Recent reviews by Zekk

My new favorite mobile game!

Pretty!

As a big fan of the original Diablo I can most definitely recommend this game!

Will update this review when I finish the game.

8/10

Yes.

Took me about 5 hours to complete the story.

Limbo, Inside, Little Nightmares.

A young girl walks into a bookstore and finds a book there. An older man, the owner of the store, opens that book and finds an old picture inside. A picture of a girl looking very similar to the one who just entered his store. He decides to tell her a story of the girl who was his friend back when they were both kids.
The story-telling is very well done and narrated by the voice of Sir Patrick Stewart.

WARNING: SOME MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

This is the story of World War 2 and the Jewish holocaust, but instead of Nazis and Jews they tell the tale of bad robots and red folk.
It's not subtle, but it's not supposed to be. Those are the events we all know, but presented in a new, interesting, very personal and emotional way.

SPOILERS OVER!

I really liked the art style here. It's cartoonish, mostly in the shades of gray, with the red color used to highlight some characters and objects that you can interact with.
The environments are very detailed and also there's a pretty big variety in terms of locations and their presentation.
This is not something that will melt your GPU, but it looked great and was consistent throughout the whole game.

Sir Patrick Stewart. This is the only thing you need to know.
Other than the narration, there are no voices in the game, the characters communicate with simple images.
In a game such as this the music is very important and the one here works. It changes with the situation in the game world, building an emotional atmosphere. This is especially noticeable in the later chapters when you can hear people crying in the background.

It's fine, for the most part. I started playing with a keyboard and I didn't like it, but then switched to a controller and that was ok.
At first, I was unable to run and thought that was weird, but it soon turned out to be a purposeful game mechanic and started to make sense.
Getting over obstacles is weird (first press one button to get onto a box, then press another button to get down). Could've been made more smooth, but then again you don't have to do that too often so it's not that big of a deal.

It might look like a platformer, but it's not really that. It's more of a 2D (or 2.5D) side-scroller adventure game with a lot of puzzles. Interesting puzzles, some easy, others more difficult, but all fairly original and entertaining. And there's a pretty good variety of them too, it rarely happens that a puzzle mechanic is repeated throughout the game.
There are some arcade bits as well, like steering a motorcycle, trying not to get hit by falling rocks or shooting some enemies that are chasing you, but there aren't too many of those and they're not overly difficult.
You will also see some elements well known to point-and-click fans - going between different locations, grabbing some items and using them with other items to complete an objective. They are simplified, you can't make a mistake and use a wrong item or even pick one up without the right context, but sometimes there are pretty big areas to walk around, trying to figure what to do next.

I gotta admit, it starts kind of slow and for the first 30 minutes, I wasn't sure if I liked it. But then it took off and brought me along for an incredible journey.
We all heard stories about World War II, we saw movies, played games and maybe even read some books. And yet this game feels special. It's unique and very much worth experiencing.

- emotional story
- very pretty cartoonish art-style
- Sir Patrick Stewart

- had some issues with the controls

For more reviews, follow my Curator page - Sublime Dent.

8/10

Yes.

I've got 100% completion after about 30 hours.

All the other Tomb Raider games, especially the 2013 series reboot. And the Uncharted series.

Richard Croft, Lara's father, was following legends of immortality. After his passing, Lara was reviewing his research and found details on the location of the Prophet of Constantinople's tomb.
Against advice from Ana, Richard Croft's partner, Lara decides to organize an expedition to Syria, hoping to find the lost city of Kitezh and the Divine Source - an ancient artifact that according to legends can grant immortality.

WARNING: SOME MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

After the initial mission in Syria, the plot takes Lara and her friend Jonah to Siberia. Most of the story takes place there and is split into different regions, offering a semi-open world experience.

SPOILERS OVER!

Very well done, the game looks beautiful. In the open world sections, the view distance is great, allowing you to see environment elements that are very far away. The trees, the water, all the caves and tombs, the lighting effects - all look fantastic. And the hair - whether on Lara's head or the fur on animals - very realistic.
The configuration options for graphics are impressive. Worth mentioning that I was only playing on the "High" graphical preset. If you have a powerful enough PC to run it on "Very High" it can look even better.
One thing I wasn't impressed with was the snow, but that's only because Horizon: Zero Dawn (and especially The Frozen Wilds DLC) had such amazing snow physics that it's hard to be dazzled after seeing that. I'm not saying the snow is bad here, not at all, but I have seen better and now I'm comparing everything else against it.

I have experienced one slightly annoying thing and that's the cutscene resolution change. I have a 2560x1080 monitor and I played the game on that setting, but whenever a cutscene started it would go down to 1920x1080, putting two big black bars on both ends of my screen. After the cutscene was over, it would go back to my native resolution. Not a big issue and I understand you can't plan for every possible setup, but in such a game with very dynamic transitions between gameplay and cutscenes, changing the horizontal size of the displayed content can be irritating.

When I think about the music in this game I can only focus on one thing that really annoyed me. Whenever the story got to a point where something major was about to happen, a confrontation or a big battle, the background music changed to something intense, getting you pumped up and ready for the fight. But since this is an open world game, I was still able to ignore that next encounter and go walk around the map, picking up collectibles and completing side activities. And that dramatic music just kept on playing while I was completing a bunch of mundane tasks around the map.
The music is generally ok, not very memorable, but also not bad. You mostly hear Lara moaning and groaning anyway.
The voice-acting is good though, most main characters are believable.

This is all very well done, the controls are good, there's a lot of configuration options and the menus are clean and efficient.
The transition animations between menus could be a little faster, but that's not really a problem, just a personal preference.

It's a third-person open-world action-adventure game, so there's a lot of running, gunning, crafting, collecting and puzzle solving. And a lot of stealth elements, if that's your thing.
One thing I liked a lot right from the beginning was that there are almost no invisible walls preventing you from doing stupid things. Wanna jump off the cliff? Go ahead. You'll die, but at least you're not treated like a child who needs to be protected from yourself.
The game is story driven. There's a lot of cutscenes and they use the game engine, so it transitions smoothly between gameplay and the scripted parts. However, when you control one character (Lara) throughout the whole game (or even a series of games) you usually try to immerse yourself in that world and be that character. And here they break that immersion a few times by showing cutscenes of what other people are doing when Lara is not around. It's very movie-like, I'll give them that, but when I play as one character I want to experience the story from that person's perspective. I don't want to see what the bad guys are planning behind my back.
You can't access the whole world straight away, it gets unlocked bit by bit with the progress of the main story. And it's split into separate sections anyway, so it's not one big map but a few smaller ones.
There's a lot of collectibles. The good thing is that you can find maps pointing you to all of them. The not-so-good thing is that you'll find a bunch of locations locked until you get a specific piece of equipment, which also means a lot of backtracking if you want to collect everything.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

I really didn't like the final boss fight, or both of them to be precise. The first part is you fighting a helicopter. The other is throwing cans to distract a guy and then stabbing him repeatedly. They were so unoriginal and didn't have anything interesting in them. Throughout the whole game, you unlock multiple skills and learn how to be a more efficient killer, and yet here at the end you don't get to use any of that. Seemed like a huge waste of potential.

SPOILERS OVER!

The Season Pass contains a bunch of things, including outfits, weapons, expeditions cards, character models and an additional difficulty level.
There are also some extra modes for the single player experience:
- Baba Yaga: The temple of the Witch - the only part accessible through the main campaign. A side mission appears on the main game map and leads to a completely new location where you need to uncover the secret of a missing man and the legend of a witch.
- Blood Ties - a separate short story (accessed through the main menu) where you explore the Croft Manor and learn more about Lara's past. I would actually recommend playing this before the main campaign, as it sheds a little more light on Lara's background and her relationship with her father.
- Endurance Mode - single player or co-op - walking around different maps, trying to stay warm and well fed while looking for artifacts and surviving enemy encounters.
- Cold Darkness - you investigate an old Soviet military compound where a chemical spill turned people into zombie-like creatures. Have to find the source of the dangerous pathogen before it's released into the atmosphere and contaminates the whole area.
- Lara's Nightmare - talking place in the Croft Manor, Lara has to fight hordes of zombies to defend her home and end the nightmare.

It was good, just not as good as the previous installment of the series (Tomb Raider (2013)). All the stealth elements, the fighting and most importantly the puzzles were great, but the story wasn't really that captivating.
Still, I took the time to get 100% completion, so I guess I did have fun playing it. I just doubt I will remember it in a year or two.

- stunning visuals
- raiding tombs with interesting puzzles
- smooth transitions between gameplay and cutscenes
- voice-acting
- an impressive number of configuration options

- the story is not that thrilling
- disappointing boss fight
- some cutscenes show events that you are not a part of
- backtracking for collectibles
- just not very memorable

For more reviews, follow my Curator page - Sublime Dent.

8/10

Yes.
It's a 10-year-old game, so you can easily grab it on a sale for less than 5 USD.

Took me about 13 hours to complete.

It's a third person sci-fi horror. Similar things that come to mind include the likes of SOMA, Alien: Isolation, Prey (2017) or even The Evil Within.

Starship USG Ishimura is on a mining mission on the planet Aegis VII. They send a distress signal and the USG Kellion is sent to investigate, with you on board.
Your ship crashes into the Ishimura and you find out that it has been overrun by creatures called necromorphs.
You play as Isaac Clarke, a systems engineer who needs to repair the ship's critical systems and stay alive long enough to get rescued. You will get help from two of your crewmates - Commander Zach Hammond and Kendra Daniels, a computer specialist.
Another character, Nicole Brennan, was a medical officer on the Ishimura and also Isaac's girlfriend, so while attempting to get the ship operational you will look for her too and try to learn what exactly happened on that ship.

It's not the most original story as far as sci-fi goes, but it's good enough. The nice thing is that it starts fairly quickly, gives you a short background and then throws you right into the action.
And it does get scary! Mostly jump-scares, but if you're playing in the dark with your headphones on, it works very well.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

I didn't like the overall pattern to the chapters. Each one started with: "Hey Isaac, go there, fix that system and we'll be able to get out of here!" and ended with: "Oh noes, another system broke down, you'll have to fix that too.". Rinse and repeat.

And that main plot twist about your girlfriend was just so obvious (spoiler: she was dead all along). I don't know, maybe 10 years ago it would've worked better, but playing this in 2018 I knew she was gone right after her first appearance.

SPOILERS OVER!

I'm into retro gaming so I might be biased here, but this didn't look like a 10-year-old game. It supported an ultra-wide monitor (2560x1080) and it looked pretty well on full details. The texture quality wasn't as good as today's games, but I'd say it aged gracefully.
Some animations, like punching or stomping, were too long in my opinion but that's a design issue, not a problem with the age of the game.

Music is really satisfying, very atmospheric, fits great with that horror vibe. And it's messing with your head too - sometimes the pace of the music changes as if there were enemies nearby and something was about to happen. You're probably used to it, cause a lot of games do that, but here it often happened when there was no one around, just to keep you on your toes.

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

In the later chapters you're gonna hear voices, people talking and singing. That's trippy as hell but also makes the game even better.

SPOILERS OVER!

This is usually the biggest issue with older games and unfortunately Dead Space is no exception. The controls and the menus are especially clunky. Mouse sensitivity is messed up out-of-the-box and if you can't change that directly on your mouse, you might have some trouble configuring it to your liking. I've read somewhere that disabling V-Sync in the graphics options can improve things, but I never tested it.

Most of the game you'll be running around the ship, turning things on or fixing them (before you can turn them on). Sometimes you'll have to grab an item from one place and take it to another.
I know it doesn't sound so good when you put it like that, but it's very well executed and is actually fun to play.
The ship is separated into sections and each chapter takes place in a different section. There is some backtracking where you'll travel to the same section twice, yet it doesn't feel like a lazy asset re-use and has a reasonable explanation in the plot.
Throughout the game, you get to upgrade your suit and buy new weapons. There are eight weapons available and you can carry four of them with you. When it comes to the ammo you'll often get it from defeated enemies or can purchase it in store. This raised two issues for me. One - ammo uses inventory space and there's a specific number of bullets of each type that will fit into one inventory slot. For example, Pulse Rifle ammo fits 100 bullets per slot, meaning if you have 250 bullets, it will use three slots (and your suit upgraded to max only has 25 slots). Result? You're always running low on ammo. And I get that, it's a horror game, that's part of the survival element. But! Here's the other issue - there is no reasonable melee attack alternative if you run out of ammo. You can take a swing with your currently equipped weapon and you can stomp your foot, but both are very slow and ineffective. There are two additional modules that can help in melee combat (Stasis and Kinesis), but this can only help you defeat one or two enemies, it is not a viable solution long term. Instead, you need to make sure to always have enough ammo for the weapons that you're carrying with you.
What I enjoyed very much were the segments in zero-gravity. Your suit allows you to jump from surface to surface (walls, ceiling, etc.) and walk on them as you normally would on the ground (the camera angle and perspective is adjusted accordingly). Truly fun to play, even today it felt fresh and interesting.
On the other hand, what I don't like in most video games and what I definitely didn't like here, was the enemies' ability to move through the vents, effectively approaching you from behind in areas that you've already cleared. I know it's a horror and that's the go-to way to scare people, but without a reasonable melee attack, I found this extremely annoying.

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

Another thing that I did like was the segment with the big tentacle. I wouldn't call it a boss fight exactly, but what happened was that I was walking down a corridor and suddenly this large tentacle grabbed me out of nowhere and started dragging me through the halls. I still had control of my gun, so I had to target some weak points on the tentacle and shoot them to get free. I totally didn't see it coming and it caused a great adrenaline rush.

SPOILERS OVER!

I've never played this game before and playing this now, 10 years after the original release, was still very enjoyable. To me, that means a good game.
It's not the most beautiful title you can play in 2018, it has aged and it has its issues, but it still offers a decent story and a fun sci-fi horror experience.

- atmospheric music and other sound effects
- graphics aged pretty well
- zero-g

- menus and controls are tiresome
- predictable plot twists
- repeatable tasks that make the game feel a little bit too long

For more reviews, follow my Curator page - Sublime Dent.

2/10

NO!
Absolutely not!
Do not buy this game.

It took me around 7 hours to complete the game, but you can probably do it in about 5.
I spent a lot of time alt-tabbing to take notes about how bad this game was.

It tries to be like Limbo, Inside or Little Nightmares but it's not. Cause those games were good.

At the beginning there's an intro, telling a story of a village where everyone got sick and went into a coma. Only one boy survived and went to look for Lady Death who could heal everyone. Not so bad, right? You get to the end of the first section (three levels), you don't get to meet Lady Death or any other characters. And before the second section starts, there's another video. This time it talks about a brother and a sister who went into the woods, met a Lady in Black and got sweet berries from her. See where this is going? Each section has a cutscene that tells a different fairy tale and it has absolutely no connection to the gameplay.
I played the English version with subtitles turned on and the subtitles were often different than what was being said in the videos.

I was playing at 2560x1080 and in the main menu, the game logo was cut in half.
Also, when changing options in the menu, this horrible transition happens where two menus are visible at the same time, overlapping. You can see both issues here.
The graphics in the game are not so bad, the art-style is interesting, but the animations are far from perfect.
In one of the levels I was sliding down on one of the planes, but there was no sliding animation, just the character moving down while standing still. It was even funnier when I tried to move and the character turned around, so he was sliding down by standing still backwards. As stupid as it sounds.
When you jump and grab onto a ledge, you need to pull yourself up. There's a climbing animation that's way too long and there's a glitch towards the end of the animation that makes it jump between frames in an unnatural way.
And the rain, oh man, that's just plain ugly.

The music is actually the only part of this game that wasn't annoying. But I didn't hear enough of it because I was swearing out loud so much about how bad the rest of this game was.
What I hated most was the lack of consequence in playing some of the sounds. For example, in the first levels, you'll encounter enemies known as ticks. Some of the first ones you'll see are just walking on the ground, but not far after that, they will start falling from the sky. There's a sound of a tree branch breaking that accompanies their fall and it acts like a warning for you to not let them hit you. But a few minutes later you'll see more of them falling from the sky and there's no sound this time around.
You have to jump a lot in this game. And the "ugh" sound that plays on each jump starts playing a tiny bit too late, while you're already mid-air. It's incredibly irritating.

The nightmare starts early, right in the main menu. When you drill down to an option that you want to modify and you make a change, you'd expect to stay in the same sub-menu. Nope, not here. Here it will throw you back to the top level of the main menu. It may not sound like much, but if you want to update two or three settings and have to drill down the same path each time it gets frustrating.
If you press the pause button during the game it will show you a menu with just one option - Return to Main Menu. There is no Resume option or Restart From Last Checkpoint. You have to be really careful about which button you press next - you may accidentally go back to the main menu and lose your current level's progress. That's right, when you Continue from the main menu it will start the last level from the beginning, not from the last checkpoint.
When the game is paused you can't move, but some enemies do still walk around.
And the jumping itself feels so unnatural like your character is defying gravity and slowly floating upwards (feels a bit like it's in slow-motion).

It's a pretty basic platformer, you can go left/right and jump. You don't have any weapons, but over time you get three "abilities" - switching to an alternate reality where you can find some extra platforms to jump on, a flashlight (?!) to help in the darker levels and the option to create a stationary clone of yourself that can hold switches for you.
That alternative reality sounded interesting at first, but when I wanted to go there to avoid some enemies - surprise surprise - they also existed there. It's only useful in a few specific locations.
The ability to switch to an alternate reality has limited use time - there's a meter that goes down when it's in use. It is also mandatory to use in some of the locations. Meaning there's a chance you'll get stuck and be unable to proceed if you run out of juice. And like I already mentioned, there's no option in the menu to restart from the last checkpoint, so when that happens, you can either try to get killed and restart from a checkpoint or go back to the main menu and start the whole level from scratch.
The enemies walk on pre-programmed paths, which will make them change direction without any logical indication. And it's inconsistent too - sometimes they will just patrol the area from point A to B, other times they will just continue marching forward, falling into any holes that might be in front of them. And since you don't have any weapons, there are only two ways of moving past enemies - have them fall into a hole or jump over them.
I believe there was one area where I had to drop some sandbags on a three-headed skeleton (a boss?), but I'm not really sure, because the camera was zoomed-in too closely and I only saw me dropping the bags off a ledge and when I got back down the weird skeleton was no longer there.
Sometimes there are stones falling at you from the ceiling. When they hit you, you die. But when they don't hit you, they don't break on the ground, they just fall through it and keep on falling until they disappear from the screen.
Once I got to a place where two large platforms were moving away from each other. You have to quickly jump onto one, run across, jump over to the other one and then again to safety. But the first time I got there I didn't realize that you only get one chance to do it, so I waited for them to go back the other way so I can attempt this on the next try. There was no other try - the platforms kept on moving in opposite directions, completely ignoring any collision detection, moving into other land platforms and finally disappearing behind them.
There's a section in the game called Battlefield where you can see naval mines just lying on the ground (?!?). If that wasn't stupid enough, they're buggy too. I was standing next to one of them and I used the ability to create a clone. The clone triggered the mine, it exploded and disappeared. I then moved into the empty space where the mine used to be and I still died.

Dream Alone is a horrible, horrible game. Worst one I played in years.
It pretends to be difficult, but what makes it hard is not clever puzzles or interesting world creation - it's very bad game design and really poor execution.
DO NOT BUY OR PLAY THIS GAME

- after I realized how bad this game was, all the bugs and stupid design choices made me laugh

- story
- animation
- sounds
- menus
- game mechanics
- level design
- gameplay
- traps
- lots and lots of bugs

For more reviews, follow my Curator page - Sublime Dent.

5/10

No.
Well, maybe if you're a fan of this genre and you want to check out what the fuss is about. But even then, wait for a discount.

Took me 3 hours to complete the game.
Would probably take 2 more hours to get 100% achievements.

Limbo, Inside and Little Nightmares.

No obvious one. There's no intro, no dialogue, no objectives, or at least no direct ones.
Shortly after the game starts you find this big vehicle and from that point on you need to make sure it's operational and you just need to keep moving forward. You'll need to fix it, install new components and make sure you have a steady supply of fuel. And you just keep on going...

WARNING: SOME MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

In Limbo you're looking for your missing sister.
In Inside you're running away from something.
In Little Nightmares you're trying to escape from The Maw.
Here you're travelling through some kind of a post-apocalyptic world, but it doesn't seem to be any story here. The first scene looks like a burial and the game's Wiki page[en.wikipedia.org] says: "background story is intentionally vague" but that's an overstatement. I'd say there is no real story at all.

SPOILERS OVER!

This actually looks pretty good, the backgrounds show an interesting version of a destroyed and desolate world. It's mostly shades of grey, with the elements of interest highlighted in red, and that works well with the post-apocalyptic surroundings.

I found the design choices here very weird.
At first there was no music, just the environment sounds and the very annoying sound of footsteps. But then I found a radio, had to tune up the frequency and there was music! And I thought that was kinda cool, but then I think I got out of range (?) and the music stopped again.
Some time later, the music started playing again in the background, but this time it wasn't from the radio (?).
This whole thing was inconsistent, I didn't understand it and I didn't appreciate it.

This was pretty fun, for the most part.
Controlling the vessel, running from station to station, pushing different buttons, keeping all the systems under control to make it run smoothly - that was the best part of this game.
One thing that I didn't like though was the zoom-in/zoom-out system. I was playing with a controller and those actions were by default bound to the triggers. Triggers are analogue, but those actions were performed as if they were digital. I mean the pressure applied to the triggers didn't matter, it was either 100% zoomed-in, 100% zoomed-out or no zoom at all. It would make more sense to adjust the zoom based on how far you push the trigger. But that didn't affect the gameplay all that much, just something I found irritating.
Also, the elevator inside the vehicle was annoying. You're on level one and want to get to level two? You have to jump down to the ground level, then trigger the elevator to go up, go past level one then jump off midway and try to hit level two.

There are two parts to this.
The first one, where you drive the vehicle - this is fun, making sure all systems are in good condition, putting out fires and fixing things - I enjoyed it.
The second one, where you walk around on foot, solving puzzles and trying to move past obstacles blocking the way for your vehicle. This part wasn't that great, mostly because some elements were unclear and inconsistent. Like there was no indicator which obstacles can and which can't be destroyed by just ramming them. Or that most of the elements that you can interact with were highlighted in red, but then one or two were not. It's not like the puzzles were too hard, but they just didn't stick to their own set of rules.

While I enjoyed other titles in this genre a lot, I found FAR: Lone Sails plainly boring. I didn't know where I was going and why I was going there. And even though driving this weird vehicle was pretty satisfying, it wasn't enough to call this game good.

- fun mechanics of driving this bizarre vehicle
- pretty background graphics, showing some version of a post-apocalyptic world


- no story, no end-goal, no motivation to keep on going
- weird design choices in terms of music
- inconsistent environments and obstacles

For more reviews, follow my Curator page - Sublime Dent.

7/10

Yes. And no. I mean yes. But no. Then again... I guess it depends.

Totally depends on play style. I think you can complete the main story in 30+ hours.
I spent 144 hours playing this, including The White March add-ons, chasing side quests and other challenges.

All the classic isometric RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale or Planescape Torment.
Pillars were supposed to be the spiritual heir to those games and in many ways it succeeded.

You come to the land of Dyrwood as part of a caravan that gets hit by a mysterious storm. It kills everyone but you. You then encounter a group of cultists performing some kind of a ritual. They meddle with a machine that can strip souls from their bodies. After getting exposed to it, you become a Watcher - someone able to read souls and access memories of past lives. This also triggers visions that will make you go insane if you don't reverse the process.
Shortly after you find out that the land has been cursed with the Hollowborn Plague - children being born without souls.
From there you have to investigate the source of the plague, track down the cultists and their leader, understand what has actually happened to you and how to fix it.

WARNING: SOME MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

The story is the main reason why it was difficult for me to answer the Worth it? question. The first act was really good and interesting, made me want to find out more about this world. The second act was ok, still interesting but already started to lose my focus. The third act was really, really bad. By the time I got there, I didn't want to play anymore. So I just stopped playing. Some time later the first add-on - The White March, part 1 - was released. And it was good again! So I loaded my save and continued playing. But after that extra content was behind me, I went back to complete the third act again. And again I couldn't do it. When part 2 of The White March was released, I wasn't even as excited to play it, so I've waited for another year and a half. And when I finally got back to it, it has happened again - the add-on was good, but coming back to act 3 was not. I've forced myself to finish it, only so I would have a completed save ready for Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire.

SPOILERS OVER!

I never expected this game to be pretty. It was supposed to be an old-school RPG with an interesting plot and good game mechanics. But it ended up looking very well! All the isometric backgrounds were highly detailed and looked fantastic. And the particle effects of spells and abilities - also very effective.

The music is very good when it's there. Unfortunately there were a lot of situations where it was not playing in the background. I don't understand this design choice, but I found the silence annoying.
In terms of voice-acting, also very well done, but not enough of it. The main characters important to the plot have their lines recorded, but a lot of other NPCs don't. I understand there's a lot of text in this game and recording everything isn't a simple task, I just think that it's worth mentioning cause players expect a lot these day.
Note: this has been addressed in Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire - all dialogue lines are voice-acted there.

If you've played any of the classic RPGs mentioned above, you'll feel right at home.
The interface wasn't the best, especially the inventory and the stash. Sorting, selling and organising your items was too much of a chore, but otherwise I didn't find too many issues here. It was fairly intuitive and simple to use.

You control your main character and can recruit up to 5 other characters into your party. You can choose from existing companions that have their own personalities, affiliations and side plot lines, or you can create the whole team on your own in one of the inns.
You follow the story to different locations, doing standard RPG stuff - completing quests, collecting items, fighting, talking to people, getting experience, levelling up, etc.
Side quests try their best to be diverse, but they aren't too original. Some offer alternative solutions (like kill someone vs convince them through a conversation to disappear), but most of the time those additional options depend on the level of your skills - if it's too low, you'll see a red dialogue option that's unavailable.
There are a lot of items to collect. Many weapon types, armours, shields, rings, amulets, books, scrolls, food, potions and crafting materials. Each on of your characters will have a limited inventory, but luckily there's also a stash/chest that's shared and can hold all of your items. You can enhance all of your equipment to give it some additional properties and make it stronger.
One thing I didn't like about the inventory and equipment was that only one item with a boost to selected attribute was used. If you have a Ring +2 to Intellect and an Amulet +3 to Intellect, that doesn't add up to +5. It will pick the highest one and only use that, so you'll only have +3 in this example and the Ring will basically be useless, just blocking the ring slot (unless it has other properties that can still apply).
Combat happens in real-time with an active pause. That means you can stop the fight at any time to give orders to all your characters and resume to see things play out. And there's a lot of fighting here, so you'll need to make sure you have the right team set up and that you're aware of their strengths and limitations. For me the number of spells on a high level wizard was too high to keep track of, so I ended up only using a few strongest ones.
Another thing you need to know about combat - when you encounter a new type of enemy, you'll only get experience for killing it a few times. After that, you'll get no exp for killing this type of enemy again. The main way to actually level up is to complete quests - that's where you get the most experience points from. I didn't like that at first, but completing side quests gave me plenty of experience, I've maxed out my party fairly quickly.

The are two DLCs - The White March, parts 1 and 2. They unlock a new map area with new locations and separate story lines, independent to the main one. They also introduce new playable characters, enemies, side quests, items, skills, talents and abilities (while increasing the experience level cap).
With the DLCs some changes were also made to the main game. One of them being a new equipment type - soul-bind items. Those are powerful artefacts that can be soul-bound to specific characters making them even more powerful (after you complete some pre-defined challenges).
Another change affecting the whole game was the introduction of Party AI scripts that you can use to automate the behaviour of your team. Available options are fairly basic, but they get the job done and it's better than doing everything manually.
A new difficulty level was also added here, called Story Mode. It's very easy so you don't have to worry about the combat too much and can just experience the story.

Pillars of Eternity had a massive potential for greatness. It didn't fulfil it 100%, but it ended up being a decent game.
They created an interesting world with tons of lore and yet the main story just isn't good enough.

- nostalgia for good ol' classic RPGs
- old-school game in modern clothing
- world filled with history and lore

- story line starts well and then falls on its face
- periods of silence without any background music
- cumbersome interface around inventory management

For more reviews, follow my Curator page - Sublime Dent.

5/10

Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't buy this game again.

Took me about 6-7 hours to complete all 20 maps (finish the minimal requirement to unlock the next one).
There's probably 8-10 more hours there to complete all the advanced requirements and unlock all the achievements.
I played it before the Vintage Maps Update so I can't say how that affects the playtime.

I honestly don't know, haven't played anything like this.
My hope was that it would be a minimalistic take on Transport Tycoon Deluxe but it is not that.

There isn't any.
You have to build metro lines on 20 maps based on real cities and transport as many passengers as you can.

It looks just like a map of a metro system - coloured lines on white background. It's very simplistic, clean and efficient. That's what got me interested in this title in the first place.

Very minimalistic and calm background music. What you hear mostly are the beep and pop sounds made by new stations popping up or overcrowded passengers.

Just like everything else in this game - very simple. You just use your mouse to drag & draw new metro lines between available stations. Keyboard can be used to pause the game or control the speed (with buttons 1, 2 & 3). The menus are a little slow, but that's because they are somewhat animated, so not a big issue.
Sometimes, drawing the lines can be annoying. It's done semi-automatically and there are times when you would prefer to do it on your own. Like when you could easily go around a body of water and yet it forces you to go through it, wasting a bridge you need elsewhere.

First you pick a map, there are 20 in total, but you need to unlock most of them by completing the previous ones.
Once a map is loaded, there are 3 stations already there - a circle, a triangle and a square. You need to connect them by drawing metro lines between them. While you progress in game, more stations will appear randomly around the map. Some will be very common (like circles and triangles), others very rare (like stars or diamonds).
Shortly after, small icons are gonna start appearing next to each station. They indicate passengers and specify which station are they trying to get to. If they're trying to get to a circle station, it doesn't matter which one, any circle will do.
With all that in mind, you need to connect your stations with lines ensuring that all passengers can travel to all possible destinations.
Every in-game week you get a bonus. You can choose from two options which can be another line, tunnel, train, carriage or an improved station that can hold more passengers.
There are also some additional challenges on every map (related to achievements), like making sure all the lines meet at one of the stations, that only one tunnel is used or that there are no more than X stations per line. But to unlock access to the next station you only need to deliver a specified number of passengers without any additional requirements.
You lose if a station gets overcrowded and you don't pick up the passengers in a given amount of time.

This game wasn't what I expected.
From the trailers and screenshots I assumed this would be more about management. Something like: here's your budget, now spend it on stations, lines and trains to keep the passengers happy.
It's not that. It's simplified and you just react to events occurring randomly on the map.
This is not a bad game, but for me it was disappointing. And while it is very well made, it just wasn't that much fun to play.

- simple and efficient graphic design
- each map with different challenges

- more about reacting than planning
- metro lines don't always behave the way you would want them to
- not really fun to play

For more reviews, follow my Curator page - Sublime Dent.