Simbiat 最近的评测

Not my thing. I was not sure with the demo when I played it, but thought it was just the demo effect, and it's better to try the whole game. Good thing, that I got this one at a discount, I guess.

First thing that I noticed was that combat felt like single button mashing most of the time. Yes, there are combos which rely on pushing the stick up, down or to the side, but you still mash X. There are special attacks, too, but the rate at which you accumulate the energy for them makes them relatively rare (and that's on normal difficulty), so not sure if I would count them. Block felt a bit inconsistent and slide as means of dodging just does not mesh with me: jumping around somehow makes a bit more sense to me. But to be fair, maybe the combat improves as you progress further.

Next thing was inconsistency with jumping. I was able to replicate it even. Sometimes I could jump multiple times in a row without stopping, sometimes - not. I noticed this when I pressed jump button on a platform that goes down almost immediately after you step on it. Obviously I fell from it. Multiple times. But the problem was that when running on the ground I was able to do two jumps just fine. But not all the time... Can be that there is a "hidden trick", and that you need to press the 2nd jump just as you are landing, I was not able to confirm that.

What bummed me the most was the story. Characters felt flat, uninspiring, and dialogues as if written by a school kid. We we also introduced a bunch of characters at once, which made them into a blur despite them being visually distinct. But style (no matter how good) is not enough to get a compelling character. Especially if they do not seem to be of consequence, and when the game is supposed to be a solo story in the first place. Not because I think so, but because it's clear from the design, since there is no feature of switching between characters (which could be cool) or calling for their aid as sort of special attacks (maybe less cool, but still could be good). And I'm not even going to complain, that this has nothing to do with PoP franchise besides some stylistic choices.

Either way, I am not getting enough motivation to finish this one. It just does not feel good to me, although some traps, that I got in the demo and in the full game were interesting, music was good, and there is good style here. But that's not enough. I was reminded of Bloodstained game, which is in similar genre, and while its story was not perfect, it was delivered in a better way, and combat (and its customization) felt more satisfying enough for me to complete the game. The Lost Crown is not like that.

Another proof, that your mood can affect the perception of a media. Not like I needed proof of that, but still.

I played original game around the time it came out. Pirated it at first, but then bought it right away, because I enjoyed it so much. I also liked the 2nd game. So much, that I started writing a story (sadly, still incomplete), that could fit into a similar type of game. Once the remake hit a good discount, it was a no-brainer to buy it and replay it, although I rarely replay things. And I was disappointed.

First of all, visually the game is amazing. Previous ones were good, as well, but better lighting, higher resolution textures and HDR support make it look even better. We also still have all these hallucination(-like) stuff and some stylization here and there, that gives you a visual feast. Very artistic and very atmospheric. The latter is extremely important, since this is a horror game. But, unfortunately, that's all there is to it. Or at least, that's how I felt this time.

Artist's story felt quite a bit disjointed. Some areas were different compared to what I remember from original, but maybe I made "different choices", that is went in different directions. That can be a factor to different perception. Although, coherent story-telling should be there regardless of your choices, IMHO. And it's not like the foundation is bad, no. There are several heavy topics here, that are intertwined to make them even heavier, but they are scattered all over the place. I think chapters are supposed to provide focus to different aspects of the story, but they did not feel that focused to me.

"Inheritance" chapter seemed even more disjointed and chaotic, and almost random. Or at least it took way more effort to understand what the game was trying to tell me (visually warped perspective in some segments did not help). And to me it seemed impossible to understand the logic of the painting flashback (which colors you are supposed to use), and the crayons thing. Reading some guides, it also looked like I did not have some of the interactable elements, but maybe I did not do something to unlock them, no idea. But either way, things seemed a bit too convoluted.

That was a huge factor for me to decide not to continue playing, but 3rd writer's segment was another one. Once artist's story is completed you gain control of the writer again, and the notes and a single dialogue felt like some huge chunks of the story were skipped. Maybe I needed to get the "good ending" in the artist's story to get more sense from them, but it still did not fit into the idea of writer's story being the connection between the other parts of the game. What's worse, once I completed "Inheritance", writer's segment was just reset. Meaning it was not really working as a glue anymore.

This is a bit sad. It is possible that the actor story is still as good, as I remember it, and maybe more focused, than the artist's story. But having the writer's story that was advertised a glue, I hoped to get a "connected" experience. Without it I might have bought the remake to support devs, but would not be trying to replay the games. Since my expectations turned out to be false, I lost the motivation to continue. As such, I am not sure I would recommend the game. It is possible, that it will be better to play the original 2 games and get a somewhat "standalone" experience with them instead.

This is just better than the original game.

Seriously. Considering how underwhelming the original felt, I expected that I will try this one, and at most finish the main story and that's it. But in the end I almost went for 100% clear. "Almost", because you can't skip majority of cutscenes, and doing a New Game+ playthrough without that felt a bit tedious. So, in the end, I got all the achievements but the 2, that are linked to this.

What's better, though? It's minor things, really, but they seem to make a significant difference. Like the beginning of the game itself, for example. In both games you start on your way to somewhere, which is expected to me a somewhat "boring" mission, but something goes wrong. But with Miles, it's much more dynamic, much faster and way more chaotic. The game threw you into the action, and it felt good. And it was not the only episode like that, and it was not just the finale, too. Mid-game had an episode on the bridge, and it felt intense even despite being a QTE.

The non-spider sequences made much more sense, were shorter and more impactful. They did not feel like padding, because they were on-point, and sometimes felt "homey". Which did not feel out of place, too, since Miles is much more chatty, even when by himself, but his talks with Ganke liven things up even more. You can hear that they are friends, and are not in some awkward on-and-off relationship like Pete and MJ.

Same is true about side missions. Firstly, they are way more accessible, since there is the app. Which makes total sense (despite the fact that half the tech stuff here is done by Ganke and only Ganke, who is in school). Secondly, felt "grounded" and "community-building". Which has been the essence of Spider-Man. Heck, even collectibles felt that way, despite them not providing that much of rewards, aside from a few suits, which are... Well, I did not like them as "whole", just parts of them, and thus I stuck to classic one. Same was true for original game, too. But anyway, from narrative perspective, I'd only complain about some of the dialogues, that sounded a bit naive. And maybe that the finale did feel a tiny bit forced: in comics it probably would have taken a bit longer for the character progression. Still solid, though.

One of the things, that made me enjoy even doing collectables was that swinging felt better. I am not sure what exactly was changed, but I guess it's the animations. They are more "cartoony" here, but they also feel more "natural". It's not the vibe of "I've been doing this for 8 years, this just mundane commute" that we had with Pete, it's more of a "Oh, I'm Spider-Man, and that's so awesome, but I have not idea what I am doing" one. Like there are some animations, that look as if Miles is having fun or is making mistakes, that he recovers from. Or does not recover from, when you stumble onto the ground due to timing tricks poorly. This and possibly scaled down map (not sure about that one) makes an overall better experience of "fun". Ambient music being more ambient also helped. They did not fix zip-to-point inconsistency, though.

Combat also feels better. Somehow more fluid, more responsive. Original game had off-the-wall attack, but it always felt like I need to go out of my way to do that, but Miles seemed to be gravitating towards walls in some areas, which made the combat feel a bit more acrobatic. Although, it started to happen a bit less later on in the game (possibly because I started leaning more towards stealth). "Venom" powers obviously add so much more satisfaction, though. And I think it's the contrast: Miles himself is light (and thus his speed makes a bit more sense, than with Pete, who is bigger, although not by much), but then the animation and controller vibration of the "venom" attacks feel "heavy". It makes all the jumping around "worth it", as in "I've waited for just the right moment to do the maximum damage".

So, yeah, in my eyes - much better than the original. I can really complain only about the sound positioning. In some scenes for some reason it's treated my stereo as surround, and as result some voices were not heard poorly or not at all, because the game positioned them behind me. Subtitles helped, but if I did not have them on - I could have missed potentially important information.

Now I have a dilemma, though. Since I expected it to be the same as original game, I thought that I would not buy the 2nd game. Seeing, that the studio can deliver some good content, I am now tempted to get more of it. But I am also reading that 2nd game is closer to original one in some aspects... But then it has symbionts, and they are my thing... Will probably need a big discount on that one to push the needle for me.

I guess I... Outgrew this kind of game?

Seriously, I really liked previous Spider-Man games. The Ultimate one, Web of Shadows, Shattered Dimensions especially. Hearing a lot of praise for the latest PlayStation (originally) version, I had relatively high expectations, and as such was extremely disappointed after playing it for like an hour. My initial thought was: "Hey, the older games were much better!" So I downloaded them, and tried each one of them for a few minutes...

They were not better.

That does not mean that the new adaptation is particularly good, though. In some ways it's just more of the same, but more pretty. Unless we talk about facial animations, which are not good, and are almost non-existent for secondary NPCs, that are just talking heads. Gaps between phrases (including radio) made some scenes even more painful. At least it's pretty well optimized, though and almost bug-free. There were a few freezes during traversal specifically in DLC3, and a couple of time an error message about failed save appeared over cinematic and was not reacting to buttons, but compared to overall time I've spent in the game, it's minor.

My big problem is gameplay. I feel no weight in the fights or the swinging. This what made me feel disappointed. I get it, that Peter is not Bruce, so he will be lighter, and faster, and all that, but hitting enemies did not feel satisfying. It looked and felt too easy. Not in sense of difficulty, but of what Peter was doing on screen, and how much effort he exerted. When you fight in Batman Arkham Trilogy, you feel the effort and the weight of every movement, so when a hit lands - you feel satisfaction from that. Playing other characters in Arkham also felt that way even when they had very different style (like Nightwing was jumping all-over similar to Pete).

Swinging also felt too... Mechanical. Same as fighting this turned out to be just as it was in older games, but it was more noticeable to me. While theoretically a fun thing to do, it was a bit of an annoying chore for me to traverse the world. Especially since it sometimes did not start even when I am holding the trigger and am near a tall building. And due to zip-to-point distance being very inconsistent, and sometimes being available from very long distances, and sometimes, not available on relatively short ones. I also was lacking a double jump from some of the older games, which I got used to using as a way to control the landing in some scenarios.

There were Batman-like stealth missions, which were relatively good. They did seem to have some good planning and felt balanced. Of course, Spidey is not as versatile in stealth takedowns as Bruce, despite having quite a few gadgets, too. Ultimately, your best strategy is to distract enemies and use perch-takedowns most of the time. Even when it's a bright room or even outside in the middle of the day, so it does not really make sense that enemies do not notice cocoons hanging from lamps or whatever.

Not all stealth missions are played as Spider-Man, quite a few are played as Pete or other characters. For Pete - most of his sequences (including non-stealth ones) should have been cinematics. Only the the one in Li's office made sense: you did need to use your Spider-Man abilities, there was "investigation", some tension, some risk. It was good. Similar tension was in the first sequence for Miles. It probably also could have been just a cinematic, but it also had a certain sense of danger and risk, so it worked. 2nd sequence - not so much, it was essentially a tutorial for a "new feature". 3rd one, the one with Rhino - that was really good. Again, because there was a risk of being plummeted by a tank of a super-human. Tension was tangible.

Sections for Mary Jane, though... 3rd one, the one where you indirectly control Spider-Man - that was fun, that I did like, it felt fresh. The others did make sense narratively, but giving MJ stun gun and making her overpower big guys in armor - did not. "Girl power", yes, but let's be just a tiny bit more realistic. But the the first time you get to control her - I'd say it's one of the things that ruins the overall story. Or at least its beginning.

The beginning was just slow and unexciting. The first 2-3 hours included a leisurely traversal to a crime-scene, a leisurely walk-about in a lab, a barrage of mini-games just for the sake of mini-games, and... Yes, playing as MJ. All of this made the game feel slow, and since I already was not feeling any weight from gameplay, it was difficult to force myself to continue to play. But people were praising the story here, and I do like good stories, so...

Yeah, it's just ok. For a 2-hour movie it probably would be great. They approach they took with Otto is somewhat similar to what was done in, I think, Spectacular Spider-Man TV show, and it works. There probably could have been a more gradual personality change, but maybe I just missed some of the calls from Otto. But, anyway, while this would have worked for a movie, it does not work that much for a game, that takes much more time, and not enough unique situations.

I mean, the most unique mission was the one with Scorpion, because it completely broke the mold and went nuts. It felt more like something that Mysterio would do, but still was call. Fight with Otto was good, too, but the rest of the villains were kind of "meh". Although, Negative's "mind place" did look stylish. But that's it. And what's worse the last portion of the game felt rushed and because of that - riddled with minor logical gaps. The gas spread from very tiny container to the whole city somehow. The people "saved" Peter, but it looked like they just stood over him, and that's it. Peter somehow completed a whole new armored suit within like minutes (from story perspective), but yet was not able to fully develop any kind of relationship with MJ through-out the whole game. Or at least, not enough to consider it a meaningful addition to the story.

And where the heck was Matt Murdock? He is another hero who was fighting against Fisk, and a lawyer. Why did not he have, at least, a cameo? Instead we got Black Cat, who, probably, was added to show a woman with some sex appeal, because the model for MJ is... Yeah, she would not be a model, like the character was originally.

Speaking of DLCs: the first 2 are completely forgettable. 3rd one had that "high-five" scene with Silver Sable, that was quite funny, but at the same time it had an "Assassin's Creed"-like mission I facepalmed at, and overall ending was... Rushed, abrupt and underwhelming. Probably even abrupt as Yuri's "transition", but at least her mission had some interesting aesthetics with those violet elastics. Not really challenging investigations, though. And overall, not sure if there was a need to separate DLCs into separate maps, all the activities, probably could have been done on the main one. Just don't show completed activities on the map, and that's it.

From main game activities, research labs were the most interesting, since they did try to spice-up gameplay wise (really liked the final mission with lightning). Story wise, though... Just a bunch of nonsense, that sometimes made Harry sound like quite a loser, and not just "soft". Those missions were also annoying to start, since I needed 3 interactions for that. Pigeon collecting was completely pointless, did not give any rewards even. But backpacks made no sense even, since Peter was always struggling financially (and is struggling in this game, too), and now we have to believe that he just left backpacks lying around? Come on...

The game had a lot of praise to it, but I can't really recommend it. Maybe if you get it for like 10 bucks... It's not entirely bad, there were some good moments in it. But there was nothing that would really "hook me", and there were some annoyances in the gameplay.

I find it quite hard to seriously recommend to anyone. Unless maybe you get it at Steam's lowest price of 6 euros. Or you a die-hard Harry Potter fanatic eating up anything that's licensed appropriately. Not even sure where to start, so I guess I start with what is good.

Due to Steam size limitation, I have to put my long "good, bad, ugly" review at https://www.simbiat.eu/talks/threads/1891

Not hitting me. I remember I tried the game for a couple of minutes around the time it came out, and it felt funny enough to later buy it and play fully. I finally got to it and... Not that funny. Gun is annoying. Gunplay feels repetitive (although, probably will become better when there are other guns). Visually it's sometimes funky with the shadows. Music is... I am not sure how to express but it not only reminds me of music from old adult movies, but also "brings me down". Not depression-like, but it "weighs on me". Either way, I liked Journey to the Savage Planet way more in all aspects.

Why was there so much hate towards this game? I know it was not all about the game itself, but rather the diversity message (which is still weird), but it's actually quite a good game. There are still things that I can criticize, some of which I noticed back when I tried the demo, which was... Like, it was bad. Really bad, a complete mess, with lots of things being completely out of context. But even with those, I enjoyed my experience. BTW, surprisingly practically all of my comments about the demo turned ended up in my notes, that I made while playing the game 2 years later.

It's a travel game, essentially. Somewhat similar to Life is Strange 2, I guess, but with more characters travelling with you. And similarly to LiS2, a lot of experience here is about bonding with your fellow travelers and exploring small "zones". There is generally not that much you can interact with on the maps, but they are still nicely done, with quite a few smaller details. At least if we talk about motels and dinners: more "industrial" zones can feel somewhat empty in certain places.

There is a lot of banter between the characters, even when you are not actively interact with them. It can be quite interesting and funny, and let you learn more about both characters and the world. Most of the time this is something silly even, but it all adds to the "homey" vibe of the game. On the other hand listening to all of it, can make you feel the game is slow, but I think it's something you need to expect (to a degree) from similar stories.

The ME-EM device was cool with how they replicated controller, including sticks. Although, most people will interact with it only for learning new Vox powers, so it does feel like a bit of a waste. Recording echoes is also like ghost busters (which was mentioned in-game) and feels quite satisfying. Rhythm game is fine. The "right" button seems to be random at times, but maybe that's the point. Definitely like how the song "stumbles" if you fail. The songs are not bad either, but "Dust born" is probably the best.

Like how there is 4th wall breaking, but it eventually gets explained, although not out-right, and it makes complete sense from the game's perspective. Made me smile when I realized, what was actually happening with Pax calling me "kid" all the time. This does not affect the plot, but still... Besides, I don't think there is much that does affect the plot. From what I understood, your choices mostly affect whether certain characters will be present in certain scenes and your relationship with them, but overall plot is quite linear.

Being linear is not a bad thing (unless it's the prologue comic in this game, which is extremely disjointed). The story overall is quite solid, actually, although the last chapter felt rushed. On one hand it kind of made sense, because danger for the party has reached a certain level by that point, but on the other hand, I felt like there was at least 1 more chapter of potential content there. Interestingly, I did not feel "the agenda" being pushed in the story, though. Yes, the characters are quite diverse (in every sense of the word) and "inclusive", but I do not think there was any character for whom he "diversity factor" was the defining characteristic, let alone "the only thing about the character". It did not feel forced like in some other media with gender and race swaps, that's for sure.

Does it deliver the "inclusiveness" message? Personally, I think, yes, because I did not care about characters' shape, color or sexuality, while playing. But if you expect long and heavy conversations about the topic - probably not. There are some dialogues related to this, but, again, it's not the focus overall, which to me is the point. I think that's how it should be. On the other hand discrimination against people with Vox powers is similar to any other kind of discrimination, so there is that, too.

Speaking about dialogues, let's switch to criticism, and start with banter. Yes, I liked it overall, but sometimes it... I felt rushed a lot of the times, especially in the beginning of the game. Characters are constantly talking, and they have not stopped discussing something, but you are already required to respond. Sometimes there is a clear asterisk in the option indicating interruption, but some answers do not have it, and still interrupt. There is also this clock icon, which is supposed to indicate a time-out on certain options (unclear which ones), but often times it seemed to stay there for eternity.

I get what they tried to do here: make it feel more "natural", unlike in other games, where you everyone shuts up and then you talk. There are situations like this in Dustborn, too, but in most of the cases when they happen, you are called a creep for not saying anything. Literally, by the characters around you. Situation worsens by the "comments" or "thoughts" that periodically pop-up on screen, and they can pop-up in different places. This works for the "comic book" aesthetic, surely, but you need to read them while also listening to what other characters are saying. And you also may want to read these "thoughts" about the choices, because you first select a choice to just see the "thoughts" and then you hold the button to make the selection. If you are fast enough before this one particular choice does, indeed, run out of its timer.

Speaking of button holds: there are lots of those. Everything requires a button hold. I think it's just too much. Just as much as those huge reminders that you can spin your camera in dialogues. Not only is that unnecessary and under-utilized, it's just... Well, better give me a more cinematic experience like in Telltale games or in LiS series. Maybe not for all dialogues, but still. As is it's mostly talking heads, unless it's an actual cinematic.

Speaking of bugs... There are a lot of those:

1. Had a bug in 2nd chapter when subtitles were hanging and somehow preventing 2nd talk with Annie (BTW, why colors for subtitles are not linked to characters and change randomly?).
2. There were a couple of floating objects (tables) and characters.
3. Board in the bus periodically got all collectables on it, when it should not.
4. In 6th chapter do not wash dishes, you will end up in black screen.
5. Said I ignored a hawker, but I did speak to him.
6. Said I did not help protestors, but I couldn't even interact with them.
7. I won the battle of the bands (completed the song with no mistakes), but achievement did not pop.
8. CT randomly switched to Mentor from Prophet, even though it did not seem like there were many points there. The ending for CT was nice, though, so I won't complain here.

And don't get me started on fighting system which is... It's there. It's not that deep, and honestly, you can survive by tapping everything to death. Taunts are required sometimes, but you probably can complete the whole game without using any shouts. They did try to experiment a bit with a flashback, where fighting was turn-based, but I was skipping those. And you can skip all the fights, if you want. I would not think less of you, if you do. No bat will hit you in the face for that, that's for sure.

So... Yeah. It's not a bad game. I do not understand why there was so much hate towards it. It could definitely benefit from some extra polishing, especially with the bugs, but I enjoyed the travel with the band, and would not mind to even get a sequel. It was not LiS 3 for me, but did lift my spirits up a little bit. 7.5/10.

It's a... Different game.

I mean, of course it is. If it was the same game as the first one, it would have also been called Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. My point is, that you should not expect the same experience as with the first game. In some places that will make total sense, but regardless of that, your experience may be ruined if you expect the exact same things.

Gameplay wise this is now more of a walking simulator than previous game. While environments look good, the walking itself is not that engaging. There are quite a few episodes in the game, when you are just moving forward and often times almost silently with nothing happening. There are moments when you do need to run and those do feel exciting, but there are just a few of those, like 3 or 4.

Puzzles feel way simpler than in previous game, too. So much so, that one could question whether there was much point in them. Especially since the solution is mostly using the "focus" mechanic to "toggle" things: not really a "challenge" from the game's lore perspective, either. Or not really. Uncovering "faces" is fun, though, because of how trippy they "disappear" once you focus on them.

Fight are also simpler compared to previous game. "Heavy" attack felt useless most of the time for me, but I was using dynamic difficulty, so maybe the game adjusted somehow to make that the case. They do feel more personal now, since you always fight one-on-one. That does remove some of the challenge, of course, but the "feeling" of the fights themselves is great. Short cinematics when switching from enemy to enemy also help with the excitement.

What about the story? Well.. It's there. And I think it's what can cause the most conflicting emotions with a player: it's much calmer. It's not as "dangerous" or "urgent" and, possibly, not as "dark". The narrative in general is much more hopeful and somewhat naive even. This affects the voices in Senua's head as well: there is less bickering, less conflict between the furies, they even seem to encourage you more. They are also no longer part of the gameplay due to simplification of both fights and puzzles.

But the thing is... It just makes sense.

From Senua's perspective or from perspective of her character's development, this is all quite logical. She conquered part of her fears and grief in the original game, started healing. He decision to go out and stop the slavers was result of that healing: "I have survived, I know how bad it can be, and if I can, I need to help others avoid the same pain".

She is no longer experience schizophrenia. Or at least not as intensely, because she does not seem to be in a psychotic episode. Yes, Senua gets similar "symptoms" during stress, but those are... Those are expected because she is under stress. Otherwise, the story is mostly about survivor's guilt and impostor syndrome. They are also quite natural progression for a person in similar circumstances.

I am saying all this from personal experience. That experience is what made me resonate with the original game so much: I felt the same darkness in the past, the same feeling of drowning even. And that's also why the second game resonated with me still. To a lesser degree, but just because I am also much calmer than back in 2017, and because the game is less... Less "edgy", I guess.

And I think that's the main problem of the game. It's "less" in a lot of places. If it was part of the original game - it probably would have worked better. But since it's a sequel, and a standalone game... You kind of want more. You expect more. For those, who shared similar darkness of their own mind - they will understand. But for others this will not be that good of a game. Especially considering how the ending was a bit rushed.

So it's difficult to recommend the game to everyone. I can recommend it for those, for whom the first one resonated on some deeper level. Not just "a relatively good game" or "dark game with the voices" or anything like that, but something deep and personal. For others  - only if you temper your expectations.

And a comment for Ninja Theory, in case they read it someday: if you decide to make a 3rd game, to make it succeed you will have 2 options:

1. Go really hard and brutal on Senua. So hard that whatever healing she has achieved goes practically undone. People want brutality, unfortunately, and it sells.

2. Instead of releasing it as a standalone, have a game that combines the 1st game, 2nd game and this new 3rd act, where Senua achieves... If not a happy ending, then at least a peaceful one. If you bridge the gap between the 2 first games, so that "flow" from one to another, and add more moments of Senua's psyche trying to break (with a sense of risk!) - you can achieve a more coherent experience.

But add option to remove those black bars either way.

I would want more. Don't get me wrong, as a free project with quite simplistic mechanics and runtime for about 30 minutes or so (maybe more, if you want to try more combinations) - this is totally fine. Really good even. But I think that the idea in general deserves even more.

Think about it: such clerks usually know a lot about the adventurers, have all their stats, their history, and all that. They are also supposed to know what's happening around the town and nearby areas, if not even the world. They are dispatching the adventurers, and also help them grow. I only played a demo of the "Dispatch" game at the moment, but what if "Guild Clerk" was like that but with more focus on nurturing all the adventurers, and the RPG attributes on those. Like, attributes can affect success of the mission, but there can also be something else "hidden" or "unexpected" that can turn your expectations up-side-down? And you are also managing finances and inventory.

So, yeah, I think the concept has way more potential, than what we got here. Hopefully, the devs will find a way to expand it to something good in their next games.

Somehow I finished the game without realizing that you need to hold LT to properly use Lash. I learnt about that only when I was failing some jump in post-game, which required me to be pulled in fully and just a little bit, as when I just tapped the trigger. Probably would have simplified some fights. 😅 And it probably could explain why I could not pull in enemies that were in the middle of a jump.

Overall, I'd say treat this game as a James Gunn's movie or something similar. Especially considering that the characters are not that distinct in terms of character, and everyone is joking all the time. Or a lot of the time, at least. Orphe and Hauser could be interesting characters to explore, but they were just in the background, and from the main cast, I'd say only Zendara suggested, that there was some potential interesting story, not necessarily full of cliches. In fact, I liked her the most, because she felt as the most grounded and balanced of the bunch.

Also unlike Gunn's movies there weren't any "lyrical" or even "deep" moments. Plot twists (if you can even call them that) are quite predictable, too, and there are some obvious unexplained plot-holes (like why aren't other Immortals at least joining the War Room meetings, let alone big important fights?). They also should not have started the game with text: it did not add anything to the story, and was completely unnecessary since seconds after it, there was a sort of "introduction" to the setting. 

The magic in this world is strange, and I am not sure that in-game texts explain it that well. Although, I did just skim through them, so could miss something. Like, how come there are these altars, that are just there in the open for hundreds of years and they somehow have sigils and spells? How come touching those spells on those altars seems to be the only way to learn those spells? Why can't you teach others? And what's the point of "animate", if you also need a rune on something, placed by someone else? From gameplay perspective - totally get it, but from the lore one - not at all.

This is important, since your weapons - are magic, that is sigils. They are presented as guns, and they cover quarter of your screen most of the time, even outside of fights. And since only the right hand is constantly pointing forward (even when running), the screen feels extremely unbalanced. But, I guess it was very important to show off rings and bracelets on the same hand, even though people would care about them even less, than about the sigils themselves.

Sigils that are not that fun and not that diverse. There are 9 types of "guns", 3 of each color, but ultimately, most of them differ only by firing-rate and distance. Yes, green ones also try to "home in" onto enemies, but that rarely gives you an advantage. 2 of red magics are like shotguns, and I found them inconsistent: somehow they can damage enemies on longer distance then they should, but then they require point-blank to destroy chests. I would say only Javelins from blue magic feel completely unique, since you need to hold the button and be very precise with them.

For which there are not that many situations. At least not on Immortal difficulty. There are a lot of enemies, and you need to move fast even when dealing with relatively large and slow(er) enemies. There are also no opportunities to "silently assassinate" enemies, because you enter a zone, and then deal with waves of spawning enemies. Which again begs the question of why was it needed to cover quarter of the screen with the arm. Especially with how bright the effects can be, that they almost blind you as is.

Speaking of brightness: HDR is practically pointless here. It exists, yes, and it does change the picture, but... Essentially it's like a vivid mode or something, increasing saturation of colors, but doing absolutely nothing with the contrasts, shadows or light sources. Which is sad, because the environments do look quite nice and thoughtful here. Except placement of some puzzles (like that "tower" thing in the town-center, which "hides" a shroudfane). And lack of interactivity in hubs (like ability to disrupt NPC levitating barrels). In general the scale felt like a waste, and despite the looks, it often was a chore to traverse the environment, let alone properly explore it. Frequent crashes when changing areas (with load screens) and periodic frame-drops did not help either.

And overall, I think this game should have dropped this pseudo open-world, and the RPG-like elements and be more linear. When it approached things as as movie - it worked quite well. The fight on top (or on sides, I guess) of Colossus, was great. Traversal of the ship in final mission was amazing. These were moments, where the sense of scale also made sense, instead of just making the areas feel big. They should have also embraced "environmental magic" more. Certain shroudfanes, where environment was changing as you progressed or even during fights, were really fun. Especially the last shatterfane, which also suggested that there is more to the lore of game, than what was explored in the main story line.

In the end, I think the studio tried to bite more than they can chew, or maybe they were trying to do a little bit too many things at once, so that people would play the game for longer. But even the main story felt a bit stretched for my taste, considering there is not that much substance there. I think they needed to make a movie, but in a game format. And then with the next game they could have expanded things. From what I understand, that's unlikely now.

Do I recommend the game, though? I would say, that if you focus on the main story and shroudfanes (using guides to find them) - yes. Do not bother with exploration, because most of the time it's not that satisfying. Everything else can bring a couple of fun evenings. Would I recommend it at full price of 60 euros (70 for "deluxe")? Definitely no. But the 6 euros for the base game that have happened 3 times now (at the time of writing) actually feels a bit too cheap. Try out the demo, and if like that, it is ok to pay for it 15-20 euros. You will be able to get at least 20 hours of not perfect, but still good fun.