Recent reviews by mornal

Cozy little puzzle game with a gorgeous art style. Just challenging enough that you can't autopilot through the levels if you want the optional objectives, but also if you just want to make a perfect little rail network it scratches that itch too.

Truly excellent game. You can see the love, thought, and care put into the characters and especially the town itself as it grows through the game to make it all feel authentic and, more importantly, real. Seeing people grow, fall in love, die, etc. truly made it feel like a real place. The art style, music, and writing all deliver the next best game in the Disco Elysium mold.

I did experience a few bugs with event triggers, but nothing major or gamebreaking.

Tons of fun with friends. Simple crafting system that lets you create nice buildings easily and has the depth to let you create extraordinary buildings as well. Survival systems (food, durability, etc.) are restrictive without being punishing. What's not to love?

Beat the story and a fair amount of side content.

Gameplay is solid. I couldn't find any huge overhauls from Far Cry 3/4, but it built on it nicely. New guns (though it felt like there were less overall). Freeform perk system with limited prerequisites let you build how you want to ASAP. Taking outposts is still fun and I really enjoyed the arcade-y airplane controls that let me actually take down enemies and bomb targets.

Story is awful. There's a veneer of political imagery to the cult with no substance underneath (so I guess if you don't like politics in games that's a +1 for you). Each of the leaders has an annoying habit of interrupting whatever you're doing with unskippable missions (literally flying 300ft in the air when I was hit with a tranquilizer arrow) where they lecture at the PC about how "we're not so different you and I" and "I once killed someone, aren't I edgy?" There's also the unfortunate side effect that, because your character is a silent protagonist, all the moralizing and proselytizing comes across as directed at the player, not the character.

Without getting into spoilers, the endings are also quite disappointing. Knowing them going in, I had a nihilistic sensation towards all of the story content and I can't imagine I would've felt much better about them had I gone in blind.

Overall: if you want an open-world, action-stealth shooty-shooty game it'd be fine if you could ignore the story, but you can't. Play FC3 or FC4 for the same gameplay but with less aggravating characters and railroading in the story

Gameplay was entertaining but the cases and the story were disappointing.

I enjoyed the character portraits feature and the deduction system had me truly feeling like Holmes at times, but it was ruined by the lackluster cases. There are 5 in total. The first is an extended tutorial. The second is riddled with plot holes and the pacing goes out the window at the end. The third is the best case presented, but even it suffered from pacing issues involving repeated trips bouncing back and forth from Baker Street and a forced stealth segment. The fourth case is excellent but is altogether too short and the fifth case is utter ♥♥♥♥ primarily because it brings a very weak, very shoehorned character to the forefront and actually focuses on them.

A worthy successor and return to form after some rocky games in Syndicate & Unity. Less of an emphasis on stealth, although moreso because of the more engaging combat system than anything else. Story is lacking in the way it lacks in most open world, go-your-own-pace games where it feels hard to get attached to many of the side characters. That said they are memorable, and Aya is fantastic.

Excellent story and gameplay but there's just a touch too much filler.

Pros:
- Nice gameplay additions from Lego: Lord of the Rings
- Crafting is fitting for a lego game
- More puzzles than mindless combat

Cons:
- It crashes a lot
- It ends at the end of the second movie so you don't get to actually fight Smaug
- It uses the new crafting system too often and it gets old fast

Amazing soundtrack, great art. Gameplay is slow stealth sections that devolve quickly into chaotic madness if/when you get spotted. Excellent for scratching any itches that Hotline Miami left you with (or if the neon 80s aesthetic just isn't your style).

Oh my god this is one of the best games I have ever had the chance to play. The world is extremely immersive. The quests are well designed. The music is beautiful. I truly felt like a witcher at times.

If you at all like role playing games with a deep story you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't pick this game up.