Recent reviews by Thael Godsrin

While the interface can take a moment to get used to, the mechanics and stories told in the game are some of the most fittingly unsettling I've seen; the world as a whole feels cohesive and evocative, and you feel the stakes and the effects of the investigations on your player character. Compelling gameplay that's worth revisiting; I look forward to the future updates.

Came at this as somebody who had played other old Bioware titles but had never touched this one - heard of the memes, how good the world was, and so I had high expectations. My expectations were blown away, and I binged the entire trilogy in around 77 hours in two weeks. Fantastic experience overall, will almost certainly come back to this in some years to try out a modded experience - recommend the mod that fixes the sound the Hammerhead makes in Mass Effect 2, though, because that was an oversight. One complaint among 77 hours of delight is pretty good.

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectlegendaryedition/mods/823

Very silly and sometimes tonally whiplashing, but if you're willing to go for the ride, it's quite a fun one. It's not 999, but when it is serious, it's one of the more compelling detective stories I've experienced.

I'm surprised I didn't leave a review for this game, considering how much I enjoyed it - I got Primordia on a whim during a sale because the art style and description intrigued me. I went in blind - and enjoyed one of the best indie experiences of my life. The world is a fantastic blend of memorable characters (here I am years later fondly remembering many of the interactions in the game and considering replaying it) and intriguing worldbuilding. The puzzles are approachable if you've ever played point-and-click adventures before, and I personally felt compelled to see the story through to the end - and thankfully, the ending doesn't disappoint. Your actions matter, and the world will change accordingly.

You're going to love the main characters.

I backed this game during its crowdfund because the demo was fun and full of enough content that I knew the developers were competent. I undersold them - the final release blew me away, and completely captivated me for the 40ish hours of my playthrough. This is genuinely a very good game - get it, please. $20 for 40 hours is great.

I played on Hardmode (using a badge you get early on) and I fell in love with the world and the characters. The NPCs accentuate and improve the world with their presence. Each city you visit feels lived in, given the limited space. Revisiting places doesn't seem like backtracking. 30 hours in, I kept being surprised at what new mechanics the story introduced, and what quality-of-life things I unlocked that helped keep it from getting stale. There were a few difficulty spikes, but I relished the challenge. The game is pretty fair, and rewards experimentation and exploration. The sidequests felt right, in-universe, and I would strongly recommend doing them along the way of the story, as it makes the payoff at the end feel natural. Seeing my name in the backerlist at the end made me grin - being a part of something so ultimately wholesome and fun and innocent is great. This is the kind of game that I'm going to show my eventual kids, but currently to all my friends.

The first game, but 3D. The change necessitates you have to keep moving, and there aren't as many melee enemies as I'd like, but it's really solid for an early access game.

The game that keeps on giving - the modding community is incredible, so if you put in even a little bit of effort, the game becomes far, far more fun, even though the base game itself is pretty great too. I don't often replay games, but I find myself coming back to this, and was actually excited for a DLC for the first time in a long while.

To be clear, this isn't a bad game, persay, but it had a couple of fatal flaws that crippled the experience for me.

For a game that's all about viewing the world around you and how beautiful it is, it takes control of the camera too frequently. The game is designed well enough that it's usually pretty clear where you're supposed to go next, or if not, would only take a few moments of exploring to actually find it since each individual area is controlled and tight, but instead I'm getting several second cutscenes about how the door I knew was going to open is opening, when I could be swimming towards it instead.

Maybe it's too much to ask for. And the loading screens themselves weren't too long, I got through them fairly quickly. But if we're already in segmented areas because you demand we explore an area before continuing forward, at least have the decency of pre-loading things. It ruins the one thing the game had going for it, which is the flow of movement and exploration. Every few minutes you'll hit a brick wall and just be staring at a black screen, which isn't good for a player whose attention you haven't totally grasped. It makes them consider leaving. But I kept trying because I could sense the next complaint, that the game was going to be pretty short anyhow.

For a game that I beat in 80 minutes as part of my blind playthrough, this game wasn't able to keep my attention; I think I was spoiled by Journey, which is a far better execution of the fallen civilization/beautiful exploration game. Abzu's progression is basically the same thing over and over, interrupting cutscenes and blocked paths with a single button interaction somewhere along the way to continue forward, and it doesn't particularly reward exploration through game mechanics in the same way Journey did; I don't get anything for discovering this shell, no better way to move or explore, more freedom of movement. So once I realized that, I didn't feel the need to hunt down the others. So I didn't, which admittedly made the game shorter, but I didn't feel like I had missed out on anything the game had to offer by the end either.

After playing through, I'm still not entirely sure what it the game was trying to say; civilization/technology is bad? Or only to a certain point? Because they made an effort and point of making parts of the ruins beautiful, with other sections dangerous, threatening, and evil. But from what I was able to pick up on a blind playthrough, those were two parts of the same coin and civilization, an aspect of their creation that got out of hand, and it feels less like grey morality and more like they couldn't choose which they wanted to go with, leaving the result kinda muddy. A shorter story is fine if you make your point clear and beautiful; perfection is creating something that you can't take anything away from without ruining it, but there are quite a few places I feel Abzu could have been improved, and in such cases, taking a mechanically supported breather may have been a smart move on their part.

I don't know for sure if the creators were inspired by, had played, or even knew what Journey was; but there were sections that, having played Journey first, failed to do what they were attempting to do. Not because I'd already seen it, but because I knew it could be done better. In particular, the currents where you were riding the flow and hitting the schools of fish to speed up; I didn't even realize they were actually making me faster until I got a steam achievement for hitting so many of them. In Journey, you have a similar scenario where you're riding the carpets over dunes, or perhaps when you're riding down the sand streams; there's variety to what exactly you're passing through, great vistas to look at while you're doing so, and a general sense of freedom. In Abzu, I felt far more restricted, both by the walls of the canyon you'd usually be traveling through, the sheer number of fish that were blocking the view of the terrain, and by the general need the game had to keep its areas small and confined, which seems silly to me in a game about the ocean. I wanted to feel like there was so much more of a world out there, but the illusion of vastness was consistently broken for the rails-following story they wanted to tell. If I'm on such a ride, I'd take Journey's presentation any day.


Overall, Abzu was enjoyable. Worth playing. Worth playing once. I'm glad I got it as part of a bundle otherwise I don't think it would've been worth the price. Movies cost less, provide more entertainment and philosophical thought, and have better replayability. Good thing too, because I beat the game quickly enough that had I purchased it directly, I could refund it by Steam's 2-hour gameplay policy.

I waited to leave a review until I'd 100%'d the game; one of only two games I've ever bothered to. My goodness, what a ride. I loved it. Do yourself a favor and get it.

This game absolutely shines when you're trying to get the Beat the Devs achievement; it seems impossible at first, beating the game in 8:30, but playing that quickly forces you to learn the enemies, your own strength, and the items at a glance. That moment when you flawless a boss that gave you so much trouble when you began is glorious.

The game's story, hidden in its item descriptions and the depictions of its characters, is genuinely fascinating and one of the more interesting settings I've had the pleasure to glimpse into. Just enough was left out that you have something to chew on, but enough was revealed that you have that spark of realization that the stupid candle guy you've killed/been killed by 10 times is a fallen, weakened god suddenly makes everything make wayyy more sense.

My only complaint is that I wish there was more content, another layer, more bosses; but it held my rapt attention for 24 hours, and it did it well. Nothing in the game felt wasted, and as a fan of animation, I must say the spritework on The Saint was particularly beautiful and inspiring for my own work.

Genuinely one of the most enjoyable games I've played; the gameplay is exactly what it needs to be for what the game asks; any mistakes you make will be punished, any skill will be rewarded. The character and level design is inspired and inspiring; the story thought-provoking.

Does the hair or the cape sometimes clip weirdly? Yes, but when a game made by such a small team feels so good otherwise, you don't really care.