Recent reviews by DePhoegon

Enjoyable. X}

Ideologically driven choices, removing content a decade old, and using the views of X development staff that where fired for outright harassing the owner of the original company.

Exceptionally hostile to anyone who dares to be upset about the removal of content.

Hostile towards the community and within a 'fan service genre' of fighters, removing the very personality that built the game to start with.

Leaves you wondering though... If the 'Devs' have the legal right to do this, do they have the moral right to fundamentally shift & destroy what was created by someone else that they than employ the help of after the fact those 'people' use near illegal means to force someone to do as they say on accusations alone.

This game is a shell of it's self & needs to be removed from steam. Shovelware is often better than this. It's honest about being souless, were as this had it soul stolen & sold by those who would force you to think the right way and lord help you if you want to make a off color joke.

Overall 6-7/10
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First The ... reasons for the not recommended.
1. Extreme binary choices bordering just short of having (This is Evil Choice), (This is Neutral Choice), (This is Paragon/Good Choice)
- Where 95%+ is unneeded for most dialogs.
2. Extreme misrepresentations of some choices (typical the Evil choices)
- Example, after rescuing a caged hostage & daring to select 'I am already happy' as a refusal to helping. results in your character uppercutting the now unconscious freed prisoner.
3. What weight the Evil/Good points even mean are ... wasted & effectively meaningless.
- You can cap either dark or light without an issue, on capturing those critters soon as you get a net. (the same ones you do for the various ships outside the squid one)
-- The respawn infinitely and you always get 1 light point for petting & keeping it, and 1 dark point for killing it.
4. The faction system .... feels empty really.
5. Excessively on the giant red nose of commentary about 'good & bad', and excessively poor levels of making for all intents and purposes the last boss (No the world eaters) to be a victim in the end.
6. The style of play where side quests would pop up (which is fun in it self and roaming side distractions allowing you to play how ya like & meet alot of characters) leads to the game being utterly, utterly, utterly broken easy before you even take down the 2nd world eater.
-- as an example I was niegh unkillable for the last 3 world eaters & all phases of the last boss.
7. The worst part ... My choices felt forced on light or dark.. and with such polarizing extremes of the choices & there being effectively no neutral path to pick to speak of... The feeling of being robbed of a story being finished the way you wanted to play was there.
-- which takes away from the replay as the starting characters easily sign post how they are naturally going to go down.
--- The one I started as, I literally ended up tripping over light points to the point that I would have to literally play counter to everything or quite literally go on a creature killing spree to even get considered dark.
== To put it callously, it made the Mass Effect 3 Ending feel meaningful by comparison.
8. The game economy .. .means nothing at the end of the day. (even if you never once raise your charisma either)
9. Most the game, Range is King... be it guns (of any kinds) or ki abilities.
-- There are some really cool melee abilities.. but you literally have to force yourself to use them.
10. It is very easy to snowball into endless healing if you don't pay attention.
--- This sounds good, but it does take ...something out of the fights that are meant to be harder
11. Dodging is (actively, & via prompts) is GOD.
-- Perhaps way to strong, to the point the fights felt more drawn out than tense in the later bosses.

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I understand that those who go out and do all the side quests are going to be beefy bois by the end of it with all sorts of stuff to use, but the problem here is that .... you will have to actively run past all the fights, get all the sign posts fast travel whenever you can, and only do the minimal amount of side quests to complete the game to feel any sort of challange what so ever.

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Positives.
The game is a fun play, with a silly amount of stuff.
The Visuals are completely solid.
Character abilties that are ... fun to use and provide utility if you can think outside the box. (some pretty screenshots to be had)
The story past the major choices of 'kill' or 'save' the world tree, & the whole factions thing does give the feeling of exploring and having your own path to have.

Minor Negative
- Weird hangups about display mode for some reason, and the mode never seemed to work correctly. (though I set it to full screen, and it behaved like a fussy borderless fullscreen & worked well past that)
- The Narrator sort a feels like the stanley parable talking down to you (as the player)about morality and choice in an almost grating way

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Honestly This game can be worth playing, but there are things that harm the experience... and if you are ok with that.

I wish they had put more effort into neutrality... given a better balance for leveling, made the light & dark figures interactions mean more than a glorified UI prompt (as entertaining as it was to frustrated both sides at every chance), and ... not railroaded what it wanted for your paragon path so damn'd hard.

I wish I had the enthusiasm to play it again and 'go for the dark faction' but past the interactions from the side characters which are very cool, it would feel ... exceptionally hollow and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't change enough to feel like it was my choice past (I choose violence this time)

Technically sound... but emotionally flawed and if you play it for the combat & the characters .. you'll love it, but the story will ring hollow in the end.

Honestly a cheap & honestly solid little game that's 100% able
It's Not the hardest little game, but it's not dumb down either. X}

A great game for every so often virus looking creature slaughter town X}

1. Does not do BT audio well.
-- keeps cutting in & out so bad it's insane.
2. lack of any skip to the 'start' of the actual tutorial/game.
-- No one wants to wait 20-30 seconds.. while a 'cutscene' plays out in engine, just to load the play area.
3. Slow to trigger respawn when falling.

Honestly, those 3 things genuinely make this a no buy from me.
-- Refunded even when I got it for 70% off.

I would suggest if the developers are still trying.. to stop attempting to take full control of the audio source & allow windows to mix it (as it does for any other program), so that it doesn't ruin Low latency BT connections.
I would also suggest, not making intros manditory every time.

TL;DR -- Stop reading reviews, or posts about it... forget what you have seen/heard & play it as blind as possible the first time.

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A strangely 'off' game, that is entirely worth playing... with any real discussion about the 'story' being as much about the player as the game.

There are 'some' bugs, & a few missing invisible walls. Though no geniune play through will find them without reallllly looking for them, and even at that they aren't distracting.

it's more possible then naught that you might get what's being said, & looking past the 'rough' voice acting will be a benefit, as it may not match what the story is trying to convey.

I got access via 'EA Play', & I do not regret it one bit. I may not 'replay' it often if ever past collecting the little extras... but this is a game/experience I would genuinely suggest people not look for detailed information about & experience it for themselves, & do their best to ignore what's said about it good & bad. You will get the most if you enter the game with as blank a slate about it as possible.

I would only say the following about a very select few games.
- you will honestly steal more experience from your self & others if you spoil this game, and it's not something that can be recovered from -

Give the game the chance to stand on it's own without you knowing anything about it first.

There isn't much that could be said, that hasn't already by the numbers of those whom reach pretty damn high levels of play within the game & almost unreasonably high skill levels.

There is a difference of play between all the classes, and bonuses/ incentives to play certain ways with each class that genuinely can produce a style most anyone can enjoy.

Even among the 'lesser picked' (in higher skill brackets) - survivor [for it being not as good upfront in a style as others] there is plenty of room to get really good, enjoy the game & adapt on the fly.
-Honestly don't expect to get picked up if you main survivalist.. as you would seriously have to show off and prove yourself before the higher skill groups would touch you.

The 'prestige' system, while missing that - something -, still has a value if you like the unique weapon skins for each one, but that aside it can & will help you get much better at the class if you do not cheat/cheese xp in farms.

I personally love the custom maps that are available, the 'zombies' are awesome, personal servers that can do any mode & event are a great way to play with certain skins/effects, the objective modes are finally returning from KF 1 (from what they where in that game) and I am glad for that and a bit of skill test.

Honestly, no real sp & fairly stutter/flickery preformance on the cutscenes, & frankly a hell of alot was lost in the transformation into this form. Buy it on psp, vita, ps3, or ps tv. (It is amuch better game for it.

It is just another multi fighter pvp game in the skins of final fantasy & it's souless. I also could swear the voice overs got redone, not yhe biggest fan of it & cannot exactly pin why.

If you must play it on the pc. Psp emulation + rom (though buy it from the PS store as well).

I removed it from my account, even activation of it as well... this is a bad take on the game series, that otherwise is worth buying everywhere else it was legally sold.

For those who are not aware of where this game draws it's style. it is a tile based system, D&D (clearly), and is of 5 pre-made heroes. [1 locked behind DLC entirely]

The Game is well worth playing, but some aspects will cause you to pull your hair out in frustration.

-Classic mode turns the game entirely into an RNG feast, (even beyond what D20 systems are)
== Every round, every time you pass up your turn, you've a 75% chance (1-15) of something nasty bad happening, from mild debuff to damage. [making all but 1 character vulnerable a 2-3 shot death even without any enemies.
==== which can include extra enemies spawning on your head. while already finding a pack, and often get worse the longer each map goes, or character sits still,
== Best to simply use the 'Explorer' which rolls those dice on every tile reveal instead.
== Classic is honestly an RNG nightmare and geniunely not worth it on anything past normal on each of the stages as hard & horrific only seem to make the 'encounters' more dangerous & with a 75% chance of getting a bad one.. It just becomes stupidly annoying.

- The balance is ... fragile at best, Each character has it's own style & personality and for what it is worth flushed out as far as games go, but it isn't to hard to make the one you like the most stand out like a beast.
== You'll end up using all of them. more or less.

- Loot, isn't entirely worth it outside of scrapping after the fact and a the few stat boosting items & health potions being worth having.

- HP pool is exceptionally small compared to other D&D systems, and while you have more HP then enemies atleast for a the longest while, & you are able to quickly dispatch them {assuming your rolls don't stink}, they will continue to get atleast one wave of hits in or more.. and you will go through potions, as this game does exactly favor looking far ahead.
== this also means 20% is 1-2 Hp to start with.. and even the higher end crafted stuff is +5 to HP,
== That said, the abilities are not balanced equally around the weapons either as a +hit/+dam is flat, and some abilities will just flat out do more with even a +1 applied to it. [while some it does not matter]

ranged classes are Line of sight & measured in 'TILES' but instead of the tiny red squares right around you that might be considered it, it is the actual full sized tile distance, [or the areas in the tiles themselves for some abilities ]

The game is honestly fun, but the difficulty between normal, hard, horrific are little more then weighted rolls, as you'll on average see more bad on higher difficulty (where you will honestly like say ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to some things, and I've not seen so many 1s in rolling in my time playing as I have for an entire month in other games & systems where the dice rolls are open & able to be seen. [including real dice for games]

Honestly, It is a great story and a fun time for those who like D&D, but is more a game to enjoy with a friend for the laughs, as the random events can genuinely start to make a good time ... less enjoyable alone.

-- There is no way to control 'rests' or when you recharge items or get your utility/daily abilities back, which makes most of them not exactly valuable, taking away from their impact.

-- the damage increases to the 'at will' powers, do not increase the others.. and if you happen to get a +2/+3 to your at will, which can be easier then it seems, before managing to upgrade your daily/utility abilities [via the right craft item].. can make them FAR less reliable and for some of the characters .. just not worth it.

In short the ' Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation ' could have been drastically changed into a more traditional D&D like game and allowing for the strengths of varied plays, but even in it's state that it is in now, it is worth playing.

Playable with KB&M, but far better with controller.

A really enjoyable time to play experiance ya music.

Personally, I really enjoy the higher difficulty settings.

Consistent, clean, & well done color choices, everything is easily visable.. (not accounting for .. there being alot of things to take in at once)

Good game,

Just one drawback, if you can say it, is that the game can overwhelm ones visual senses, ont the higher difficulty with quite alot flying around.