Recent reviews by Kaani

The departure from DD1's formula in the initial release (now called the Confessions mode) did definitely cause a lot of divided opinions, but the newly released Kingdoms game mode really feels what DD2 should've been all along. I like Confessions, but imo it changed too much at once and alienated a lot of the fanbase.

It takes a lot of what was good about DD1 (a larger roster of heroes you have to manage, permanent upgrades for your "base" and an overall longer campaign that makes decisions matter more) and merges it with DD2 (mainly the combat system and beautiful art/animations) to create something truly unique which I can find little to complain about when you keep in mind that this is a free update. The campaign also doesn't take a lifetime to complete like it did in DD1 which is in itself personally good QoL. I also enjoy that it's a completely separate game mode that you can jump in right away and never have to touch Confessions if you don't want to. The only thing that you have to unlock in Confessions are skins.

To reiterate, I was always a fan of the Confessions game mode and how it does things, but Kingdoms is a really nice breath of fresh air and hopefully convinces a lot of the people that were put off by the initial release to give it an another shot.

This is how you do an exploration game right. You're being thrown in a world with some leads to go on but other than that, it's completely up to you what you want to do. There's a lot - and I mean a lot - of intriguing things to find and explore and the overarching story is just so compelling to keep you going.

As everyone else is saying, don't read up anything on the game if you can. One of the best games I've ever played.

A really wonderfully written experience. While I would enjoy having full VO à la Disco Elysium, the script is so lively and immersive that I was right there time after time. The characters are wildly different and have believable personalities that makes them all really stand out. The character art is also so very detailed and a joy to look at.

Gameplay-wise it does what it set out to do, integrate tabletop-style dice rolls in the actions in a lightweight way, but sometimes I did find myself wanting for a bit more variety. Thankfully the sequel seems to be doing something about that. Additionally there's sometimes a tad too much waiting on things and the game seems to suffer a bit from the main character doing everything, though I like how some events happen regularly that you have no control over, it gives the world more life.

All in all be aware that this game is 85% reading and you really have to like reading to enjoy it. But if you do, boy are you in for a treat. I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel.

Gang cop steals your Jordans, dropkick everyone to get them back. Understandable really.

No other game has ever managed to tick the boxes of puzzle and sandbox so beautifully at the same time for me. It's beautiful, satisfying and the dialogue/story is great. I've sunk 14 hours just within the first proper map and I'm not even near being done with it.

Props to IOI for making it possible to play the first game in its entirety within HITMAN 2 and making the storyline feel like a smooth and complete experience. You wouldn't have any idea that the game changes in between if it didn't tell you.

Also as an UI/UX nerd I just gotta give credit where it's due as the UI is so clean and nice to use.

I have never seen such a bad port, abysmal performance when you do get to play the game when it doesn't look like a N64 Runescape with textures popping in and out. I've heard good things from PS4 and do want to play it but at least get it working first. Here's some choice screenshots from the benchmark, first cutscenes and the game itself.[imgur.com]

NOTE: All of the major bugs I've encountered have been fixed as of today's update. The reinforcement bug where reinforcements will sometimes not spawn was not addressed yet but that's very minor compared to the rest. Careful recommendation. Original review below.

--------------------------------------------------------

Now let's get a TL;DR out first: the game is buggy as hell. In its current state I would not be comfortable recommending it for the majority. I should note that most of the problems are fixable/avoidable with beforehand information or downloading a mod to work around them, but that should not be needed to play the game.

Bugs and all that aside, the game is a breath of fresh air. Intertwined turns and preset characters with no customization options divide opinions a lot, but for me personally they worked really well. I love intertwined turns and initiative in any strategy game and I really hope that feature gets carried over to the inevitable XCOM 3. There is still room for improvement though, and you really should treat this game as a testing platform so we do get that improvement in the next mainline game.

Not liking preset characters is entirely understandable because that has been a thing in every XCOM since the beginning, but personally I like to see some more story focus after X2 and presets help to achieve that. The story itself is still nothing mindblowing but the style is interesting and different enough. Also you get to play more of the game having one less time sink.

Now the big thing with this one: the breach mechanic. It's like the devs looked at LW2 and did their own spin on infiltrations. And it works great. Add that to the very tight spaces you're always fighting in and you get hectic and usually pretty quick encounters.

All in all, the game is a third of the price of a mainline XCOM (sixth at launch) and it is a spinoff with interesting changes. If you like XCOM, give it a shot someday. If you like to wrestle with the game to get it somewhat stable, give it a shot now.

The gameplay far surpasses BL2, the writing and characters are not that bad as the internet makes them out to be but definitely worse than previous games. Also nothing beats Jack as the villain. Environments are absolutely beautiful. Two out of three so I'd say it's worth it.

10/10 will get nuked by some random spiders again

3 hours of installing after 20minutes of downloading updates
10/10 would gauge my eyes out again