TintoConCasera
I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Sup GAF, I've been trying to catch up with some classics I never played back then. Some time ago it was Thief and now it's been the turn for Gothic.
Game's premise is that you are imprisoned in a prison/colony surrounded by a magical barrier that prevents escape. Throughout the game, you explore the colony while discovering things about its inhabitants, how the magical barrier works and why it spiraled out of control, growing far beyond its intended size and even preventing the mages who created it from leaving.
It's quite an interesting premise: the factions living within the colony aren't the typical good guys or bad guys, but a morally ambiguous group that falls into the lawful/neutral/chaotic fare: some want to live in the prison with no desire to escape while enforcing their laws, with the weaker members working as miners while those at the top live a very comfortable life; some don't care about laws at all and just want to blow up the barrier no matter the cost, and others simply want to smoke weed while communicating with their god.
(some people in the swamp sect are really into religious stuff. Others are there just for the free weed)
Another thing that surprised me is how useless you are at the beginning of the game: you can barely hold a sword, and even the weakest enemy can easily beat you. This has its pros and cons, because while it makes for a terrible first impression it's also great because you really feel the progress you make when you level up. Improving your melee combat skills doesn't just mean dealing more damage; you also gain better combat moves, which makes combat feel much better later on allowing you to chain attacks and taking on many foes at once. I started the game as a total wimp but ended up feeling like Conan.
That's the basic gist of the game, which I decided to get into since I was in the mood for an RPG, but ended up finding something kinda different here... Let me explain:
The game is structured in chapters, with the first one being about delivering a letter to some dude. Thing is, to be able reach that dude you have to join one of the three available factions, doing sidequests for then while earning their trust and finally deciding which one you like the most and joining them. All of this is the usual RPG fare where you are able to meet many characters, explore the world on your own and making decisions on how to solve some quests and so on. This part was highly enjoyable to me, because the world is quite interesting and original and the way the characters are written gives them a lot of personality and charm, plus those early quests felt very rewarding since you really need to level up as soon as possible.
Thing is, once you join a faction and deliver the letter, chapter 2 starts and the game just stops being an RPG and turns into an action-adventure game: there's barely any more sidequests and player agency gets thrown out of the window. I might have missed something but I don't remember making a single decision from that point onwards which for an RPG is quite terrible. The main quest turns into a series of excuses to have you travel around the world, which isn't too bad since some of the places you visit are cool and some even require light puzzles to be solved, plus in some of those quests you are accompanied by one of your buddies who are a nice bunch. But yeah, from this point onwards I could really feel the game being rushed to hell and back.
Still, really enjoyed the game. I think what kept me glued to the game up till the end was the writting, characters and story. The story ofc felt quite rushed and a bit of wasted potential, but what's there is still enjoyable and quite different from the usual fantasy stuff. To end on a more positive note, the music is nice and the visuals are cool, specially at night in the swamp camp or inside some dungeons with some very colorful lighting at times.
I'd give chapter 1 a 9/10 and to the rest of the game, a 6'5/10. I played the Steam version with some community patch added onto it. Saw there's a DX11 renderer mod that makes it looks better but didn't use since I wanted to play the vanilla way.
I wonder how the remake will turn out since it's a good chance to flesh out the game more from chapter 2 onwards. Also wonder about what my fellow gaffers think of the game. Did you like it? What do you think of the other Piranha Bytes games?
Game's premise is that you are imprisoned in a prison/colony surrounded by a magical barrier that prevents escape. Throughout the game, you explore the colony while discovering things about its inhabitants, how the magical barrier works and why it spiraled out of control, growing far beyond its intended size and even preventing the mages who created it from leaving.
It's quite an interesting premise: the factions living within the colony aren't the typical good guys or bad guys, but a morally ambiguous group that falls into the lawful/neutral/chaotic fare: some want to live in the prison with no desire to escape while enforcing their laws, with the weaker members working as miners while those at the top live a very comfortable life; some don't care about laws at all and just want to blow up the barrier no matter the cost, and others simply want to smoke weed while communicating with their god.
(some people in the swamp sect are really into religious stuff. Others are there just for the free weed)
Another thing that surprised me is how useless you are at the beginning of the game: you can barely hold a sword, and even the weakest enemy can easily beat you. This has its pros and cons, because while it makes for a terrible first impression it's also great because you really feel the progress you make when you level up. Improving your melee combat skills doesn't just mean dealing more damage; you also gain better combat moves, which makes combat feel much better later on allowing you to chain attacks and taking on many foes at once. I started the game as a total wimp but ended up feeling like Conan.
That's the basic gist of the game, which I decided to get into since I was in the mood for an RPG, but ended up finding something kinda different here... Let me explain:
The game is structured in chapters, with the first one being about delivering a letter to some dude. Thing is, to be able reach that dude you have to join one of the three available factions, doing sidequests for then while earning their trust and finally deciding which one you like the most and joining them. All of this is the usual RPG fare where you are able to meet many characters, explore the world on your own and making decisions on how to solve some quests and so on. This part was highly enjoyable to me, because the world is quite interesting and original and the way the characters are written gives them a lot of personality and charm, plus those early quests felt very rewarding since you really need to level up as soon as possible.
Thing is, once you join a faction and deliver the letter, chapter 2 starts and the game just stops being an RPG and turns into an action-adventure game: there's barely any more sidequests and player agency gets thrown out of the window. I might have missed something but I don't remember making a single decision from that point onwards which for an RPG is quite terrible. The main quest turns into a series of excuses to have you travel around the world, which isn't too bad since some of the places you visit are cool and some even require light puzzles to be solved, plus in some of those quests you are accompanied by one of your buddies who are a nice bunch. But yeah, from this point onwards I could really feel the game being rushed to hell and back.
Still, really enjoyed the game. I think what kept me glued to the game up till the end was the writting, characters and story. The story ofc felt quite rushed and a bit of wasted potential, but what's there is still enjoyable and quite different from the usual fantasy stuff. To end on a more positive note, the music is nice and the visuals are cool, specially at night in the swamp camp or inside some dungeons with some very colorful lighting at times.
I'd give chapter 1 a 9/10 and to the rest of the game, a 6'5/10. I played the Steam version with some community patch added onto it. Saw there's a DX11 renderer mod that makes it looks better but didn't use since I wanted to play the vanilla way.
I wonder how the remake will turn out since it's a good chance to flesh out the game more from chapter 2 onwards. Also wonder about what my fellow gaffers think of the game. Did you like it? What do you think of the other Piranha Bytes games?
