Recent reviews by VinAbqrq

Toren shows some very clear limitations of time and resources available to the developers, which will leave you wondering what kind of game this could have been if the team had a higher available budget. The gameplay is very limiting and slow to the point the repetitiveness (which by itself allows for some very creative game mechanics) could have gotten really annoying if the game was larger.

Yet, this setback is overshadowed by the outstanding artwork presented in Toren. Everything related to the art aspect of the game is great, from the amazing visuals to the mythological story. I will definitely be checking in future projects by this team hopefully with a higher budget.

If you're here after over six years of launch, I will take a guess that like me, you are a fan of the show/book. As a book reader, I want to unpack a few things that I likes (and a few I didn't like) about the game.

SPOILER-FREE review, but if you want to discuss this with spoilers (I didn't like a couple aspects about the ending) you can go to my thread "A discussion for ASOIAF readers" on the discussion section.

Negative points:
- Graphics not so good
- Buggy / seems like an unfinished product
- Battle is too hard at the beginning. It starts getting easier when you reach around level 5, and when you are beyond Level 10 you will look for battle even if you don't need to, because it gets fun. But at the beginning, it's absolute nightmare.
- Looting can be boring. Both characters have abilities to find hidden objects, and these objects are revealed only with that specific ability. So you kinda have to look for stuff twice, which is too much time-consuming and repetitive.


Positive Points:
- The story is pretty great. It fits well in the universe.

- The way the story is told is great. There are two points here, one is that the chapters are divided by protagonist, which clearly references how the book is written. But also, the characters have a backstory that is not told until it's important. In the books, you don't get flashbacks, or anything, but the backstory is as important for the development of the story as are current events are. So inch by inch the author reveals this backstory, when is appropriate and makes sense. The same in this game, you discover things about the past of these characters as you go, which is pretty cool.

- The setting is amazing. The graphics are not the best, but the art team still managed to make me feel in Westeros. The cities have a great look, as does the dungeons. The armors and weapons are amaazing (you can actually play with Robert's warhammer at some point). I would have enjoyed a bigger variety of weapons and armor just so I could better control the look of my character without sacrificing too much stats, though. The ones that exists are pretty amazing, and I wanted more of that.

- The feel of the game, and the sense of insertion. You actually connect to these characters, and the things that happens to them. A few times you will loot from dead bodies better armor and cloaks than the ones you wear, but still refuse to use it because of the sigils they bear. I feel this is too much ASOIAF, the sense of loyalty to your house and cause.

- The place the game is set. When someone talks about the show GoT, you often will hear talk about dragons, white walkers, heavy magic, etc. But in the books, all of these starts as details that escalate as the narrative progresses. The real feel of the book is not high-fantasy, but a more realistic world with traces of fantasy. I feel this game captures it in a perfect way. This is the game a book fan want to play. You see Westeros, you see the power struggles of minor houses and how the population suffers from it. You see the political side of these houses and of conspiracies about the Iron Throne. You see Mole's Town, and the Westerlands. This is the setting I want of a ASOIAF game.

And I want more games like this. I want a game where you can meet Brienne on her travels, hear about the siege on Riverrun and Jaime Lanister. Help the Brotherhood Without Banners and see Arya and the Hound. Spending the night on the Inn at the Crossroads before traveling North to the Moat Cailin. I want to hear about the Ironborn conquest of the North, and Robb Stark forces marching south. I want to see a small group of children with a Direwolf going to the Nightfort. I want to go beyond the wall not to fight white walkers, but to see the giants struggling with the winter, and hear about the new King Beyond the Wall Mance Raider and his plans for the Free Folk.

I want to be see more of this world, not about the fantasy aspects, but about the people aspect. Like Arya's chapters on the Riverlands, or Brienne's chapters, or Jaime's. Even Jon's chapters, closely related to the White Walkers, is often really about the decision making of commanding the Night's Watch. This game you give you a taste of that. That feeling that this world exists, and is live with people that are affected by the stuff the happens around you. This feeling is what ASOIAF is about and the game successfully encapsulated that.

So if you are a fan of the books, it is worthy to suffer for the technical aspects of the game to get that feeling. And there's a lot of easter eggs for book readers. I was expecting an easy cash-grab, but the game is true to that world, and I'm happy about it.

The product itself is good, but the decision of not putting Ant Man and Civil War DLCs in it ruin the whole point of Season Pass. Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 is coming out this year and I doubt I will buy the season pass before every DLC is out, so I´ll know what I´m paying for.

O jogo é tão legal que eu só resolvi jogar a história após 20h de jogo. O modo Challenge fica extremamente desafiador conforme você vai derrotando as waves de inimigos, te deixando com mais vontade de voltar e jogar depois que você morre.

O ápice do jogo é o multiplayer, portanto eu aconselho que antes de comprar, chame seus amigos para comprarem junto. Os servers do jogo são meio "desertos" é é um bocado difícil encontrar jogos com pessoas aleatórias.