Been a very long road - I started it early November, and it says I spent 167 hours on it but I did often leave it paused while working so I suspect it’s more like 60/70.
But I’ve loved my time with it either way - as always with Bioware they make you love your team and their quirks, and helping everyone around Thedas as well as your team is often as important as the main mission.
It definitely feels like in Mass Effect that the story of your team and the factions, plus the camaraderie, is the real story and why their games hit me so well - I’m a sucker for an epic story with great companions and lore.
Sad to see the end of it as it felt comfortable to play like rejoining a group of old friends - will likely do a few smaller games / finish a few things off plus some more Indy and Final Fantasy 16 before I get into Avowed at / near launch!
It’s weird how finishing a big game can almost feel like loss as it’s over and there’s nothing new to discover - honestly if it wasn’t for this challenge I suspect I might have left DA:V at the final mission as it then doesn’t feel like I’ve finished it and my team is still together.
Might be an autistic thing as I also have read Bernard Cornwell’s Warrior trilogy (the King Arthur novels starting with The Winter King) but stop before the final battle so Arthur never dies - but maybe it’s more normal than that remembering Joey in Friends with books in the freezer and that most British legends like Arthur end with “and they’ll be back if needed!”.
Regardless, I find it rewarding and satisfying to finish a game but then feel sad it’s over until I finally click with a new game - I’ve not quite yet with Indy or FF16 so maybe I’ll do the second Golden Idol game before Avowed which as it’s Obsidian I’m sure I’ll fall in love with…
A great philosophical scifi walking sim leaving game pass in a about a week. That’s all I’ll say to avoid spoilers, but you have plenty of time to play through it. I could do it in one sitting of a few hours, but it’s also fairly bite size with about 1 hr chapters.
Loved that game, the premise, the messages you hear, the atmosphere and the clever storytelling approach were all awesome - and it’s really quite pretty for a smaller game
It was alright, obviously Silent Hill 2 inspired but there wasn’t really any challenge in the game unless you deliberately put yourself in danger, the retro aesthetic and art direction of the whole game is really good but it falls apart in its gameplay, mechanics and puzzles it’s also fairly buggy. The game is short and inexpensive I played for about 8-9 hours but you can easily do it in 2-3 if you know what to do and don’t inspect every edge of the maps. Overall it’s a vibes game and I hope they can iterate on it in the sequel it sets up at the end.
A short cozy puzzle game leaving Game Pass in a few days. Personally, I thought the placements were too strict, causing a lot of frustration. The candle level in particular I could never get it to register as complete, luckily you can skip troublesome levels.
I did a lot of that game on my phone and agree the locations can be a pain, not enough obvious difference in a few levels, but I still liked the idea a lot
There’s a lot to like and some minor annoyances that I hope get ironed out, and agree that they needed more lines for the player to say to themselves so you don’t keep hearing the same comment about itchy grass etc. Had some interesting level design that makes them feel even bigger than they are. The feeling from sneaking around and managing to not be seen is still top notch and I really enjoyed this, will have to see if the dlc looks as good as last time.
+1 Broken Age
Great story from Doublefine. I’m going to have to go re-watch the video series for this now. And I need to actually finish Psychonauts 2 and play the first one… And some others. Man I need more time.
A game that both still slaps and has some old design that can really frustrate, some save point placement is just downright cruel!
It’s almost a Zelda game where you collect story items to unlock more of the map each chapter. I think it missed an opportunity to explore that aspect with some more puzzles and secrets to find, I’m not surprised the series backed off of the exploration after this one.
As an action game its got pretty tight controls and the weapon variety is good with a clear need to use some over others depending on the fight though you can just Dragon Sword the whole game.
Enemy encounters are mostly fair though the variety on normal is a bit lacking towards the end chapters, you will be fighting basically the same type of foe a lot with new skins with some more enemy types locked behind second and third playthroughs.
The movement system is both ambitious and a little clunky, it is really sensitive to perpendicular angles so if you dont go directly up a wall like exactly straight at the wall Ryu will most likely wall run the direction you were slightly pointing at instead, the camera is probably the most dangeous enemy in the game in this regard.
Bosses kind of boil down to hold guard, roll around and wait for the one move they have an opening with and do a 3 hit combo, rinse and repeat.
Story is almost non-existent, Dark Dragon Sword bad there are Fiends go deal with it, any plot it attempts either doesn’t matter to Ryu or is never explored and dropped. Cool CG cutscenes though very 2000’s
Overall its a great game it holds up in 4K and if you go in with the right mentality its rewarding and you forget this came out 20 years ago.
I started this MMO back when it released to try it out, but didn’t vibe with it. Later, they gave everyone that logged in an xp scroll to boost you to max level and a crate full of max level equipment as well as several gold bars to sell for tons of gold. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to play with me, so I couldn’t be bothered even then. They ran that promotion again this month and I had a bunch of friends playing it for a different event, so I finally had the drive to “finish” it by completing the main quest, main dungeons that tie into said quest, and killing all the world bosses. With the plethora of F2P MMOs nowadays, I can’t really recommend it to anyone unfortunately.
Juggling several JRPGs is an illness I suffer from, meanwhile trying to play Ninja Gaiden II (X360) when I need a break from that only for it to boil my blood.
Might start Avowed but it earning me 0 points is hanging over my head.
Yeah still in early stages of AC Valhalla and Like a Dragon. Quite like the turn based combat in Yakuza as a change to the previous combat. Also bit of fan of the bow and arrow in AC. Think my next completions will be summer lol.
3 was always my favourite from what I’ve played. I’ve not managed to get around to five or six yet, but Primal & New Dawn feels more like an expansion to me. To be honest, they’re more of a reasonable time sink from what I’ve read online. New Dawn has an interesting take with its story and Prime is a completely new take on the formula.
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