Hawke64
-
Posts
1077 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
4
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Posts posted by Hawke64
-
-
On 6/6/2024 at 2:29 AM, Malcador said:
200 MB of saves per game max on the cloud. Not a huge deal to me though.
It would be rather unpleasant for the users, but very understandable for GOG. I have used neither Steam nor GOG cloud saves voluntarily (only when the settings were resetting).
-
Dread Delusion. Got a house, reached the second main area. Some bugs have started to show up (e.g. an NPC referring to a quest I have not started), but good otherwise.
Flynn: Son of Crimson. A platformer. I am not exactly good at platformers, but it is fine. Nothing particularly bad I can point out.
-
Dread Delusion
I guess the wording is off - achieving one would be good, while getting both would be amazing. The other parts of writing do not feel so heavy-handed, so it is the character, rather than the writers.
So, this is the boss.
Nothing too spoiler-y, but might be better to experience first-hand.
Spoiler
The mask's eyes were following me.
This is a mushroom.
He is not wrong.
-
1
-
-
Dread Delusion. So far so good - I have been mostly avoiding combat by running and closing the doors in front of NPC. The writing and the visual style are excellent, the soundtrack is present (I noticed it changing significantly only around the Hollowshire Castle). The RPG systems (as in numbers) are simple, but present and generally satisfactory, same for roleplay - some quests have options for the methods and outcomes. The equipment has been rather limited - I have found 1 piece of armour, bought a stat-increasing hat and another armour set, and upgraded the rusty sword I got in the tutorial. Also found a bow, which I have not yet used. Somehow, it is nice when the game does not vomit Legendary Fire Swords +99 on you.
I am not quite fond of the checkpoint-based saving system, but it is not the first game where save file management performed in Windows Explorer. Reloaded once so far -
Spoileran NPC initiated a dialogue when there were 2 unfriendly creatures right behind me. It led to an intriguing curious cut-scene and I decided to reload.
-
1
-
1
-
-
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/skald-against-the-black-priory-review
QuoteSkald: Against the Black Priory review
A few bugs and grumbles are utterly brushed aside by a charming and accessible modernisation of 80s RPG detail.I will probably wait for a few months still, but it sounds quite good.
-
A Dance of Masks. Not exactly informative and I am quite certain that these are combat barks from the base game, but the focus on the companions is welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sycs4vdpxYw
-
2
-
1
-
1
-
-
Finished the There is no Light review. After some reflection, the general thing is that it is an action-adventure (and not a Souls-like nor a Metroidvania) with nice art and character development system and not so nice story/writing and level design. The foes clipping through each other and environmental hazards were also unpleasant.
I am thankful for the key provided by ShadySands.
SpoilerThere is no Light is an action-adventure game in a post-apocalyptic grimdark fantasy setting, as in someone opened the portal to hell, and humanity retreated into the metro tunnels with some eldritch horrors following closely. A few generations later the story starts with the main character’s family being sacrificed to the local deity, while the protagonist makes a deal with a demon to avenge them. The writing and lore are the weakest point - all dialogues and notes feel like drafts describing things rather than the final script, not to mention the occasional typos.
The combat is generally functional - the main weapon is a sword, which can have several different stats (e.g. higher damage and slower healing), a regular attack, a thrust attack, and a special rage ability attack. A throwable greatsword, a pair of breakable gloves, and a shield can be obtained after clearing one of the three main paths. Only the greatsword was somewhat useful, but only situationally. I obtained the shield last, so did not have the time nor the inclination to use it, while dashing was fast and reasonably reliable. The issue with combat comes from the encounter and enemy design - a lot of the encounters are ambushes, where the protagonist also cannot interact with various doors and ledges, thus, must defeat the foes to proceed. A lot of enemies are very fast, have little to no attack windup, and can clip through each other and the environmental hazards (e.g. to stand in the laser that hits the main character for 1 HP per second). The only reliable indication is the interruptability icon flashing above them, with red meaning that any protagonist's attack will stagger the enemy, yellow for special rage ability attacks, and white for impossible to interrupt. On a positive note, there are a lot of diverse and location-specific regular foes, while the bosses also have their own features.
The locations are beautiful (as far as eyes on yellow or on red goo can be) and distinct, with unique mechanics and systems to get through them (e.g. a boat to sail through lakes or a lamp summoning the memories of how the location looked like before), the level design is lacking - it is never clear where or why to go, aside from the few areas with maps (of variable usefulness), and the walkable surfaces are not clearly visible. It is hard to tell whether something is a path, a wall, or a part of the background. Checking by dashing into them costs health on unsuccessful attempts, while the ability to negate might come very late, depending on the path chosen. After the prologue, there are 3-4 paths leading from the main hub. One of them becomes available only after clearing the other three. The exploration in general is not satisfying and there are only a few collectibles (the pages unlock lore after completing a side quest and the spider toys allow to increase the maximum health) and the single-use health-restoring items in the optional rooms.
The character development system consists of weapon upgrades and the souls of the defeated bosses. The latter can drastically alter the survivability, but only one can be equipped per unlocked weapon, while some of them worked only with the weapon they were slotted into. The idea felt novel enough, but barring sprinting behind it was not. Additionally, the only way to increase the health and number of carried single-use health-restoring items was by collecting spider toys and bringing them to a certain NPC. On which path the NPC was, one should guess.
There are side quests. On one hand, it is possible to pick up the quest items before receiving the corresponding quest, on the other, it is also possible to lock yourself out of them accidentally, while the general logic of the quests and how they connect to the main story (the protagonist regaining memories) were lacking. Though, it certainly was funny when I repeatedly led the local military to be slaughtered by me, while they were trying to murder random civilians. The quest giver at no point suspected the MC of killing his subordinates. The karma system overall is more of a guessing game, but the range of dialogue options (yes, no, question) is satisfactory for the genre. The protagonist does not exactly talk, thus, the exact wording of the lines is open to interpretation. Additionally, there are a lot of chained or caged NPC civilians. It is not possible to help them, even after defeating all foes in the area.
I turned off the soundtrack when it switched to rock during one of the early ambushes, thus, successfully drowning the few audio cues for enemy attacks. There is no VA, the characters speak gibberish, but it is enough to understand the tone of the voice.
The controls are rebindable and the 5-button mice are supported. The game saves progress upon entering areas or interacting with the fast travel/level up point. There are some shortcuts between them, while being defeated in a boss battle usually allows to be reviewed right at the entrance. I have encountered only one minor visual UI bug.
---
Started The Last Express Gold Edition. Failed after wandering around the train for 10 minutes - could not find the quest NPC. The game looks amazing for its time, though the screen resolution and the mouse-based controls suggest it would work wonderfully on handheld devices. The in-game navigation is somewhat challenging.
-
1
-
-
There is no Light
Ironically, there was a special death animation for the area, where the spiders were not retrieving the MC's corpse.
"Don't listen to him, listen to me instead". It might be not exactly the best line, but he spider had a point.
One of the collectible side quests.
Well, they have tried with the altered quote.
Her axe kept winking at me.
All cut-scenes (except the secret true ending) are shades of grey. Stylish.
They had been trying to murder me throughout the area.
Did not meet the creature that cast the shadow.
The boss. The arena had purple poison activated. The jars were providing protection from it and had been introduced earlier in the area.
Spoiler
Unlocked the bestiary.
Spoiler
I couldn't shake the feeling that the writing was off.
The rocks were possible to stand on, despite looking like a part of the background.
A rather unpleasant boss battle - the boss had no windup for most attacks, so I was just hitting once and dodging, occasionally using the rage/special/ability attack. Got a shield from it, which I proceeded to ignore.
Spoiler
The backers, I assume.
And this boss battle was worse - the arena had pits and the boss was zipping around.
Cute fox.
Such a nice and welcoming place.
One of the few areas with maps. Since there were 3 objectives, which I deduced from staring at the map, trying to explore blindly would be horrible. As is, it was just unpleasant.
A pretty bird. Did not do anything and was not a boss.
The actual character development system was unlocked by defeating bosses. There were 4 souls possible to equip at the same time, so while sprinting was convenient, higher damage and regeneration felt more important, and so, traversing settlements was always annoying.
The final boss and ending. I used the attack speed + increased regeneration built and was mostly just eating the damage. Felt actually good.
Spoiler
Our demonic friend was going to murder us all along. Much surprise.
The inventory screen after completing all side quests.
Sprouted a wing with eyes.
Apparently, an angel.
The point when I had enough and watched the true ending on YouTube.
-
2
-
1
-
-
Finished There is no Light. Tried to do the true ending*, but the 2 stages of the final boss were not particularly inspiring (the first one was timed and had to be repeated in case of failure later on). Overall, I am not unhappy that I have played it, but the game is not good due to the story/lore, level and encounter design. I will try to write a proper review some time later.
*it required completing all side quests. The one where I repeatedly led the local military to be slaughtered by me, while they were trying to murder random civilians, was funny. The quest giver at no point suspected the MC of killing his subordinates.
-
1
-
-
54 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:
Bioware has a pretty high hurdle now to overcome. Trying to beat Larian's Bear "romance" will be definitely challenging
It was a joke scene, though. With Larian's usual type of humour. Well, the usual is more gory. Nonetheless, it did increase the game's visibility, and probably even more than Fox did for Mass Effect.
-
1
-
-
Finished Ghost Song. A very good Metroidvania in a sci-fi setting. Highly recommended.
Review:
SpoilerGhost Song is a Metroidvania with Souls-like elements. The story follows a newly-awakened Deadsuit who took upon herself to assist the surviving crew of a crashed spaceship. There are no story-related choices (the main character auto-replies in dialogues), though some of the mandatory objectives can be achieved in different order. The story and the dialogues are written well, and the characters are likeable, so the protagonist’s lines are fitting and going along with the objectives comes easy.
The combat is functional - the main default weapon is a gun with rather limited range, while the damage decreases the farther the target is. There are other ranged weapons with different attack types and abilities, as well as melee weapons. Also a combat drone. It should be noted that there is contact damage and it hits as hard as a normal attack from the respective foe, which usually makes ranged combat preferable.
The main character has few attributes which can be upgraded at the infrequent fast travel points, while the save points are much more plentiful. Additionally, there are modules, which provide quality changes to the protagonist’s abilities, such as healing while attacking in melee, double jumping, or being able to see foes’ health bars.
The bosses are diverse, challenging, and have some background story. Most of them have several stages or additional mechanics. A few are the same as the regular enemies, but larger.
The main aspect of a Metroidvania is exploration, and the world is interesting and engaging to explore. There are a lot of optional paths and secrets, while the traversal is comfortable. There are very fast travel points, but the map is not too large. Additionally, the locations change slightly as the story progresses, most notably, during the return-to-camp sequences, while new abilities allow to access previously unreachable areas.
The visual design is stunningly beautiful and easy to read at the same time. The music is pleasant and does not block foes’ attack cues nor distracts from the game. The dialogues are partially voiced, with the VA being of good quality.
The controls are reasonably comfortable and rebindable. No significant bugs have been encountered during the playthough, only a couple visual ones. The only technical flaw I can see is auto-saving in the same slot, which is typical for Souls-likes and can be circumvented by copying the save files with Windows Explorer manually.
Overall, highly recommended.
Somehow amusingly, my playthrough have taken about 14 hours, while there is an achievement for beating the game within 3 hours. I am really curious how one could do so.
---
Continuing with There is no Light. The combat became reasonably enjoyable, though the encounter design ("lol, ambush") is not. I also have realised what was bothering me about the story (aside from the part where every nice place was turning grimdark very quickly) - everything felt like descriptions of the actual dialogues or notes. Like something you give to the writer to start with, not the final script.
On another note, I have discovered the health-increasing NPC on the last of the 3 available paths (which I could have taken as the first). Then again, I did not gather enough McGuffins for the NPC to increase my HP by much at that point either way (~16.6%, if I read the progress bar correctly).
On a positive note, the locations differ from each other quite a lot, there are a lot of enemy types, and the visual style is quite lovely. Also, the inventory screen slightly changes as the optional quests are completed. Which supposedly unlock something and show the MC's background story.
---
Downloaded a bunch of demos and have not played them yet. There is a good chance that by the time I have done so, the games themselves will be released, patched, and discounted.
-
1
-
1
-
-
Ghost Song
The game is gorgeous.
An early boss.
Well, this I did not expect at that point.
Spoiler
SpoilerThen she gained invincibility and ran away.
I realised only by late-game that these were the escape pods.
SpoilerProbably the largest size of a community where communism could work.
The secret merchant probably was not wrong.
Spoiler
The return runs were rather fun.
Persuasion failed, I suppose.
SpoilerOne of the most talkative bosses and I have no idea what he was talking about.
SpoilerMet the escaped boss again.
The first attempt did not go well - the boss' hitbox was ridiculously large (included the flail while just standing still and not attacking), while my melee weapon had a very limited range.
Some lore spoilers.
Spoiler
Happens. Tree stumps are good listeners, though.
At least, she is not attacking anymore.
The purple balls were not hostile and did not cause contact damage.
One of the tankiest bosses. Took quite some time.
Would high-five the murder bot at that point.
End-game.
Spoiler
-
1
-
1
-
-
Grave Expectations by Alice Bell (the former deputy editor of RockPaperShotgun). It is a mystery novel with light gore. So far (~120 pages in) so good. I've also purchased the second book, Displeasure Island. The MC being a medium with a ghost sidekick slightly reminds of the Blackwell series.
Godot 3D Game Development. I have read the preface (see the quote) and decided to continue with this book later. I strongly suspect that the editor was MS Word Spellchecker.
QuoteThe book is the author's master peace about game development
Godot 4 Game Development Projects. Completed the first project. Some parts of code were missing. Still, fine for £2.
-
On 5/20/2024 at 4:40 PM, Wormerine said:
Larian has opened yet another studio, this time in Warsaw Poland.
I am happy to see game developers having reliable employment. I never liked CDPR games, which seemed only to worsen since TW1, so hopefully, there will be no similarities. Larian games might have issues, but they are improving in some aspects.
16 hours ago, kanisatha said:It's the #1 game in my Steam wishlist, so I want it to be good <fingers crossed>.
Don't have much else in the way of what I want: a party-based fantasy RPG that is NOT turn-based combat.
As the meme goes, "Stupid sexy Bioware". There is a very good chance that despite the DRM and rather poor system requirements (considering that it is an AAA, the graphics might be a priority), I will purchase it near the release date.
-
1
-
-
https://www.gog.com/en/game/warhammer_skulls_2024_digital_goodie_bag
QuoteThe Digital Goodie Bag is available and free to claim only until May 30th, 4 PM UTC.
All the warriors of the Old World and 41st Millennium, hear us! To celebrate the Warhammer Skulls festival, Games Workshop and GOG have teamed up to present you with this outstanding Warhammer Skulls 2024 Digital Goodie Bag that is available only in our store.
This pack includes:
- Warhammer wallpapers
- Cubicle 7 discount
- Warhammer Merchandise discount
Warhammer Skulls 2024 Digital Goodie Bag will appear in your library as a separate entry. Please note that the goodies are accessible only through the browser and will not be visible in your GOG GALAXY library.
-
1
-
Ghost Song
The first boss.
The MC has a gun instead of the hand.
Defeated another boss. Not sure which health bar was the boss, though.
There is no Light
The Two Fingers were larger.
The Fallen Champion. Whose champion or where they fell from is unknown.
Too many faces, but could be worse. Could be Giger.
I do not know if the MC was hallucinating at that point.
Curious if I run into the other wielders later on.
Too many faces.
The bane of all adventurers - chest-high wooden fence.
Defeated another boss. Expected the leader of the Lunar Order.
Spoiler
9 Years of Shadows
And here I decided to take a break - the MC was dying in 3 hits, the knight seemed invincible, there was no other direction to go.
Aspire - Ina's Tale
Spoiler
A Short Hike
I did it.
-
2
-
1
-
-
Quote
Enotria's now officially arriving on the 19th of September on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox.
[...]
As for Enotria's demo, that'll arrive on May 22nd on PC. It'll be around 8-hours long and start you off in "Quinta, the City of Actors", where you'll almost certainly parry lots of dribbly theatre kids who give off an irksome vibe. You'll do that with four weapon classes, six masks, 20 spells and 30 perks. Masks, by the way, are ways of equipping different attack styles and building loadouts. There's no word on whether demo progress will carry into the full game, which suggests that it won't be the case.
QuoteRedfall is getting a final update which will add an offline mode and singleplayer pausing, among other changes. The news was announced via the Redfall account on X, which also thanked players for their "supportive messages" in light of developer Arkane Austin's imminent closure by Microsoft.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Humanoid said:
I barely even got to start the Hinterlands, I remember getting to my castle, starting one of those missions where you have to wait in real time for it to complete, then decided to quit for the day while it completed.
I never ended up launching the game ever again.
There are mods to remove the timer from the War Table missions. Some of these short text-based adventures are rather interesting. I think, the length not being a positive quality by itself was discussed in another thread (in relation to Owlcat's game design)?
Edit. Curious timing. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/this-handy-list-of-mods-makes-dragon-age-inquisition-short-enough-to-play-again-before-dreadwolf-comes-out
QuoteBrickley has collated a list of suggested mods to slim down Dragon Age: Inquisition from a potentially 80 hours-long epic to a trim 40 hour story-focused romp, which means you might be able to play through it again in time for the launch of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf - which is a direct sequel to Inquisition.
To be fair, we might be able to finish the game several times over before Dreadwolf even without these mods.
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Gorth said:
I have it on my EA account (I bought a number of games when it was still "Origin"). But despite three attempts, I never made it out of what I think of as the introduction area, before losing interest
If you mean the Hinterlands, leaving it right after you have enough "points" (I think, it was the influence the Inquisition had on the key NPCs?) might be the best option. The area looks very lovely (with all those autumn forests and mountains), but aside from few side quests and the high dragon, it is leaning towards environmental storytelling, rather than more explicit narratives. Which is good in Souls-likes, not dialogue-heavy party-RPGs. While I did not dislike it, the large maps with little story impact per square meter were not the strength of the game.
But at least I got an immortal horse. Better than Skyrim out of 10.
-
1
-
-
The last update on the physical goods was on 21 March 2024.
QuoteWe continue our updates regarding Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Collector's Editions. Last time, we shared photos of the packages waiting to be shipped, and also covered the preparation of the paperwork.
At the moment, we are still preparing the documents to make sure that the physical rewards will reach all our backers without any problems. Since the parcels will be shipped to a wide variety of countries, the preparation and delivery process may take longer. We also continue to prepare customs documents, which is a lengthy and labor-intensive process. It is as such because of the varying legislative requirements for delivery in different countries.
Despite all the logistical issues we ran into, we stay committed to getting your rewards to you, and we'll continue to share any news about our progress.
We'll be sure to be back with more news next month. Thank you for your support and trust — we continue to improve for the sake of our players.
I suppose, it is understandable that physical items are more challenging to deliver, but it has been two years.
Still, I probably will get the Masks DLC and Owlcat's next game few months post-release (unless backing them).
-
1
-
1
-
-
Dragon Age: Inquisition - GOTY Edition is free on EGS. The EA App is still required, judging by the store page description. At this rate, if EA just released DAII and Inquisition (and the Mass Effect series) on GOG for full price, I would have purchased it just to avoid the damn DRM. Well, I still have the disc images (the games were released when the physical media were more popular) and the installation files, so might as well try to look for the "unofficial patches" online.
-
1
-
-
There is no Light. It is an action-adventure. There are several paths to follow from the start, but they seem to be rather linear. I think, I have finished 1 out of 4 main paths. So far, I have turned off the music (at one point, it switched to rock, which, while nice, was not appropriate for actually trying to fight off the ambush) and tried to switch the difficulty to the easier one (I cannot tell if I have succeeded).
The visual style is beautiful and expressive (pixel art), the controls are rebindable, and the bosses have been quite diverse and challenging*. There is a karma system, and I assume that it should go up. Which it does from picking the "correct" answers in dialogues and completing side quests (somehow, telling a pilgrim that their god was not testing their faith by murdering them was bad, while telling a random settler not to report on his brother being a rebel was good). The setting seems to be post-apocalyptic and dystopian - the population lives in the underground train network, but there is also magic, with the protagonist's current patron being some soft of murder god.
I like the combat system in general, but not its combination with the encounter design and level layout. The actions are mostly quite responsive, but when there are several foes with different attack states (can or cannot be interrupted) gathered around, it gets very chaotic, considering the speed. I have not found a way to upgrade the HP and the health-restoring consumables are limited, while the weapon upgrades do not directly increase the damage per hit. Though, there are several weapons, which seem to be unlocked by defeating main bosses.
In terms of level structure, it is not a Metroidvania - after choosing one of the paths, the progression is mostly linear with short side paths which may or may not lead to something (was not worth it so far). Nor there are any traversal abilities to unlock. The levels are rather difficult to navigate and for the areas outside of the main hub, there are no maps. Occasionally, the level borders appear only after you reach them.
I will try to finish the game.
*died several times to the second one before noticing that the thing was counter-attacking. Nothing before had been doing so and there was no indication that the boss was parrying me (aside from my HP going down).
-
1
-
-
There is no Light
The game was insulting me. Ironically, the difficulty does not seem to affect the bosses.
An escort side quest. Just as planned.
The second boss. It took me several tries to notice that he was killing me by counter-attacking.
The MC continues being unlucky in the cut-scenes.
I guess, domestic violence is not unrealistic, but kind of dark for a passing line. Then again, the setting seems to be grimdark.
Spoiler
Not a clue what it was or why it was there already dead.
Reminds of WH40K.
The Messiah.
Spoiler
The butterfly lied - the children were in a no-combat zone. Speaking of, Samedi feels less irritating than Issun was, which might be mostly because he appears less frequently. Still would have preferred him being quiet, but there are worse chatty sidekicks.
-
2
-
1
-
-
Quote
After a month or so of testing, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's offiical mod tools REDkit will launch on May 21st. It'll make it easier for players to make new quests, items, weapons and so on for the nearly nine-year-old RPG.
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/animal-well-review
QuoteA gorgeous and immensely absorbing metroidvania platformer that is both easy to get into and dense with secrets.
Steam discussions mention the controls not being possible to rebind, which is a deal-breaker for anything that is not a visual novel with 1 button controls.
QuoteRole-playing musical Stray Gods is getting DLC in which you'll play as sorrowful ghostly rocker Orpheus.
---
About the petition, it was initiated due to Ubisoft pulling The Crew, which had a single-player yet server-reliant mode, from the players' libraries. It is not the first time they are doing this, but before that it was "just" DLC for the older AC games. I would strongly prefer the publishers to be legally encouraged to respect their customers purchases. If the publishers in their wisdom, made the DRM in a single-player game to rely on the servers, surely they can spend work-hours on untangling the dependency. The smaller developers are usually nice enough not to try doing this.
-
1
-
2
-
The Great Game Giveaway: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas Edition
in Computer and Console
Posted
Steam keys (from HumbleBundle):