Hawke64

Could anyone please tell me if there is a way to remove the trash mob combat encounters, leaving only the quest-related ones? The density feels the same as in PF, but it is significantly more time-consuming in the turn-based mode, while the opponents are the same.

I have tried Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and it plays surprisingly poorly. I am puzzled how this got such a positive reception - the bosses miss the health bars, everything has contact damage, enemies revive upon re-entering rooms, and there is no dedicated dodge key. And the MC screaming on every executed attack annoys me. I have also tried Real Web Legends: Carter's Quest. It is in Early Access and the custom controls reset upon closing the game. The developer stated that it will be resolved eventually, so I am happy to wait for v.1.0. Otherwise, it is an action-adventure with generally pleasant combat and interesting character design. The areas are a bit too large and too empty. The story of a silent and amnesiac protagonist following suggestions of a flying entity is not new, but works.

I would like to explicitly state that I do not recommend VtMB2 at least until the performance, combat, and saving issues are resolved and, possibly, Fabien's sequences turned into dialogues. The posts are mostly to process the experience. I definitely have played worse action games and worse vampire action games. In retrospect, I enjoyed this one more than Vampyr and the second VtM VN with the Lasombra MC. I also received the last VtM VN as a gift for the pre-order, which is nice, I suppose. To elaborate on the combat, there is a lot of it, it is mandatory, and it is uncomfortable. The performance issues and the opponents dodging out of the line of sight do not help either. There are combo attacks and the parry move (dodging into the attacker), but I was able to use them consciously and successfully exactly once, on the second boss. I'd guess that adding the third-person camera and target lock and removing the "ENEMIES NEARBY" message on the suspicious chained locks in every other room would be easier to implement (months instead of years or even mods) than reworking the level structure, combat, or increasing the enemy variety (there are very few types for the number of encounters and I did not notice any technical difference between the Anarchs and the Sabbat). The story is largely fine - the mystery is compelling and the characters are interesting enough. Granted, the lack of mechanical representation of the Beast and Humanity (or any non-combat skills) is unpleasant, but not unexpected for an action game. They occur at very specific story points, do the thing to move the story, and are inaccessible for the player. Also, the civilian NPC cannot run out of blood. Therefore, yes, picking it up on sale in a year or two should provide a better experience. Imgur is not cooperating today, so (the screenshot had to be smaller than 1MB):

Screenshots: All starting outfits look off and I do believe that this is on purpose. The attire from the key art: Some locations look nice, but I would not be able to navigate without the map. The collectibles - really unsuitable locations if you think of it. Same for the graffiti: I spent the next 10 minutes chain-biting this and another NPC. Very practical and not weird. Another feeding session when I unlocked the last blood type affecting ability. Then I stopped hunting for the rest of the game. He has a point here. Various glitches. Arguably, there could have been more. The haven. There is also a dead companion animal and a dead wild animal in the corner. The side quests offer a bit of context. To be fair, as much context as most of the main quests (there are ~5 significant ones and a lot of "go there, kill everything"). Fabien's quests: Spoilers (main NPC #2 or so): Spoilers (main NPC #3 or so): Spoilers (the incredibly touching romance dialogue): Spoilers (late-game/after the underground quest): Spoilers (end-game and ending):

I have finished The Séance of Blake Manor as well and managed to save everyone saveable (21/21, as the end-game window indicated). I have also spent almost a day trying to find Joyce - the quest requiring her was available very early, while the NPC was frequently inaccessible. The time limit allows to have a lot of interactive junk and functionally useless dialogue options without pressuring the player into using them all, which is welcome. I also had to wait for ~2.5 hours at the end for the last event after doing everything else (and 1 hour to get to Joyce). The controls are rebindable and it is possible to save at almost any time, though the number of save files is insufficient. The main non-logical puzzle (the runes/glyphs thing) is fun enough to do repeatedly. The visual style is very readable and expressive at the same time (low-poly 3D environment and 2D character models). A small annoyance was (ending spoilers): Also, some investigations were obvious to me as a player (e.g. Murphy's) but not the character, including the main culprit.

Thank you.

The text wall of my review is under the spoiler tag. To summarise, it is an action-adventure, there is little roleplay, most of the meaningful choices lie at the end, the level design is atrocious, the combat and the performance are terrible (nonetheless, I am delighted that the game takes only 25GB), the saving system has no place in modern games, and it was a pain to get this to launch (the launcher and telemetry were starting up just fine, though). Also, the post-effects may trigger motion sickness and the only camera option is the first person. The story is passable and the mystery is somewhat compelling. Both protagonists are fine and generally not unpleasant to play as (unless one notices some peculiarities with the Malkavian). The controls are rebindable, but it was not possible to make them comfortable. The small things that I genuinely liked are that the avatar's body is visible and the attires remain the same for both body types. @Raithe Could you please share what ending you got?

I have defeated the first boss and realised that I strongly dislike the combat system. The boss, unlike me, also could block the attacks. In terms of traversal and stealth, it is possible to travel via the rooftops, the PC kills really quietly (you can chain-stealth-kill), and the opponents have a relatively low range of vision. An early spoiler for the NPC companion: An early spoiler for the first boss battle: The game opened up afterwards, with several quests to choose from across the city. The clan representatives offer to unlock the other clans' abilities for some blood points. I have also spent some more time with the GameUserSettings.ini file. Can't say that I've achieved much, though. Screenshots: Screenshots with some spoilers:

I apologise for misreading the comment and thank you for the clarification.

I've got it to run with the -dx11 parameter. The store page explicitly stated that DX12 was the only supported version, so it looks a bit worse than one would hope. The only good thing I can say now is that the controls are rebindable. The on-screen prompts still show the default keys, though. In terms of story, the NPC companion is quite amicable (neither obnoxious nor hysterical), which is welcome, considering that the NPC is likely to be around for the whole game. I suppose, the installation size (~25GB) is good, especially considering that GOG runs installation through the system drive. I am feeling adventurous enough to continue, even if it is just an action-adventure rather than an RPG. However, I would not recommend to purchase it for more than £10 and earlier than next year. Then again, the Eternal Strands devs disabled -dx11 in one of the updates, so it was quite unpleasant to discover after purchasing (thank GOG for the 30 days refund limit). I think, an easier rollback should be possible on Steam via the CLI (because the developers did not offer a beta branch after worsening the system requirements), which would require more effort than I am willing to provide at the moment. It was on by default. I mean, there were not many articles of clothing in VtMB, but this is sad. On a "fun" note, imgur is blocked in the UK. I'd guess the owners chose it while that OSA bs blows over, rather than the local goverment went after the website. Given the situation with the human rights for LGBTQ+ and especially trans and intersex people, this is not the angle for humour I would use. https://diva-magazine.com/2025/10/13/coroner-trans-wait-times/

Fear the Spotlight is free on EGS. The game is nice if short.

1. You were right and the launcher skip worked. 2. The game still does not work. Using a username without a space in it changed the error, but then I updated the GPU drivers and the previous error returned. I have also redownloaded the game's latest version from GOG (the patch was for a newer version than the initial release), with no improvements.

I have tried both, the root folder and the "\Bloodlines 2\Bloodlines2\Binaries\Win64\Bloodlines2-Win64-Shipping.exe", executables with the same result. The "Launch.." shortcut directs to the launcher more clearly. True.

I have the game and here is a screenshot of the only gameplay I have experienced: The Paradox launcher mildly annoys me, but the firewall is handling it and the issue above is more significant. I suspect it is the usual UE5 thing (kindly, may Lumen and Nanites be gone), so I will try with Steam Deck later (not entirely sure how to install GOG games on it, but will try). I'd be more upset about it if I did not purchase it 5 years ago for a fraction of the current price. As is, I am just disappointed. --- Found the pre-rendered videos: Banu_BladedHand.mp4

City of Springs A reasonable and relatable protagonist is welcome to see. I think the game's been out before the 2024 GE. The combat. It did not happen often, but I stopped trying to jump out of bounds. Why? An ending spoiler. At that point, I laughed for a few minutes.

I have finished Saviorless (reached the epilogue where an NPC asked not to hit them, so I did not and quit the game). The visuals were quite nice, but everything else was not. Review: Absinthia. I have found an oni in a hidden location and the party was defeated in 3 turns. It is a very well-made RPGMaker game, even if I somewhat dislike the generic RPGMaker combat.

I suppose, I am going to try it and see how it goes even if I do not finish the game. It is £1.09 at the moment. Edit. It crashed with Curl error 7: Failed to connect to config.uca.cloud.unity3d.com port 443 after 6775 ms: Couldn't connect to server Crash!!! Will poke a bit more to see if it runs. The developers working with Unity forgetting to disable the analytics and hitting the firewall are not new. Edit. 2. It runs. But too hot for comfort, so until I get some better cooling, I'd rather keep it sitting in the library. Then again, you can play as a half-moose, so that's something to look forward to.

Has anyone played Edge of War? As I understand, it was Early Access, lost the publisher and now to be taken off the store after the final sale. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1786070/Edge_of_War/ https://steamcommunity.com/games/1786070/announcements/detail/532110628895065299?snr=2___

I have finished City of Springs and it was not horrible. While it is as engaging as Assassin's Creed without parkour (one can try to parkour and fall through the level geometry), it is functional. The story follows a young unemployed engineer in a steampunk/post-apocalyptic city after the local government executes the engineer's sister. The stealth is functional and the combat is unusual, for what it's worth. The unusual part is that there are 2 lines and you can summon small drones, so can your oppponent. The goal is to destroy the opponent (bug-like robots). It vaguely reminds of DotA/MOBAs in general, but not quite it. And the opponents have slightly different shells - the starting ones are white, then the stronger ones are purple, and the late-game ones are golden and grey. And their shells have no bearing on their abilities beyond the health bar. The bosses have a slightly fancier shells with decorations on them and do require attention. The visual and sound design are present. Again, they are not the worst I have seen, but I generally struggled to notice the interactive objects without the highlight (looking for 3 "machines" in one of the missions was decidedly unfun). The VA is there and line skipping was skipping 2 at a time, thus, somewhere from mid-game I was getting about 50% of the dialogues because listening to it was not exactly engaging. The journal consisted of "Talk to [NPC]. There might be jobs to do" and put markers on the next objective. The controls are not rebindable, the game autosaves in 5 slots. There are some side quests most of which I've skipped. I suppose, "it works" is not the best recommendation, but given the price I had expected crashes or game-breaking bugs and there were none (I had to reload after getting stuck once), and the story was concluded at the end.

I have finished Promise Mascot Agency. I stand by my initial assessment - Saints Row without combat and all your gang members are mascots. I have started and finished Fear the Spotlight. It is a horror game, it is (surprisingly) shorter than I would like (~5 hours), but it does not overstay its welcome, so fine, I guess. It looks nice, the pacing is good, the puzzles are on the easier side.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1154960/Ardenfall/ I've played for 40 minutes or so (got through the tutorial cave and walked around the first town). Looks like Morrowind with (much) better combat.

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness? Promise Mascot Agency

Finished Hollow Knight and strongly disliked it. Thus, I can safely skip Silksong. Currently playing Promise Mascot Agency. The game is incredibly enjoyable in both story and gameplay and feels like Saints Row without combat (the car can climb like a Tamriel horse and glide) and with every gang member having their own sub-plot. The main character is not customisable, but having an ace vegan who can and does beat the **** out of everything on his way while talking about the joys of the chosen family is quite welcome. Also this:

From the article, Let us work towards affordable renewable energy and the fossil-fuel dictatorships having no power over us, wherever they may be located.

Also this, as mentioned in another thread: https://internet.exchangepoint.tech/the-dog-that-caught-the-car-britains-world-leading-internet/ Not sure how realistic was the ChatGPT subscription (sounds too ridiculous, but so does everything coming from the current government and the 3 previous ones I have witnessed), but the combination with the Environment Agency’s comments was interesting. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drought-group-meets-to-address-nationally-significant-water-shortfall https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/sam-altman-and-uk-government-minister-reportedly-discussed-giving-chatgpt-plus-to-all-brits-for-free