Hawke64

One of the issues with the cinematics in Larian's D&D game is that it feels worse when the camera switches from the isometric perspective to over-the-shoulder. Another two are the animations (most were exaggerated just enough to clash with too detailed visual style; the only good one is the Sailor Moon transformation at the end of Act 2 and that one was not supposed to be realistic) and that the immersive-sim elements worked poorly with having your actions and movement restricted by a cut-scene (fortunately, switching to another character and attacking usually could resolve it). Overall, the density of cut-scenes that are not the general dialogues (i.e. have some camera work) is not too high, but I also was skipping as soon as I had read the subtitles (the lack of pause and the buffs wearing in real-time for not-dialogue-locked companions did not help with watching the cut-scenes).

Dread Delusion I've added spoiler tags for the areas outside of the starting one (and some random island), though the screenshots are rather spoiler-free as is and do not show the main story or dialogues. The Endless Realm. Fully upgraded the manor. The Clockwork Kingdom. The Underlands (aka the late-game).

Enotria and Flintlock look good. I also cannot run them on my main PC and will not purchase for the full price to run on the spare one (which should be able to run them). https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/our-9-favourite-demos-from-the-summer-steam-next-fest

I suppose, bundles count as sales. https://itch.io/b/2506/queer-games-bundle-2024-with-10-option There are quite a few jam games (i.e. very short to play and fast to develop), but also some decent VNs, point&click adventures, and puzzles. I went for the pay-what-you-can option and ~£20. --- https://www.humblebundle.com/games/future-games-show-discovery The bundle has Gloomwood and and En Guade!. --- https://www.humblebundle.com/games/stories-pride

Finished Dread Delusion. Loved the game, though there are issues. Highlighting 2 of them, because they bothered me quite a lot. Also the saving system is critically unsuitable for the game and the bugs. Closer to the late-game, I noticed that a bug that had occurred several hours ago and wiped most of my in-progress quests also affected a completed main quest. So I tried to re-start it. The thing was that in order to progress it past a certain point, I needed to activate a McGuffin (a sci-fantasy seal on a door), which was a single-use interaction and I had already used it. I spent the next 2 days trying to troubleshoot and resolve it, but I have gained more experience with hex editors. The NPC you collect along the way, while great, do not feel like your companions. They are someone else's and just quest-givers for you. Also there was a thing - during the recruitment you had to say what you were going to do with the antagonist (join, kill, arrest, etc.) and at the beginning, it was hard to gauge what the antagonist was trying to do and what you wanted to do about it. The issue being is that these NPC remembered what I said 20+ hours ago. So, it was rather awkward when I told two of them that I was going to arrest the BBEG and two others that I was going to join the BBEG. I also resolved the quest of the additional someone else's companion in a rather unfavourable manner and there were no options to make it better for the said NPC at the end of the quest. My review:

Steam keys (from HumbleBundle): Heaven Will Be Mine (a sci-fi VN with giant robots; played but have not finished) The World Next Door (got on EGS, unrebindable controls => did not play) Ship of Fools (a roguelike)

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. This is a mushroom. He is not wrong.

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 -

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/skald-against-the-black-priory-review 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

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. --- 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.

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. Unlocked the bestiary. 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. 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.

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.

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.

Finished Ghost Song. A very good Metroidvania in a sci-fi setting. Highly recommended. Review: 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.

Ghost Song The game is gorgeous. An early boss. Well, this I did not expect at that point. I realised only by late-game that these were the escape pods. The secret merchant probably was not wrong. The return runs were rather fun. Persuasion failed, I suppose. 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. 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.

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. Godot 4 Game Development Projects. Completed the first project. Some parts of code were missing. Still, fine for £2.

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. 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.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/warhammer_skulls_2024_digital_goodie_bag

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. 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 A Short Hike I did it.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/summery-soulslike-enotria-the-last-song-is-delayed-again-but-theres-an-8-hour-demo-coming-soon https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/redfall-will-receive-one-final-update-after-all-including-an-offline-mode

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 To be fair, we might be able to finish the game several times over before Dreadwolf even without these mods.

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.