Patrick_B 最近的评测

First they revoke legitimately bought keys trough Fanatical (three years after the fact!) and then they except you to fill out your private content information in a public Google Doc. LOL, don't buy anything from those scammers.

I played Thi4f when it was new, but only made it to somewhere during chapter three and I quit. From what I heard, it gets even worse from here - including a bad Shalebridge Cradle knockoff level - so I didn't see a point to waste more of my time. Not only does it ♥♥♥♥ all over the series, as expected, but it is just a bad game in itself. But I still hate it so much that I feel the need to write it down.

It does exactly one thing right, and that are those variable difficulty settings. I wish more games would offer that. On the other hand, everything else is a mess:

- The level design is a joke. Did you think the levels in Thief: Deadly Shadows were small? You will be surprised. The best you'll get here are four small rooms at a time until the next chokepoint. And of course there is no free movement so we don't miss the next awesome cutscene.

- I don't think I have ever encountered worse writing in a video game. Relatively early there is a ♥♥♥♥ ring conversation, but this is only the top of the iceberg. Every conversation is bad. I would bet money that this unsympathetic girl from the prologue turns out to be the predictable main villain. Garrett is no longer the man we love, a thief who only steals to survive and gets drawn in problems too big to chew - now he is a wannabe-Batman who lives in a clocktower, does not sell his loot and spouts out idiotic one-liners.

- As you may remember, one of the best thing of the Thief series was the magnificent sound design. Well, say goodbye to that, here you get a non-functional turd. Before I quit I solved a (bad) puzzle while hearing the following: "SLAP ME HARD! OOOOH! YOU ARE THE BEST (one second pause) SLAP ME HARD! OOOOH! YOU ARE THE BEST (one second pause) (repeat indefinitely)." Sound plays practically no part in stealth anymore; you can drop down directly behind a guard without him noticing. With the exception of broken glass, the flooring makes no difference.

- The stealth mechanics are broken. In the old games, being in pitch black meant that guards won't notice Garrett unless they directly walk into him. Now guards can randomly see Garrett in the dark. The old mechanics were probably not "realistic", but they were predictable. Now it is trial & error.

- It is nice that you can disable focus and other indicators, but this does not help much. The game was obviously designed with the assumption that the player has everything turned on. By the way, I did not mind the loot glow in Deadly Shadows, but here it is ridiculous.

- The city hub is awful. It is completely non-sensical and especially the lack of free jumping makes it a chore to navigate. For most side missions, the challenge is not to steal stuff, but to reach the window. Loading screens are frequent and mostly require the player to hammer the use-key.

I could go on, but the verdict is already clear: This game sucks. I should have listened to my gut feeling and ignore this game. Do yourself a favour and pretend there is no Thi4f. Play a better game instead, e.g. Postal III or the newest asset-flip.

Trails of Cold Steel II is a fantastic successor to the already very good Cold Steel I. As with the whole series, the stars are the worldbuilding and the characters. The combat system is - for a turn-based game - fast and easy to use.

The main problem are the dungeons which are, like in all Trails games I played so far, boring. However, during the majority of the game this isn't a big issue because the dungeons are pretty short.

Unfortunately the could not end the very engaging plot at the obvious point, noooo, they had to add an entire unnecessary epilogue with a huge, tedious randomly generated, dungeon followed by a tedious, unnecessary boss fight.