kanisatha

Yeah, tough call. I only buy on Steam so for me this is never an issue. And on Steam, I've seen the game on sale quite regularly. I'm sure it will have at least the same last sale price when the winter sale comes on in December. So, up to you whether you want to wait a couple of months or not.

I know!! A lot of cool monsters!!

I'll alert you if I see it on sale. Since I have Solasta II in my wishlist, and am subscribed to the developer newsletter for both games, I should get the alerts when they are released.

Dun dun daaa! It's happening!! <cue Alien theme>

Sorry! But you should've posted earlier. I regularly check this forum but only once a day. Yeah, there'll surely be a sale on it again very soon. Can't believe I missed listing Palace of Ice. Duh. Yeah, you definitely want that one too. All the content DLCs.

You definitely want to get the three content DLCs: Primal Calling, Lost Valley, Inner Strength. The supporter pack is entirely cosmetic, and the soundtrack one ... well. Those kinds of DLCs I never ever get ... unless they come free to me in some way. So, I do have all the DLCs, but that's because when I crowd-funded the game I took the "All Future DLCs" addon, which I always do. Whether the bundle is cheaper or going the individual DLC route, you'll have to figure out that math. Enjoy Solasta! It's a really good game, especially your first time playing it. Don't allow yourself to get hung up on the lousy visuals. And check out the mods for it. I strongly recommend the one that adds in multiclassing.

This too. The game does give the player a lot of freedom to do things their way, but there is very little reactivity or meaningful consequences to your choices and actions. For me, this was playing my own created character (which is the only way I will ever play). Perhaps this is a little better if you play one of their characters or the DU, but IMO the game should not have been made that way.

I've bought games with the "mixed" aggregate review status and have very much enjoyed those games. "Negative" I also will pass on, but "mixed" does not constitute "don't buy this game" for me.

Yes! I completely agree. And it was especially aggravating for me because those two are my most beloved companions from the first two games. So I was even more angry at what they'd done to those characters. One of the most important aspects of playing an RPG for me is playing with a party, and having those companions there with me as I go on my adventures. But with the exception of Karlach, and surprisingly Minthara, I just couldn't stand any of the others. And that contributed hugely to suppressing my enjoyment playing the game, especially because I was mandatorily using the party size increase mod, and I always ended up with at least half my 6-person party being companions who utterly irritated me.

I managed to complete it my first time only because of my completionist/'must-finish-what-I-started' nature. And I feel the same way as you: it's a game that in theory I should passionately love, and yet it is meh at best. Worse, because of how huge it is, that makes it even more likely I will not play it again because I can't bring myself to commit hundreds more hours to a game I don't care for that much. If it had been a smaller game, I could justify trying playing it a second or third time.

It's why Steam (and others) should do away with player reviews, because those reviews are worse than useless. They're often heavily manipulated.

Oh, I'm sure that a Fallout game made by Obsidian will be very good. But it won't be a good game for me. I react to all post-apocalyptic settings and games the same way I react to the Warhammer setting and games. They're way too bleak and depressing for me to be able to enjoy them. And that's not even factoring in the whole FPS aspect of the game, which is also a hard pass for me. Here's a thought, though. If games being made by Bethesda is what it takes for games to sell big, then perhaps even as Obsidian uses Bethesda's Fallout IP to make a Fallout game, Bethesda can use Obsidian's Avowed IP to make a "Bethesda" Avowed 2? [Sorry, grasping at straws is all I have left.]

I think this is the most likely scenario, and not just the worst case. And that is exactly the problem for me, because there are no Bethesda IPs that have any interest for me even though they may be popular with the masses. Between Bethesda and Obsidian, the PoE/Avowed IP is the best IP by a very wide margin, IMO. But we are never going to see another game in that IP, which is why I'm so sad to receive this news.

I guess it is true that all good things must come to an end. If future Obsidian games are going to be like Bethesda games, then I've bought my last Obsidian game. 😢

Heh. I saw that too. Nice little quiet admission. With China and Russia, that makes three.

I wish that setting would lighten up a bit and not be so damn bleak and dark and dystopian. I just can't get into that. Same reason I've had to pass on Obs' Tyranny.

See right there, that's my problem. In many games, including BG3, I end up liking the side/companion quests way more than the main questline. So, I want to do as many of those as I can. But the devs of this game are explicitly saying they want to limit how many side quests you do in any one playthrough because replayability. And that doesn't sit well with me because I usually just don't have the time to play games that much and so don't replay games that much, especially because my one playthrough tends to be a comprehensive and slow/take my own cool time playing the game playthrough. And this game is exactly the kind of game that I will surely pass on replaying. FYI, my one and only playthrough of BG3 took me 557 hours. So, it's hard to imagine going back to that game again, at least not anytime soon.

I told you about this.

Yes, apparently the game is very mod friendly, as people have already created mods to increase/eliminate the various time limits.

Thanks! I added it to my wishlist, and have been reading through some of the discussion on the Steam forum and watching some youtube videos. Alongside the timer issue, the combat seems to be the other major concern for people. But if I can make it meaningfully easier on me through the game's difficulty settings, then that will make a difference in whether I buy the game or not. Btw, the boss I was talking about is named Xanthe. Apparently, you don't necessarily need to fight her, and can instead befriend her. So, there is that. But if you end up fighting her, please share details on that encounter.

Thanks! Could you provide a rundown on the difficulty settings of the game? Does it have anything along the lines of an easy or story mode? And if so, how does that actually impact the game?

Well, I'm going by what was in the various gameplay streams I saw some months ago after the game was announced. In them, early on in the game, you fight a very powerful spellcaster of some sort. In the very first round of combat she activates a spell that places a curse/hex on you. Then, you have a certain number of rounds by which you need to kill her to end the curse/hex, or else it puts so much damage on you that it kills you and game over. And in order to kill her, you first have to go through a couple of her minions while she retreats to the far back of the area, while continuing to attack you with her spells. All who played through that battle said they had to reload several times before they beat that battle. That's the kind of thing that's a hard pass for me.

I'm in the same boat as others who've commented. This game does interest me, but I'm going to wait and see. If you play it, please post your expeirnces with it. In particular, for me, I'm concerned about timed quests, and even certain combat sequences being timed (something really bad/game-over happens if you don't kill the big bad boss within a certain amount of time). That is something too onerous for me to abide.

Thanks, you guys! I may give GTA5 a try first. I guess I should've been more specific and said it's the whole driving thing that turned me off (and continues to turn me off about CP2077). Using mouse and keyboard, and never having played any console games, I find it extremely difficult and frustrating to handle the driving mechanic. I constantly keep crashing the car or going in unintended directions, and never being able to escape a pursuer or catch someone I was pursuing because I am forced to drive slowly. And btw, riding a horse in games like TW3 produce the same experience though not as bad.

I've never played any of the GTA games, mainly because of the first-person shooter thing. But even I'm a tiny bit excited (curious?) about GTA6.