Recent reviews by CrimsonSun

A game for explorers. Minimal hud and hand-holding. Outward is tricky to learn but very fun once you understand the systems; which are not hard to learn, but the game doesn't go out of the way to tell you everything. I have loved my time with Outward and go back to every year.

This is essentially the wizarding world game you've been waiting for. If you have nostalgia from the books and movies I'm sure you will love this game. My favorite Harry Potter game before Hogwarts Legacy was the Chamber of Secrets game on the Gamecube, and I can gladly say Hogwarts Legacy smashes that game out of part.

The game immerses you into the wizarding would completely. The intricate detail the developers have poured into Hogwarts is vast and holds many secrets to uncover. You have Hogsmeade where you can buy upgrades from various vendors as well as sell your gear for gallons. Outside of Hogsmeade and the grand castle itself there scattered hamlets across HL's large map that offer side quest and other looting prospects.

There are a lot of mini puzzles via Merlin trials, mazes, caves, dungeons and other puzzles. If you're an open world completionist there is a lot to keep you busy, which can become somewhat of a chore after 60%-%70 completion of a specific activity.

Spell combat is fun to learn and a thrill to master. Spells are grouped into categories: Yellow (Control), Purple (Force), Red (Damage, and Light Blue (Utility) for primarily solving puzzles.
In combat enemies have red, purple and yellow shields in which you need to use the corresponding spell color to disarm their sheild so you can chain into other spells and do damage.

There's a lot more to cover but I'll leave you with this:

Pros:
- Fun combat that can be a little overwhelming at first, but is a thrill to master.
- Lots of spells to play around with
- Lots to explore, especially Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.
- The Room of Requirement is a fun distraction for making a cozy hideout you can decorate and breed pets.
- Very beautiful game/the amounts of assets created for HL is astonishing
- Lots of fun lore to uncover.
- Flying is fun
- Good story, but feels a little rushed towards the end.
- Lots to do if you like checkbox like games.
- Fun companion side quests.
- Voice acting and delivery is good overall (not the best), but does what it needs to do.
- The talent system is overall pretty good.
- Potions and plants are very helpful if you're struggling on an encounter.

Cons:
- Performance on PC is not the best. Certain sections reduce the frames a great deal
- Some to NPCs unless scripted feel too static. (Being able to comment towards npcs via RDR2 style would help this a lot.)
- Some Hamlets throughout the map feel more been there done that.
- The gearing system needs an overhall with the amount of loot you get especially late game.
- I wish you attended class more.
- More mini games would be welcome like: Gobstones, Quidditch, and Wizard Chess.
- The common room feels pointless (Add more activities or random events.)
- Enemy variety is lacking and more boss encounters would be greatly appreciated.
- Some annoying repeated dialogue the main character says after doing multiple Merlin trials and visiting hamlets.
- More things to spend your money on late game as you eventually purchase all needed upgrades. This leaves you with accumulating more gold by having to sell constant gear drops. Really only a late game issue.
- Max inventory size which can be expanded by doing Merlin trials. Leaves you early on making frequent stops to shops to sell off a bunch of gear.
- More branching dialogue options. You sometime get this, but mostly it;s just an illusion of choice.
- For someone who can learn the unforgivable curses the main character has an awfully cheery demeanor.
- More random events while exploring the overworld would be greatly appreciated. Ex: Npc comes up and talks to you rather than you going over to their questmarker to initiate a quest.

Some of the points on the con list are more wishlist of things I want them to improve for future iterations of Hogwarts Legacy. Overall the pros greatly outweigh the cons for me.

This is a great foundation for Avalanche's first game of this size and scope. I'm looking forward to how they follow this up.

What can I say this game is incredible. If you like to explore and find out more and more about a world; while gaining knowledge to unearth even more secrets.
The game let's you go wherever you want to go the main tutorial is over. About 45 minutes to an hour in and it really picks up. Best game I have played in a while. It's really special.
I'm still finding things in this mini solar system.

I love it. I'm glad it turned out great. A lot of work was put into this one with all the reports. If the game does well, there may be a way to add additional reports from the community through mods, so I hope that comes to fruition.

If you love a challenge, puzzle solving, investigating reports while having to be vigilant of threats you'll probably like this. 'Welcome to the Game' meets 'Paper Please', but in a horror game setting. There's a lot of tension and paranoia while investigating reports. The game keeps you busy. You need to have the volume up on Reflect Studios titles to hear the audio ques to know when you need circumvent a threat. There are jumps scares, but you can turn those off. You still have to play around the threats in the game, but are greeted with a game over instead of loud jump scare.
There are three difficulty settings: Casual, Normal. and Nightmare.

Very nicely done Reflect Studios. I'm looking forward to 'The Last Stop' even more.

Fun arcade games and carny games too. Pretty accurate all around too. Hoping for even more arcade games. Would love a Gravity Hill (tilt game) like game.

A lot of reading, but it's so delightfully engaging. You have to make choices based on certain stats during a lot of the dialogue. You can buy and upgrade your ship. Random chance encounter's and survival mechanics you have to manage while exploring.
Great little game.
The only thing I could say hurts it is the travel speed is really slow, so it takes a while to get around. Also, the combat is a little simplistic, and improved upon a lot in the sequel 'Sunless Skies'.

Fun platformer that can be frustrating, but gives you a craving to succeed. The more you jump the better your muscle memory gets and after you beat the game; you'll find you can breeze through the game a lot quicker. It really feels good.
Great game.

A fantastic farm sim game much like the Harvest Moon series. It expands on what Harvest Moon did, taking the core gameplay mechanics and just takes it a little bit farther while also feeling not like a HM game (it has it's own identity).

A very relaxing experience.