Recent reviews by ReddestDragon

fimsh.

My game's been perfectly stable and super fun so I'm happy

Just go play Stellaris instead.

Pros:
- The game looks fantastic, graphically it's incredibly beautiful even on the lower settings.
- I really enjoy the lamp mechanics, and having to explore two separate versions of the same realm is a very cool idea and pretty well implemented.
- Each bonfire (vestige) has it's own backstory, which is kinda neat. Lots of lore and story in the game which is always a good thing.
- Recovering your vigor/souls is a little easier compared to other souls-likes, since it can either be dropped on the floor or held by the enemy that killed you.
- Umbral spells are pretty powerful and fun to use, as is dual wielding.
- Blocking being turned into temporary health which can be regained through striking an enemy.
- You get a second life if you die in the normal realm, you get re-summoned in the umbral realm right where you died so you always have a second chance.
- (Edit 23rd October) Unlockable secret classes. Won't say how to do it though, no major spoilers.

Cons:
- More akin to a love letter to Dark Souls 2 with artificial difficulty through sheer number of enemies and janky attack animations. It's not hard, just kinda boring to slog through, and much easier to just run around the enemies instead of killing them, which makes it harder to level, which defeats the purpose of the game.
- Also there are so many enemies that are in ridiculous spots (right around corners to shove you off ledges, traps in stupid places, or enemies literally spawn on you when in the umbral realm sometimes), some of which are entirely unavoidable, that traversing levels becomes tedious and you're guaranteed to die at least once regardless of where you go.
- Some bosses come with minions. I had to spend half an hour on a single boss because she kept summoning hounds to chase me while she shot me with arrows. And the hounds were tough too. Again, the boss itself wasn't difficult, it's just the sheer number of enemies which makes it feel hard. But it's not hard. Just not an enjoyable experience.
- Performance issues since launch, which are kinda better now but still pretty poor as of writing this. Hard to enjoy the cutscenes and gameplay when it's struggling to keep frames, even on a 4070ti and on low settings. (Edit 23rd October: Many patches later, it's much better now.)
- Pyromancies/Inferno spells feel underwhelming to use and you don't find many of them early on. (Edit 23rd October: There's a couple pretty good ones later on in the game but it's pretty much at the end, so there's not enough time to make good use of them unless you're invading/joining someone else for coop)
- Not much point in wielding one weapon, even two handed, because dual wielding is more powerful with much less downside.
- Power-levelling health feels like a necessity, rather than a choice, due to some enemies hitting way harder than it feels like they should, as well as the aforementioned temporary health reasons.

Overall it's a game with a lot of potential to be really fun, but it's weighed down by odd balancing decisions and constant frustrations which make it feel like a tedious, patience-wearing slog through a variety of environments I don't get the opportunity to examine and enjoy. I want to like it, and I'll keep playing it, but it feels like I'm playing it to just get through it, rather than playing it to enjoy it, which is a shame.


Edit, 23rd October:
The devs are listening and rolling out patches in response to a bunch of the feedback that players have listed for the game, including keeping the vestiges for NG+ and toning down some of the enemies pursuit range, the number of enemies in certain spots, and aggression. A lot of the patches they have done have improved game stability massively, and with more hours in the game and more time to get used to the systems, it's less frustrating. I still have issue with enemies shooting arrows through walls though and getting caught on random small areas of the map or pinned in corners by enemies, but it's not as frustrating now. I'm enjoying my time.

I recommend that you do what the PAYDAY gang would do:
Don't buy this.
The first half an hour of the game consisted of trying to make a Starbreeze account on their website. I'm not kidding. The website couldn't handle it and constantly threw up errors in the process.
The game itself is online only (which means you're forced into public lobbies on every game and if the servers go down mid-game you lose ALL progress on that mission, even if you're playing on your own) AND has Denuvo in it (which is easily bypassed and not good for security) AS WELL AS needing the aforementioned Starbreeze account (which I don't understand because in PAYDAY 2 you didn't need to do this for online play???)
The suggestions page they have ( https://payday3.featureupvote.com/ ) includes a variety of suggestions which have been there for almost 2 months as of this review, and were not implemented for launch. These include offline/solo mode, private lobbies, a firing range, and a variety of other fixes and features which simply didn't make it into the game.
I enjoy the gunplay, the stealth is pretty satisfying when it works, I like the music and overall I'd love the game more, but I can't recommend a product that is unreliable and has dodgy servers when it is not playable offline or privately. It's a coop game. It doesn't need to be online all the time, just when you're gaming with buddies.
So yeah. Don't buy the game.

When Elden Ring came out last year I thought I'd seen a new standard for AAA games to hit. The game itself showed that there is at least one AAA company which can make a completed game with a lot of content and launch it with great success without predatory monetary practices like microtransactions or some other shady business stuff. Similarly, God of War Ragnarok has done incredibly well for itself, and while it didn't get game of the year, that too was an example of a AAA company making a game that was not only engaging and fun, but also complete from launch.
I think Baldur's Gate 3 matches that standard, if not exceeds it. BG3 is absolutely a game of the year contender, and with a similar practice of not including any microtransactions and instead having a lot of content, replayability and a great level of polish, I genuinely believe this is what people SHOULD be expecting from bigger games companies.

Not only all of this, but we know for certain that Larian has been taking a lot of player feedback since the game was in early access, and since launch they've already been pumping out hotfixes like crazy to fix the bugs in-game. With most games, any hotfixes are usually expected after a few months of the game being live (Warhammer 3 is notorious for this). BG3 is a game that respects peoples time, and instead of being a game disguised as a marketing product, filled to the brim with expensive microtransactions for skins and whatever else, it's a fully fleshed out, complete, and fun game, with a lot of freedom of choice for the players to go and do pretty much whatever they wanted within it. It harkens back to the olden days of gaming, when a game was just that: a game. Something you could sit down, play and have fun with, and that was that.

The essence of the game isn't solely about making money and profits, like Call of Duty, or Battlefield, or Destiny, or Apex Legends, or Fortnite, or Overwatch 2, or most (if not all) other modern AAA titles. Those games by comparison are devoid of imagination, instead choosing to supplement that with regular "content" which demands you spend money to get access to new stuff (some of which isn't even worth getting, like spending £25 for a skin or £5 for a random lootbox). And, as you can imagine, that's a pretty big rip-off. BG3 isn't like any of those live service games, because it's designed to be fun and complete at its core, to give the playerbase actual value-for-money from the get-go instead of dropping season after season of "content" to coax people who have more money than sense back into playing their game.

This is the proper level of price quality in games which put other AAA companies like EA, Activision-Blizzard and Ubisoft to shame. They should take some notes from this and stop criticising something because of its success. If something works, they should instead learn from it. The public aren't just a company's way to earn money, and big companies seem to forget that.

Basically the same premise as the first Remnant game but so, so much better. Much more polish, so many secrets, and engaging combat to suit a variety of playstyles. Very good.

It's like they took the best parts from Age of Wonders 3 and Planetfall and made it EVEN BETTER.
The customisation options are amazing, the combat feels pretty challenging, and there's so many different playstyles and combinations of race traits, tomes, cultures and even a couple of different types of leaders to choose from, each of which can be played in several ways. You can make some wacky builds if you try hard enough too.
Combat's quite fun too, and you can absolutely win if the odds are stacked against you, depending on the spells/enchantments you have on your units. Plenty of room for synergy.
My only grievance is the naval combat which, honestly, could do with a wider variety of units, but otherwise I'm satisfied.

Other than the camera controls for mouse and keyboard being a bit jank, the game is super fun. I was worried the game wouldn't go higher than 60 but there is actually an option to set it to 120fps which is definitely good.
Slightly too easy though, what with the lack of a stamina bar, but I'm not complaining.

The only way I can sum up this game is as follows:
"Oh ♥♥♥♥ oh ♥♥♥♥ oh no I'm running out of iron and food oh god HELP"
10/10 anxiety simulator