Recent reviews by Nell

One of the greatest JRPGs ever made. There's so much to love about it, they stepped up everything from Remake, fixed most of my complaints. Combat is more fun, more challenging yet fair. The story is presented with flair and Square is showing off what they can do with characters and camera direction throughout.

The open world does feel a bit too big. You'll have a better time if you don't try to do everything on the first playthrough. If you want to do everything, it's going to take hundreds of hours.

It has some minor technical issues on PC, FSR 4 would be really welcome. Textures can be pretty bad in parts of the world but I didn't find it detracting from the important parts. Characters and enemies always look great. You can play on the Steam Deck but it feels like a subpar experience.

A lot of great changes from World but performance is really quite bad on mid range systems, you need a very high end GPU with at least 12GB of VRAM to get to 60 FPS without frame gen and the visual quality is okay but not good given the steep hardware requirements. If you have a high end system, it's probably fine but mid range gaming systems should probably wait for patches. Games should release in a better technical state than this.

The game is working great on Linux but requires Proton Experimental for AMD GPUs at the moment to avoid crashes. It is unplayable on Steam Deck, it runs but not in any form you'd want to play.

One of the least interesting games in the survivors-like genre. It just really doesn't do much to set itself apart besides the silly theme.

I played Automata and this in the wrong order. I'd recommend starting here unless you really can't get over the repetitive parts as Automata spoils some of the story. The storytelling and characters pay off at the end, I loved all of them. Certain later parts of the game are some of the most magical moments in a video game.

I never played the original NieR but the fluid combat here seems like an upgrade. It is very similar to Automata while maintaining some of its own identity. Some of the graphical choices and the music remaster is a bit more mixed but I don't think it really takes away from the experience, overall I think the upgrades here are good.

Runs very well on the Steam Deck and is a great game to play on it.

This is one of those games that really require you play it without knowing too much. It's hard to describe what makes it so compelling without spoiling things but the story here is an excellent journey and told with a mix of sci-fi and real life themes in ways you won't expect.

Really excellent, the strategy card game you can't put down. If you like this sort of game at all, you should play Balatro.

This is a slightly hesitant recommendation from someone with no Dragon Age experience. If you want an fantasy action game, there are definitely games that pull it off better. There's some great moments but also rough spots, some content that feels unfinished and awkward writing and direction at times. It's usually fine but few characters really drew me into things. The story is interesting enough and learning about Thedas as a newcomer to series is fun.

I like Rook and the character creator is pretty great, though I'd prefer a less Disneyesque style it's pretty well executed for what it is. Feels like the art direction doesn't quite match the writing at times. Environment are particularly stunning and really one of the best parts of the game. Companions are also up and down, I think they all have their moments and some weaker content. Romances seem a little light, either feeling very fast or just a bit odd, but some of them work pretty well as you get further along.

After finishing the game, a few of the companions I was really let down by the conclusions of their arcs. Side quests are almost not worth doing at all but there's a few okay quests. Really I'd focus on the main story and only do the side content if it really appeals to you (besides companions as those are somewhat required).

I don't like action combat that much, I ended up turning up the damage to max and health to low to make it more interesting as none of the presets felt great. Lots of difficulty options to customize but the defaults felt too easy or grindy.

It's technically pretty impressive, running very well on a high end system and the Steam Deck with minimal issues. It looks pretty good on the Steam Deck too, so I'd recommend it even if that's the only way you plan to play. Frostbite is a good engine. I have had a couple crashes in 30 hours of playtime, the game kept rendering frames but appeared paused. It saves very frequently so a restart was never too inconvenient but it's not bug free.

I am impressed by enough things and enjoying myself enough that i keep coming back to it.

My first time trying Persona and I enjoyed this a lot. I don't usually like the high school setting very much but it's hard not to fall in love with some of the characters here and I can see why this game has so many fans prior to the remake. I did really enjoy the story and character development throughout.

Presentation is incredible, Atlus sets the standard for the anime style and turn based RPGs generally. It's so good that it's hard to get tired of seeing it despite getting some of the game battle animations hundreds of times.

The combat is pretty good, when you get a hard fight there's plenty of strategy and builds to the Personas that makes it interesting to overcome each battle. Tartarus is a little monotonous but I was definitely grinding too much fighting every shadow at first, it paid off to be more careful about when to take fights and most of the boss fights were fun.

Playing on hard is a good idea too, a few points later in the game I think were undermined by playing on normal.

A couple things I really didn't like, why are there fan service outfits for high school girls? Some of the worst aspects of this game were changed in this remake but this one stood out to me and it just feels like a weird choice given the tone and presentation of the rest of the game. I'd also have really loved to get Kotone as an option for the protagonist, it sounds like her story is a little different and it keeps this from being the definitive version of the game.

Perfect on the Steam Deck if you disable ray-traced reflections.

Working on Linux but requires `SteamDeck=1 %command%` to launch. Seems to run very well.

Short but very enjoyable survival horror experience. The style and aura of the game is great, I found the puzzles mostly enjoyable. The themes are hard to discuss without spoiling things but the setting is interesting and mysterious. Some occasionally difficult controls but it suits the era of games it is emulating and nothing is too annoying.

Pretty nice on the Steam Deck but sometimes the frame rate dips a lot.