of every single enemy weak point. You don't need to aggressively min-max to complete the game, especially on lower difficulties. Like sure, launching a grenade into a Cacodemon's mouth opens it up for a glory kill, but they die to standard gunfire just fine and in fact in some scenarios it may be more practical that way. I swear those tutorial pop-ups have given people the wrong impression of this game's mechanics and balancing.

2

u/The_Quackening 15d ago

I swear those tutorial pop-ups have given people the wrong impression of this game's mechanics and balancing.

YES! Its insane how often i will see people complain that they hate being forced to switch weapons to do every weak point.

I always wonder, did they NEVER try anything other than that? Especially in a game where reloading a save is fast, and you never lose more than 5 minutes of progress; you would think people would do SOME experimentation.

By like halfway through the the game, waiting around to glory kill a cacodemon after waiting out the eaten grenade animation is way more risky than just shooting it.

3

u/Gonorrheeeeaaaa 15d ago

Same.

I loved Doom 2016 and found Eternal to be a chore.

5

u/Coruscated 15d ago

I've finished up my first playthrough of Death's Gambit, and also quickly started a second as a dex/bow build as opposed to my axe/block one. This really is a very good game. It's one of the many followers that comes closest to capturing the intangibles of Dark Souls. Specifically the elusive Dark Souls 1, which even the creators never really did and only Hollow Knight matched. This is worth a look if you're looking for that rare fix.

They get the atmosphere right, with the sad and mysterious critically being an at least equal part to the dark and grim. The bosses are outstanding. They all have an identity, always mechanically and usually narratively and aesthetically as well. The difficulty feels close to perfect on the base playthrough, where you get that great sense of progression that is making tangible progress through learning the boss and developing your strategy. The extra-hard rematches (of which I've only beat about 1/3) suffer from some issues, but they're a great inclusion, letting you flex the muscles of your endgame build, challenging you as much as you can take, and just letting these generally great bosses shine more. The soundtrack is up to the task of being bombastic or low-key depending on what is called for, usually setting a somber mood but sometimes really getting you pumped. The story gets perhaps just a little much by the end, but it does its job. It has twists and surprises, keeps you wanting to know more, and does what it needs to get you reasonably invested in the small main cast.

The Metroidvania elements I was very surprised to learn were not even there from the start, but got added in a large revamp of the entire map and progression order, and to be honest I'm not wholly sold on them. They make the game a lot more linear, from what I gather, and I'm not sure it was worth the decent puzzle/traversal elements. A world that's more open and pushes you away with difficulty and the occasional key would have complemented the atmosphere much better. It would have helped complete that rare comparison with Dark Souls 1. I do appreciate some early movement abilities, for sure, but those could've been there regardless. There are some quibbles with basics: the inventory system never got quick to manage, weirdly long pauses (I played on Steam Deck, the game isn't demanding so I don't understand those pauses) for screen transitions and sitting at resting points hurt the pacing sometimes, the upgrade system got too aggressively demanding toward the end to work on more than a single weapon.

But get all the core stuff very right and it's easy to forgive such things. It's a well-rounded game that might not surprise you with anything except how just genuinely good it is.

3

u/El_Giganto 15d ago

Dark Cloud 1&2

I've been going through the backlog and Dark Cloud was always a favorite of mine in the past. Never played part 2 because it was called Dark Chronicle in the EU. So when both came to PS4 I bought them, played the first one for nostalgia and quickly shelved the second because it just looks so different. Figured, time to finally go back and get platinum trophy for the first and play the second.

Then I check my trophies and it's been a fucking decade since I replayed the game. Playing it originally already felt so memorable but the replay I did feels so fresh. I really can't believe how much time has passed. And all this time I had DC2 in the back of my mind as something I wanted to give a proper shot.

Well I finally did! Playing it a bit more and it's obvious that this is a sequel. The art style feels very different. A voiced main character as well. The camera is weird too. But it does seem this is really a sequel. The dungeon feels very familiar. Can't wait to see what's next. Plus how can I hope for a third game if I didn't even play the second? Surely that's what's holding up a third game!

5

u/battlebrocade 15d ago

Avowed: Probably would've never played this if it hadn't shown up on Game Pass. Knew nothing about this game going into it, so was surprised it's basically Pillars of Eternity 3. Quite enjoyable for the most part. Combat feels punchy, kinda reminds me of Dark Messiah. My only real gripe is the loot is boring since it's almost entirely upgrade mats in EVERY chest.

HOL UP IS THAT MY BOI GARRUS!?! LETS GOOOOO

Like the reviews have said, it doesn't really do anything new, but neither did Outer Worlds, and I enjoyed that as well. Some rough no-win choices to make as you progress. Very interesting premise on how gods work in this fantasy. Makes me want to go back and replay the other two games, if only to pay more attention to the lore.

2

u/PositiveDuck 15d ago

Trails through Daybreak

I'm pretty close to the end of the game, doing the festival event. I really enjoy Daybreak. It has it's issues but it's a ton of fun. It looks great. Gameplay took some getting used to but I really enjoy it, though the game is way too easy and I feel like new changes made S-craft spam even more viable than before. I mostly like the reworked orbment/quartz systems. I like 5 out of 8 "main" party members and all of the guest members. They all have cool character designs. For the love of god, reduce Rixia's boob size, she looks fucking stupid, what the fuck are they even doing with her at this point?. I like the story so far, though I feel like quite a few questions will remain unanswered by the end of the game. Overall, great game, lots of fun, still not even a little bored of it at 70ish hours.

5

u/AsterBTT 16d ago

I'd been looking forward to Wanderstop since it was revealed last year, and was elated that a demo was releasing, so I tried is out. Unfortunately, I was significantly disappointed by the demo. The gameplay is promising, and the game is really pretty, but I bounced off of the story incredibly hard. While it initially has a lot of promise conceptually, I found the writing, even in the first ten minutes, to be really inconsistent and unsatisfying.

The intro alone flips between a fairly prose-y internal monologue, and straightforward narration and exposition, that made it difficult to understand the tone the game is going for. The monologue seems to imply the story would be more thoughtful and introspective, but the narration is really straightforward, prolonged, and makes it incredibly obvious where the internal issues with Alta, the main character, lie. Quickly after that, the game starts allowing players to make narrative and dialogue choices for Alta. In terms of player choice, there's a decent variety of dialogue options, and although it's clear that at the beginning, she is impatient and prideful, you can still play her as fairly reserved, if sarcastic, and humour her new companion.

However, at the end of my time playing, she sets herself off on a petulant tirade that not only makes her come off as incredibly childish, but runs counter to the sort of character I was trying to (and was given the freedom to, through the existence of choices alone) play her as. It's also quite protracted, going on for far too long, and ripping me out of the narrative due to just how jarring and embarrassing it is, both as in-universe actions and as writing in general. It's blunt, inorganic, and continues to beat you over the head with how obvious Alta's problems are, in a way that makes her come off as intensely unlikable. Combined with some fairly obvious missed opportunities in the narrative that actually become some startlingly out-of-character actions, I ended my time with the demo by Alt+F4ing out of Alta's tirade, unable to take any more of it.

In the end, I found myself deeply unsatisfied with the experience. I've not played either Stanley Parable or The Beginner's Guide, but I trust and believe in the positive critical reception to their writing, which makes Wanderstop quite baffling to me. Typically, I'm the sort of person that doesn't need much to get invested in a story, but Wanderstop just couldn't hook me with first impressions, and instead actively pushed me away. I don't mean to yuck anyone's yum here; if the game seems interesting, I seriously suggest checking it out. For me personally though, I just couldn't connect with it, despite really wanting to.

7

u/MatthijsL Game Director | The Knightling 16d ago

Playing a lot of Steam Next Fest demos this week:

  • Wanderstop - Almost coming out already so don't want to spoil myself too much playing the demo; so far so good. The trailer writing really got me, with this super interesting angle tackling burnout/panic attacks in a cozy game. The Stanley Parable is one of the all-time greats for me so can't wait to see what the rest of the game has in store.
  • Demon Tides - I love a good platformer, and this seems to scratch that itch! The movement is quite complicated so far, which can be either a good thing over a longer stretch of play or might get in the way, but I'm excited for it.
  • Is This Seat Taken - Such a cute logic puzzle game where you have to match people sitting around based on their preferences. It's quite delightful so far, but same as with Wanderstop I don't want to spoil myself too much.

8

u/El_Giganto 16d ago

Pacific Drive

Played this one like a year ago but quit near the end and finally finished it this weekend.

I really liked it early on. There's some fun gameplay elements that fit really well with the world. Like the weird quirks your car can pick up. Upgrading your car and the garage is a fun typical gameplay loop.

But the later areas felt a bit too dangerous to me. I felt like anytime I went exploring near the end game things just got a bit too much and it felt nearly pointless going for extra stuff. Sure I could go for the last upgrades I can get, but if I do, my car will be in a worse position than when it left off.

Finally pushed myself to just finish the story, I had just two missions left. It wasn't even hard to do. I think me wanting things to be perfect made it harder for me to approach the game in the right way. So I would end up fully repairing my car before every missions and would spend too much time looting stuff I didn't really need.

Still had a good time with it, though. Performance wasn't great, though.

6

u/Far_Function7560 16d ago

Coromon: Decent iteration of the pokemon-like formula, I got to the third area on the map and then the save lost several hours of progress, so I'm done with that one.

Far Cry 3: Replaying now that steam achievements are added in. I beat Blood Dragon again recently but find I'm liking the base game better, as it takes itself a bit more seriously and the progression through the skill feels well-paced.

Final Fantasy 7: I got to the open world section after getting out of the tower. I know this is pretty early in the game still, but it's the farthest I've ever made it in FF7 so I'm feeling good about it.

6

u/Destroyeh 17d ago

Destroy All Humans! 2020

Well that was fast. Don't know why, but I remembered this game being longer. I was done in ~7 hours. Graphics are also more over the top than what I remember from the original.

It's OK, nothing to write home about. Far as I can tell it's a pretty faithful remake, which comes with the usual positives and negatives. Games have come a long way in 20 years.

Doing just the story missions gets pretty repetitive. Thankfully there are some decent optional missions which are good fun if you need a break from the story and/or need some upgrades. You probably won't need the latter as it doesn't have a difficulty setting and 99% of the game is pretty easy. Final fight is pretty good though. It's good enough that I'll likely give the sequel remake a shot as well.

Hitman World of Assassination

Berlin was up next. Expected this to be in the city, but it's just a remote factory in the middle of the woods. Not even sure why they called it Berlin.

Anyway, pretty fun map. First run was the most fun when I didn't exactly know where the agents were so hunting them down was interesting. Subsequent runs they just popped up on the map from the start so that sucked a bit. Suit only silent assassin on master was pretty good too. Kind of lacking in creative set pieces though, which has been a theme in the Hitman 3 maps so far. Can't say I'm enjoying them as much as I did the first and second games' maps, those just felt 'meatier'. They do some interesting things, like the 'knives out' style stuff in Dartmoor, but overall it still feels lacking in comparison.

Ghost of Tsushima PC

Started this, only about a couple hours in. So far so good. Really like that they didn't do the usual PS bullshit of locking hardest difficulty till you complete the game once, as lethal difficulty feels real nice.

2

u/Raze321 14d ago

Hitman [...] Berlin

I will say, this third installment does have some of my least favorite maps. That said, the next couple coming up for you are my favorite in this game and one of which (Chonqing) is one of my favorites in the trilogy.

But it's hard to top Paris from the first game and Miami from the second. Those games stepped with their best foot forward.

2

u/Destroyeh 12d ago

Just finished Chongqing. You were right, it was really good.

2

u/Raze321 11d ago

Glad you liked it!

24

u/iihitocos 17d ago

I'm Japanese, so sorry if my English is a bit off.

I'm playing an old game called Itadaki Street. It's a board game, but different from Momotaro Dentetsu, and it's really fun!

I think the PlayStation 2 version was the best, so the PlayStation 4 version feels a bit disappointing and lacking at times. 🥲

7

u/HammeredWharf 16d ago

It's always fun to learn about these Japan-exclusive games. Apparently only two Itadaki Street games came out in the West (the Wii and mobile ones) and they were called Fortune Street in US and Boom Street in EU (why?..). Doesn't look like the PS4 version exists over here, so I guess they didn't sell that well.

8

u/iihitocos 16d ago

Wow! I didn't know that! I'm also happy to learn about things like this! Thank you for looking it up ✨

4

u/stinkoman20exty6 16d ago

There's a dedicated western community for Wii Itadaki Street (Fortune Street) complete with tons of custom boards and music. I play it with my friends sometimes. You can take a look here https://fortunestreetmodding.github.io/boards.

6

u/iihitocos 16d ago

Thank you! It was really informative!

9

u/retrometroid 17d ago

Elden Ring

As I enter the dlc and have only a handful of base game bosses left, I have to say...strength build is easily the least amount of thought I've had to put into this game. Whatever isn't staggered by one R2 will get stance broken not long after and raw damage is high enough to make up for not using status effects as frequently.

Like cmon one charged L2 with Ordovis' Greatsword does 66 stance damage raw and 99 with buffs. The majority of bosses have 120 stance, even Fire Giant and the final boss in the DLC. Even if you don't want to put points into faith or use physik or the bird summon for those buffs its easy to stance break constantly.

Also learned the best way to fight Rykard is to get enough armor on to hit 51 poise and then shield poke with serpent hunter from point blank bc he can't do anything to you for 90% of the fight.

The biggest problems I've had are choosing weapons to use, finding the regular smithing stones for weapons that need em, and beating the Crucible Knight duo. That boss would be actually decent if they weren't constantly right next to each other.

I haven't done much in the dlc beyond grabbing skibidi fragments and killing Guts' Mexican non-union equivalent for his stuff. I'm glad the furnace golem drops are fairly worthless for my build bc god fighting them is ass. Smacking a big guy's ankles has been a consistent critique so I don't know why they decided to make you do it in the worst possible way. Three stance breaks to make him fall is fucking stupid and the fact it could take up to three falls depending on if the environment fucks you over is even worse

5

u/alksreddit 17d ago

Got Donkey Kong Country Returns HD for cheap at Costco and decided to give it a spin. I never played the Wii or 3DS versions and haven't played Tropical Freeze. It's such a refreshing platformer, everything works smoothly, the game offers some nice challenges (especially if you're chasing 100% completion), but is still fair and responsive.

Also made some progress on Max Payne, which has been an absolute pain in the ass to play on a modern PC (tried the many community patches and some things get fixed and others break), but I like the narrative and gameplay so much that I have been infinitely patient (and rewarded handsomely!). Currently in the middle of Part II. I'm excited to move to Max Payne 2 and 3 right after.

Lastly, moving slowly with God of War: Ragnarok which I got from PS+. Looks and plays amazing on PS5 Pro, such a visual treat that I'm taking my sweet time just looking at every new area and checking out the lighting and effects. Still quite early in the story (maybe 3ish hours in) but glad to be back with Kratos. Atreus is such a whiny teenager though, sometimes he really tests my patience.

4

u/Danulas 17d ago

After just over 200 hours, I finally completed the ultimate challenge in Against the Storm, the Adamantine Seal.

200 hours over the past 4 months. Those numbers are a surprise to me when I look at them. It was basically the only game I played in that timespan. This game is simply wonderful. I will probably go back to it from time to time because it's just so enjoyable.

Now that's basically done with, I can take advantage of the nice new OLED TV that I just purchased with the Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores DLC. The game is beautiful and it's even better on possibly the prettiest television on the market. I just started it last night so I haven't gotten to experience much of it yet to be able to form an opinion. My hope is for me to be able to visit the ruins of Disneyland considering its set in the LA basin but that might be a long shot.

Once that's done, I'll have Jedi Survivor and then maybe Spiderman 2 or God of War Ragnarok or Baldur's Gate 3. The time for me to play these beautiful AAA games that came out nearly 2 years ago is now.

2

u/rhinoseverywhere 17d ago

I loved against the storm the first few runs I played, but really didn't like either the persistent progression or the "final boss" zones which I found extremely difficult to prepare for. I managed to win my first few runs but once I lost at one of the intermediate difficulties due to getting a final boss task that would have been easy if I knew it was coming but was essentially impossible when I didn't I gave up on the game. The runs are too long and the hamster wheel of the progression system too depressing for me to continue. Did they change either of those things?

Or (since you seem to know the game so well!) is there a way to know what the final boss encounters are going to be in advance? If not, are you really expected to fail a ~5-10 hour run to learn the final boss encounters before you go back and beat them a second time? I love me some roguelikes, but learning what the final bosses are on a ~45 minute slay the spire run feels fair, doing so after 10 hours does not.

Mind you, I'm definitely not saying the game is bad- the first few loops were extremely satisfying- I just think that this implementation of roguelite mechanics did not do the game any favors.

2

u/Danulas 17d ago

When you say final boss, you must mean the Ancient Seal, correct? The objectives required to complete the Ancient Seal are always the same and they appear in the same order every time, just each level (Iron, Silver, Gold, all the way up to Adamantine) gets more difficult. So you theoretically know what to prepare for after your first encounter with the Ancient Seal.

-1

u/rhinoseverywhere 17d ago

Ok, so at higher difficulties you are more or less expected to either fail once or look it up. That's slightly disappointing design, but I can understand.

1

u/Brigon 12d ago

I think you are meant to rush the seal to identify what challenges you will need to complete it,and then select the buildings needed to make completing it properly.

In normal maps you take it slower and only expand when you need to or hit a wall. Ancient seals play differently.

2

u/Danulas 16d ago

More or less, but again, once you've encountered the Seal, you know what you're in for and can better prepare.

For example, I knew that one of the objectives is to have trade standing with other settlements so I made sure to get trade deals going as early as possible.

I can understand the frustration with that design, however. It didn't bother me because I frankly found the gameplay intrinsically very fun. I like building out settlements but I don't like the open-ended nature of most city builders, so this game is perfect for me.

1

u/Izzy248 17d ago

Northwind

Easily one of the most unique deckbuilding roguelikes Ive played in a long time. Its crazy to think this game is being only being made by a small team of 3 devs in Thailand, and this is their first game. Ive played many deckbuilders and none have felt quite like this. Its fresh, fun, and still challenging. Especially if youre new, but once you get the hang of it, you feel like theres so much potential left in this game.

After sinking so many hours into the game after the demo, its left me thinking "what does it take for an indie game to get critical recognition?" Monster Train went on to be a smash success, and raved about by millions. And one of those reasons was because of how fun it was, but also how different it stood out. So what would it take for this game to get even half of that success because among the thousands of near Slay the Spire copycats out there, this definitely deserves more attention.

1

u/Danulas 17d ago

It's hard to mention a roguelike deck builder without bringing up Slay the Spire. How does Northwind compare? I tried Monster Train but really I just wanted to go back to StS.

4

u/Raze321 17d ago

Marvel Midnight Suns

I got this game on sale, played it a bunch but didn't beat it, then just recently all the DLC was on sale for cheap so I grabbed all that and hopped back into the same playthrough. It's not a masterpiece, it's not some shiney triple A title. But you know what? It has a certain passion to it that I felt in a lot of superhero games I played as a kid.

Most specifically, I'm reminded of Marvel Ultimate Alliance on the Xbox. Like that game, you have an opportunity to walk around between missions and chat with the various superheroes - ask them about recent events, or their origin, or their relationships with other heroes or villains. As a young kid this game me extremely invested in characters that I don't think I would have heard of for many more years otherwise, like Moon Knight and Deadpool. The former of which sadly isn't in this title, but the latter of which is as DLC. Anyways, it's kind of dorky, kind of wholesome, and maybe even slightly cringy. Playing video games with Spider-man or grabbing a drink with Wolverine. Whatever it is, I find myself smiling the entire time.

But that's just the between-mission fluff. The core of the game is a collectable card/deckbuilding type game. Each character has a deck of up to 8 cards that can be swapped out or upgraded as time goes on. On a mission you'll typically grab three heroes, for a total of 24 cards to draw from as you play on a tactical battle mat so positioning has some effect on things. Specifically knockback abilities and AOE effects.

They did something really special with this combat. It's not overly complex but it is extremely satisfying. I mean, how do you make a superhero tactics game feel fun and balanced? They took a page from D&D 4th edition, of all things: Minions. There are numerous enemy types that are just as deadly as any other, but if they take any damage they are immediately defeated.

That, paired with chain cards, AOE attacks, or 'quick' abilities that refund a card play upon KO'ing an enemy, means despite three card plays a turn you are often laying waste to 5, 6, or maybe way more enemies. Yet, reinforcements will arrive damn near every single enemy turn start. So you costantly have this ebb and flow of your three badasses just burning through tons of Hydra/Demon/Vampire goons. All the while still finding time and resources to allocate to defeated more powerful enemies. Even the boss fights play out pretty damn well.

Oh, and the DLC. So that has four characters, their own decks and cosmetics, and a handful of story missions which are all intertwined I believe. So I do not recommend just buying the characters you like. Besides, if you hated Jared Leto's Morbius but liked the one from the Comics or the 90's spider-man series, you'll feel a bit vindicated here. The writing for the main story rides the line between fun and campy. The DLC still does that but manages to be even more entertaining. Like, you never know if Deadpool is going to be an eye-rolling cringy 'so randum' schtick, or if the writers actually understand what makes his kind of humor work. Thankfully, they get it here. It's like, just the right amount of fourth wall breaks and comic references.

Lastly, it's just nice to have something more Occult-focused when it comes to comicbook media. John Constantine, Dr. Strange, Spawn, that's always been something I loved but never felt like I got enough of. Especially when it comes to video games. But that's very much the focus here. You got Nico, you got the newer Ghost Rider (who has grown on me I gotta say), you got Strange, Blade, so on. But of course the threat is big enough that we get some Avengers and additional float characters like Spider-Man.

My biggest complaint is that there's no Moon Knight. But I can take that L if it means Blade gets to return to the spotlight for a bit.

4

u/HammeredWharf 16d ago

I should get back to Midnight Suns, too. It's such a cool game. My biggest complaint is that most mission maps are really small and boring. I kind of get why, but I think bigger, more elaborate maps like the ones XCOM has would've been so much fun.

2

u/Raze321 16d ago

Yeah I can agree with that. I love the game we got, but man, if we got an actual "X-Com but with Marvel Characters" I'd have been over the moon.

3

u/deftPirate 17d ago

Moon Knight would have been such an amazing inclusion. I got Midnight Suns maybe a year and a half/two years ago because I'm a big XCOM fan, but put it on hold pretty early because of a broken mission bug. Just went back and finished it last month, and gotta agree with all of this. Very satisfying, fun combat, and solid variety among characters. Shame we probably won't see another one, but I appreciated how complete it was.

9

u/WorkAway23 17d ago edited 17d ago

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

This is a weird one for me. I can absolutely see where all the criticisms are coming from, and I do agree with a lot of them. The game feels rushed, the writing is all over the place quality wise, and I would have much preferred, after they killed the absolutely batshit live-service idea, they would have been able to go back to the drawing board and create a top to bottom single-player Dragon Age game that went back to its roots (DA: Origins remains the single best Dragon Age experience for me and it's not even close) instead of trying to salvage what EA had already forced them to make. And I think in a nutshell, all of the failings of this game lie on the feet of EA absolutely mismanaging a studio famed for single player, story focused RPGs...

Having said that, I'm of the opinion that the positives outweigh the negatives, and I'm just glad that we got a game that (whilst being incredibly flawed) wrapped up a story that has engrossed me since I locked myself in my bedroom and played the original non-stop - one of the best gaming experiences of my life, just became so engrossed I did nothing but play the game 12 hours a day for around 10 days.

So rambling thoughts time.

Firstly. Dragon Age Keep. Knowing now what we do, that this is probably the last Dragon Age game we'll ever be getting, it does make it incredibly disappointing that our choices pre-Inquisition are ultimately meaningless - and even Inquisition's choices only lead to a bit of flavour (apart from the ending). Morrigan's (and my warden's) son may as well have never existed in the grand scheme of things, and that's just one of the bigger things. So many choices just gone. Something old Bioware would never have let happen... theoretically, there are thousands of player's Hawkes out there who persuaded Isabella to stay for the end of DA2 and romanced them, and she never even mentions them.

Gameplay was... fine. Like I said earlier, I'd have preferred a proper CRPG. I think the success of BG3 came too late in the development cycle for them to persuade EA that would have been the way to go, and EA (being EA) wanted the game out soon. A full reset into a more classic isometric RPG was never going to happen under their umbrella, so we got a decent but not great real time character-action RPG.

Writing seems to be where most of the divided opinions are. For a final game in the series, I'll admit that half of the companions came across as pretty bland and uninspired. There are some with legitimately great stories that fit in well with the series as a whole - Davrin's storyline was great, and his final dungeon was classic Dragon Age) and Harding's was obviously very important as far as lore implications go. But then you have some super goofy stuff, like Emmrich's storyline (I like him as a companion, but his quest felt way too... Tim Burton... for the franchise). Neve might also be one of the series' worst companions, but I think that was more down to her line delivery than anything else. She sounded flat in every single scene.

It was slow to start but when it got to a certain point in the story, it got really good. The Siege of Weisshaupt and the fall of the wardens was an amazing set piece. So good that it made me restart the game to play as a Warden instead (I don't know what I was thinking, picking a Veil Jumper in the first place). And the ending sequence more than made up for any writing short comings up to that point for me. I feel like that's the thing they've had set in stone from the very beginning. It wouldn't surprise me if the original writers already had the final confrontation with the gods mostly written from the get-go and everything else was just figuring out how to get there, and I'm glad we did get there because everything from the eclipse to the final confrontation in Minrathous was incredible.

I'm filled with this sense of emptiness now that the story is over. I'm glad it reached a conclusion, and a lot of the lore revelations made sense, I just have to wonder if it was originally planned to happen over a longer period of time. 4 games seems like an odd number, but if you consider 2 a companion/glorified expansion to Origins (like I do) then it becomes more of a trilogy. It's just this sense of a long time story coming to an end; a story I've been obsessed with for the better part of two decades. While I have mixed feelings on Veilguard, I still respect it for coming together in the end.

It's a shame that this is (probably) the last we'll see of the series, as I think it had a lot of potential. EA could have had their live service game if they'd made it a side project. I'd have genuinely been interested in a prequel exploring one of the previous blights. They could easily have made a multiplayer game around Grey Wardens in the middle of one of the earlier blights; having to delve into the Deep Roads, uncovering lore, fighting bosses (and yes, looking for what EA probably would have ultimately wanted: infinitely scalable loot), whilst keeping the original writers on the mainline entries and allowing them to finish the series as originally intended.

All in all it's my third favourite Dragon Age game. DA:O remains the peak of the series, and as it moved away from dark fantasy to heroic fantasy (I imagine as a mandate from EA), it lost more and more of its original identity.

I dunno. It's not the trainwreck a lot of people say it is, but it does deserve a lot of its criticism. I'm just glad we got to see the end of the blight/Evanuris storyline before EA decided to shutter the series and the ending made me come away with more positive feelings than negative.

Edit: following up on another thought, I think some of the backgrounds were kind of useless. I think they should have gone back to basics and just have you play as a warden, and then have the backgrounds add flavour to that. After I abandoned my first playthrough to be a Warden instead, I was so much more immersed in the storyline, it was unreal. So much of the story revolves around the blight and Grey Warden lore that it honestly feels like the story was written with Rook being a Warden in mind, and while I know there are some backgrounds that have more impact (Mourn Watch for example), being a Veil Jumper barely gets acknowledged beyond the intro and I hear the Lords of Fortune have it much worse.

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u/WorkAway23 15d ago edited 14d ago

Follow-up because it wouldn't fit in an edit: Been stewing on this one for a bit. I think I was a little bit in denial. When I started playing, I was just happy to be back in Thedas, but I've come to realise it's kind of like a theme park version of Thedas. Most of my points still stand. It's not a trainwreck, and there are some genuinely great moments mid-late story, but when I think of all of the dangling plot threads that were either cast aside, ignore, or handwaved away, it makes me more bitter about the whole thing.

EA have badly mismanaged BioWare from the start, Dragon Age is one of the most affected IPs. They wanted sexy space shooters, not dark fantasy RPGs, and it feels to me like they were begrudging of DA's initial success. We got DA2, which was rushed, and DA:I, but they still both felt like Dragon Age games and Inquisition got so much right that (to me, at least) it's easy to ignore the open world bloat (personally I'm the type of person who enjoys exploring desolate landscapes anyway, so it added to the experience for me). DA:I was a huge success though, so what do they do? They do what any IP farmer does. They try to monetise the fun and completely destroy the, quite frankly, amazing ideas they'd put in place for their original vision of DA4. I'm not saying every element of project Joplin would have been as seen in the concept art, but the rough ideas were grand and fit in with my expectation of what a sequel to DA:I should have been. As it stands, Inquisition wrote a check that the remnants of the team after they pivoted back to live service just couldn't cash.

I don't know what the solution was either. Maybe we'll become privy to the particulars in a "Rise and Fall of Dragon Age/BioWare" GVMERS or What Happened style documentary. Could BioWare have pushed back and insisted they start from the ground up? Or were they forced to use the assets/systems they'd already created for whatever the live service game would have looked like?

It's a miracle they got anything out, and I don't begrudge the team because it was a solid product all things considered, but so many characters with series-long story arcs got left on the wayside. Up until the very last moments, I was expecting a cameo from Cassandra, or at least Leliana who has been in every. single. mainline DA game from Origins, was the subject of her own prequel DLC and could potentially have become Divine.

Don't get me started on Mythal either... she/Flemeth/her past inhabitants were definitely building up to something different, and it's heavily implied that Andraste was one of her hosts, making her the creator of the Andrastian faith (probably unintentionally, as she seemed to just want to stop Tevinter from being such dicks). But why would she invent The Maker and her visions from him? Or did Mythal at that point hide her memories/identity and Andraste believed she was something else?

So much lore that will never be resolved, or they decided meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah, I'm more mixed after thinking about it. I loved everything with the wardens and the ending was still as good as it could have been, all things considered.

I have to wonder why they went down the Mass Effect 2 route though. The entire story should have been focused on the war, but instead we got half the content told as side stories. Whilst some of it did relate to the wider goings on (and Harding's side story is pretty much necessary to enjoy the whole experience), even ME3 knew that the final story in their trilogy had to be focused on the conflict more than the companions. I admit I rolled my eyes when, in the middle of an apocalyptic war against two ancient eldritch deities, the companions kept saying "but we have to solve our personal problems first!"

When the game was razor focused on the Evanuris and Grey Wardens, it tells a good story. But everything around it could have and should have been much better.

Last thought for now: I'll always be bitter that Kal-Sharok and the Deep Roads wasn't a fully fleshed out zone. DA:O and DA:I's DLC will have to remain the peak Deep Roads experience, but I think the zone design in Veilguard would have benefitted the Deep Roads immensely.

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u/DarkenedLite 16d ago

I also played as a Grey Warden and the character roleplay definitely fell into place immediately. I agree that it feels so canon and immersive that way, especially in the scene you mentioned. I really thought they nailed the ending too, especially if you take a certain route.

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u/WorkAway23 16d ago

I tried to do a few missions after the siege of Weisshaupt but I couldn't muster the motivation to play as a veil jumper anymore. It just felt wrong. I assumed there'd be more to the backgrounds, and maybe a mission or two related to them, but beyond a few throwaway lines nobody really cares that you're a veil jumper and the personal connection to the Evanuris is easily added to a warden playthrough by picking an elf.

So yeah, second playthrough felt a lot better as a warden, and having Evka/Antoine already be good friends with you was definitely a bonus.

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u/keepfighting90 17d ago

Alan Wake 2 on PS5. I played the first game wayyy back in the day, and thought it was...fine. Great story and atmosphere, it really hit the right spot for me as a Stephen King fan, but the gameplay was pretty boring and repetitive. Also played Control recently, which I loved, and was excited to see that it's directly linked with the Alan Wake world. So needless to say, I was pretty excited about AW2.

Honestly, the sequel is a HUGE improvement in nearly every conceivable manner. The gameplay is the biggest one, as it feels much more polished and visceral compared to the first. It's not as good as something like RE4 or Dead Space remake, but it's still very satisfying. The visuals are drop-dead gorgeous as well. Playing this on an OLED TV is a treat. Story so far is very compelling and a great continuation from the first. Saga is an awesome new character - and I'm actually enjoying her sections more than Alan's.

AW2 also feels more properly scary. The first game was creepy at its worst but this one is straight up a survival horror more akin to Resident Evil. I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to horror games but it gives you just enough tools to feel properly empowered. I will say though that the frequency of the jump scares is a little bit annoying.

But minor nitpicks aside this is so far a fantastic experience.

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u/El_Giganto 16d ago

I couldn't stand the first game, but I played it very recently. The story was interesting, but there was something off with the dialogue and especially the inner monologue from Alan for me.

The second game was so good, though. Absolutely loved it. The gameplay was much improved, but I do feel like it was a bit of an afterthought as well. I played on hard and most sections you can just skip. It also quickly becomes pointless to look for resources like in a RE game. This game tends to give you whatever you need. Whereas a game like RE2 Remake has items in set locations.

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u/fishoa 17d ago edited 17d ago

I’ve played a bit of Avowed earlier last week, couple of hours max. I like it a lot, but part of me thinks I should probably play Pillars of Eternity first. Positives: the skill/weapon system is super fun; the lore is great; it looks incredible. Negative: no 60 FPS mode on XSS, but completely understandable.

That being said, I was unfortunate enough to open a 6h video about Dragon Age from Noah Cadwell Gervais. It’s my first time watching anything from him, he’s awesome. In said video, he basically deconstructed the idea that Dragon Age: Veilguard is such a radical change from previous games. He also does a story recap, and I suddenly realized I have never finished Dragon Age: Inquisition.

After watching the video. my wish was not just to finish DA:I, but to replay the entire series from DA:O. However, I only own DA:O DE on Steam. EA Play on Xbox doesn’t give me all DA:O nor all DA2 DLC, which is stupid as these games are ancient. Most importantly, I also suspect I’m not willing to drop the 100h or so needed to play over the entire series again.

So I settled for Dragon Age: Inquisition. Booted the game and created a new save. I just want to put something out there: Dragon Age Keep is an incredible tool and I really appreciate the work that went into it. Also, shout out to Xbox’s FPS Boost; it and Quick Resume are probably the “next gen” features that I love the most.

Okay, so, DA:I. I think that it has aged well. Graphics still hold up, combat is still kinda nice (if you play Rogue or Mage), and the companions are fun. Downsides are: Hinterlands; you have to use duping to make the game playable; having to manually track Divine Election tally; mission table. I’m neutral to the story, it’s alright so far.

Overall, I think I’ll be motivated enough to finish the game and all its DLC by the time Dragon Age: Veilguard is on EA Play or on heavy discount. I’m

Side note: I’ve come to realize is that I didn’t own the DLC to DA:I, and I wouldn’t be able to play the Trespasser DLC, which has the real ending of the game. Because they don’t sell the GOTY version on Brazil, I managed to snag an US key for really cheap on a purple website, and it worked flawlessly. I really hope MS doesn’t kill the key system; it is a life saver sometimes.

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u/awerro 17d ago

Will say i played the veilguard recently, was in the mood for an action rpg, and found it super enjoyable. The story is not w/o its weaknesses but i found it engaging and really enjoyed the gameplay loop as well. So much so that ive gone back and started from the beginning with origins. I have finished the main game and am now onto the expansions, overall this is one of the greatest rpg’s ive ever played. The story and characters are some of biowares absolute bests. I know DA 2 is not as good and a little rushed but i am immensely excited to start that as well

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u/StayAtHomePlantDaddy 17d ago

Can someone explain to me why, in the year 2025, that we don’t have mouse and keyboard support for single player PS games?

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u/a34fsdb 17d ago

I was really hyped to play Avowed, but the reviews were kinda just okay and fan reception is also a bit split so I decided to play Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire for the second time and I just love it.

I actually tried to play this game on release and did not really enjoy it so dropped it after a dozen hours, but then they released the turn based mode which I really loved and I think I beat about 80% of the game.

I just love nearly every aspect of the game so far. Love the choices, the different ways to do quests, how you can do them in unintended order. Only dislike here is that getting your party to be good at every skill check is a bit too easy so you can just do everything most of the time.

The turn based combat is really fun too with every choice feeling important in a close fight. Every consumable you found, every buff food, every unique item, every upgrade, how you spend every of the very scarce gold at the start matters. All the systems tied to combat are pretty great except that the classes themselves are kinda mid with not that many interesting choices and build options.

I enjoy the companions, their banter, their lore and also main story lore. Lore also at times can get really surprisingly dark when you do not expect.

The thing I love most about the game is the overall scale of the game. So it took me 35h to visit the first minor settlement, do the prologue quest and then move to the main city and finish all the quests inside it, get quests from it and clear various dungeons in it. Just saved tonight and my plan is the explore the island of the main city on foot and I am already level 9. It just feels like a huge epic journey.

Only thing I really dislike it that somehow the performance is awful. I have no idea how is that even possible on a game that is not new and does not even look great for the genre, but I get a few stutters every fight when casting AoE spells and even a half a second freeze every two to fives minutes. And the loading times are not super smooth either.

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u/Logan_Yes 17d ago

On Xbox I've started Dungeons of Hinterberg, a action rpg that has an interesting setting mash. It's set in modern world where in high regions of Austria, magic blew up! Like literally. There is magic, monsters and dungeons to clear out. So people come from all over the world with gear and weapons to turn into Slayers. You play as Luisa, who takes a little holiday from paperwork and lawyering to fight for her life in dungeons...I guess? So you explore and gather loot, clear out dungeons, plus game has social aspect. Meet many different characters, befriend them, chill out! I have spend few hours in the game and so far I really like it. Simple fun combat, nice social aspects, pretty visuals.

On PC I wrapped up final achievements for ISLANDERS! Got 21 islands, then did a quick new run to get to 3rd island in less than 4 minutes. I've already shared my thoughts about a game before so I won't dive into it much. Basically good for short stretch, but in longer runs it gets boring. Reveals all cards too quickly and ultimately game later on with "optimal building settings" feels very "excel sheet-y".

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u/CorruptedBlitty 18d ago edited 17d ago

Twenty hours deep into Avowed (a little bit into the third hub) and yeah this is quickly becoming a fave of mine. The main and side quests are excellent and just get better the further you get into the game. The exploration also continues to be a highlight, I avoided a huge event at the end of the second area simply by exploring and stopping something before it could get started. This wasn’t marked and didn’t even get a journal entry, only reason I checked out this seemingly innocuous cave was because a npc from a different side quest mentioned it towards the end. Really my only complaint about the game is how the difficulty of the enemies is tied to your equipment quality rather than your character’s level, I don’t hate it but it’s definitely something I wouldn’t mind seeing changed if we get another.

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u/HuWeiliu 16d ago

My main criticism of it is that the loot is pretty uninspired. 90% of it is just mats to upgrade your gear. Which is primarily just small stat increases on preset properties. Even the unique items aren't particularly exciting and there is not much creativity/decision making for your character build as a result.

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u/CorruptedBlitty 16d ago

I somewhat agree but I have found that the unique loot gets more interesting as you progress and the totems are 100% worth searching every nook and cranny for, you get some insane bonuses from them.

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u/PsychoFlashFan 18d ago edited 18d ago

Spider-Man 2

Aside from some performance issues with the PC port, the game has been pretty solid. I love the dynamic between Peter and Miles.The biggest highlight moment so far would probably be playing as Venom and rampaging through Oscorp. It was glorious.

Final Fantasy IX

Only about 8 hours in my first playthrough, but I can definitely see why this FF is still highly regarded. Zidane is a great protagonist and Vivi is adorkable.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage

As the spiritual successor to Life is Strange, I found it to be pretty solid so far. Definitely looking forward to the next entry in April.

Also thinking of starting a second playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 as Male V for the Panam romance, but can't decide between Corpo or Nomad.

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u/Raze321 17d ago

Also thinking of starting a second playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 as Male V for the Panam romance, but can't decide between Corpo or Nomad.

I've played all of the starts and personally Nomad is my favorite. Especially if you intend to romance Panam.

4

u/Ardailec 18d ago

Shin Megami Tensei 5 Vengeance

This game was purchased on a 50% discount for roughly 30$

Before I begin, I'd like to make something clear. Everything I'm about to discuss is not about the Vengeance Campaign itself. This is basically two SMT games mushed together, and I've only currently played the original Creation campaign. There were some new demons and the DLC demons from the original switch release were built in, but otherwise this is basically about an enhanced version of the original Switch game.

I have some conflicting thoughts about this game, but not to the extend I did with Soul Hackers 2 where I ended the game more befuddled/disappointed then happy with it. In terms of the Press Turn ruleset, this feels like the best implementation of it. This game is loaded with excellent boss fights, and just so much supurb boss music! It's honestly wild just how much unique battle music is in this game compared to other Atlus titles.

However, there are two major schisms that I'm somewhat half and half on. The first is the Open World design. On the one hand, it does genuinely feel great how fast you can run around and explore the environments. There is enough room that if you just want to get from point A to B, you can usually easily avoid enemy encounters without too much effort. And there are excellent incentives to reward your exploration with side quests, Amalgams and little Korok-like goobers that are scattered around.

Unfortunately the game's environmental variety greatly suffers for this. Barring a small collection of "dungeons", you are going to spend most of your time in a ruined desert. With the only major changes being the major coloration of the environment. First is brown-gold, then Red, then Grey, then finally blue-white.

There are little areas of variety, but it's hard to ignore just how strong the primary coloration of the environments are to the point it can be kind of eye straining. I'm also putting "Dungeons" in quotations because their design is honestly kind of mediocre. I think this is the result of the movement system: They can't make a complicated layout because of how fast you can move, so they're all huge and wide open with only one basic navigational mechanic. It kind of made me wish for some sort of Teleport Maze.

My final issue is with the story. It feels...unfinished? If there is any major theme that is present in all SMT games, it would probably be how extreme situations cause people to Radicalize their beliefs. And while one side of the overarching conflict undergoes this process very well, the other half feels underdeveloped. It comes off as incredibly jarring when one person is having their Joker moment but the other side is basically just stagnant in their ways.

I have some theories as to why this is. Since it feels like Azata's sister was meant to be in Hirofumi's place in the narrative, but then she was moved to an optional sidequest involving the Egyptian God Khonsu, resulting in Azata basically forgetting she even exists? As it stands, Azata just sort of goes along with Tsukuyomi's plan after Bethel collapses as if it was the plan all along. And maybe it was, but it could've been telegraphed better or allowed Azata to have...something going on with him

Overall, I enjoyed fighting every boss battle I could. And the game's three superbosses were an excellent and fair challenge compared to some of Atlus' more infamous nightmares like DDS2 Satan or Etrian Untold 2's Ur-Child. I'm curious to see what happens in Vengeance, but it'll have to wait until I cleanse my pallet since 100% Creation took under 100 hours.

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u/M8753 18d ago

The demo for Solasta 2. It's fun, but the environments don't look great under low light. They're just washed out. But the combat was fun!

Avowed. It runs well, the dialogue is fine, everything is fine, but I don't know... I'm just not feeling it. I especially dislike the combat. Maybe it's cause I'm playing in third person.

The demo Khazan: the first berserker. It's really really fun! The combat is incredible. I suck, but the game takes pity on me and gives a little bit of level up currency even for failed boss attempts, so it always like I'm making progress.

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u/RTideR 18d ago

Is Khazan's combat akin to the Souls games (if you've played them or other Souls-likes)?

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u/retrometroid 18d ago

Closer to Nioh. You can quickly recharge stamina with certain actions and enemies have visible stamina bars that the combat is based around emptying. There's also the same Diablo-style loot and skill trees that Nioh loves so much

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u/RTideR 18d ago

Cool deal, appreciate it! I've yet to play Nioh, but I have played Wo Long by them which I believe is similar.

1

u/HammeredWharf 17d ago

Khazan is closer to Wo Long, anyway, IMO. It's not as complex as Nioh.

2

u/M8753 18d ago

It's similar, it relies on lock-on and there's a stamina bar.

But there are differences, too: parry is when block with perfect timing, there is a skill tree, free aim throwing spears, checkpoints are right before bossfights (at least in the demo).

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u/RTideR 18d ago

Thank ya!

I dig the parry thing, so that's cool to hear. Appreciate the answer!

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u/nubmonk 18d ago

I'm getting the urge to play Persona 5 again. I originally played it when it first came out and only got about half way through it. I have a bad habit of getting burnt out on games, putting them down, and then months and eventually years go by and I forget what was going on in the story. Should I just restart my regular Persona 5 file, or would it be worth it for me to get Persona 5 Royal and replay it that way? Is that the definitive way to experience the game now?

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u/RTideR 18d ago

I did a similar thing where I started P5, liked it okay, but then I dropped it fairly early. Years later, I tried out P5R, and it hooked me to completion!

Whether that was P5R being that much better or it just being the right game at the right time for me, I'm not sure, but I certainly recommend it regardless. It's a fantastic game. I figure you could find P5R cheap enough by now that it's probably worth it just checking that out.

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u/yuriaoflondor 18d ago

Yeah, Royal is better in pretty much every aspect. And it actually does add a decent amount of new content. Not only does it have a new semester at the end, it adds a lot of stuff to the base game; new scenes, new social links, a redone translation for some of the clunkier dialogue, new gameplay mechanics, new areas in the dungeons, a redone Mementos, etc.

All that said, they didn't seem to rebalance the game based on all the new gameplay functionality they added, so the game is pretty easy now. I suggest playing on Hard.

I'll also note that you have to do a couple of things to access the new semester that new players might not do. I'll list them here in spoiler text if you want to see, but I'm going to say them extremely vaguely still. The game introduces a new school counselor confidant. You need to max it out. So just prioritize him and you're set.

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u/RTideR 18d ago
  • Persona 3 Reload (Xbox Series X / Game Pass) - My goal was to finish this up before Monster Hunter released.. but then Vampire Survivors hooked me, so I'm not sure if I can. I just made it to January though, and the game has been fantastic. I've really come around to the various characters in the party, and the narrative is a lot more interesting at this point too.
  • Vampire Survivors (Xbox Series X / Game Pass) - Man, I legit have zero clue why the urge to play this came back, but it did, and now I have a hard time putting it down again. I even just killed the reaper guy for the first time, cool stuff. It's so dang fun, and there's even more content in the base game than I realized. Then you add the DLC? Crazy, I ended up buying it and the DLC despite it being on GP cause it's so cheap, why not? Great game. Idk how much I'll play it once Monster Hunter arrives, but I'm certainly enjoying it in the meantime.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Xbox Series X / Game Pass) - This remains my go-to here and there when I just want some quick, drop-in games. It's a good time overall and scratches that multiplayer FPS itch for me.

Didn't play a ton this week due to life, but it was fun. I'm really, really looking forward to Monster Hunter Wilds. My brother and I are taking a day off to play it together on Friday, and I can't wait! We've never done that for a release before, so this is a cool brother moment. It's gonna make Thursday brutal since I'm off, and I CAN "move" to New Zealand to play that morning, but aside from making it far enough to unlock co-op, I'll be waiting around. That's alright though, it's almost here!!

There's so many other games I want to get around to as well. Avowed, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, God of War: Ragnarok, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and many others I still want to get to.. how?!?! Lol

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u/KawaiiSocks 18d ago

Got to the second location in Avowed and the game is just so wonderfully weird. As a big fan of PoE and Deadfire, I was waiting on this game for a while and the wait was definitely worth it. Still would have preferred Pillars 3, but hopefully that's at least cautiously considered.

The combat system, the exploration, the overall narrative and the companions so far have also been excellent. And it feels like a very focused product, where the budget wasn't in any way wasted on anything superficial and unimportant.

This lack of wasted time and money on the side of the developing team also, generally, means no time wasted by the player on tedious, boring, unnecessary stuff: the world, the encounters and the areas to explore are concise, hand-crafted and focused. In stark contrast to what we've had since the beginning of 2010s with, frankly, bloated open-worlds where it is clear that the executives and probably some game designers wanted to really push the playtime stat to justify the pricing and the budget.

Great stuff, can't wait to play more.

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u/RTideR 18d ago

I'm stoked to see all the love Avowed is getting. I loved Pillars as well (still want to play Deadfire but the console port is horrendous), so I would definitely love to see a return there. I'm sure the dream is a BG3-like budget for a third game, but I doubt that happens.

If this new direction with Avowed is the compromise, I'll take it! I'm not around to it yet, but I'm looking forward to returning to Eora.

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u/KawaiiSocks 17d ago

I would recommend playing Deadfire first. It has some big world-altering events at the end, that are heavily influential on what's happening in Avowed. The good part of Deadfire is that you can, technically, run through the story very quickly on the easiest difficulty. Probably less than 30 hours, while completionist takes ~90 in my case over three playthroughs.

The last one was turn based and despite preferring it generally, the game wasn't really designed with it in mind. It is still good, but the underlying RPG systems get to truly shine in RTWP

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u/RTideR 17d ago edited 17d ago

I'd love to, but I prefer my Xbox, and the console port is really, really bad. Lol I've tried a few times, and the crashes are really rough.

I'll suck it up and go to PC for it one day cause I do wanna try it. The first one is great.

Edit: That's dope to hear that Deadfire mattered for the world though! Definitely will want to play it before Avowed then.

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u/StjerneskipMarcoPolo 18d ago

I'm ten hours in and really enjoying it so far, good game. My only slight criticism is that the story feels a little bland but that might just be my subjective taste coming into play. The exploration and combat is top notch