Recent reviews by Davins

First playthrough finished as of writing
!!!Recommended but only under a big IF!!!!

If you basically like me lived and breathed in the zone for hundreds to thousands of hours, this is a simple must buy. There is jank and bugs, big and small. But callbacks and references to past games are a 10/10 for anyone who likes the universe and lore of the original 3 games.

For people getting into the franchise, DO NOT BUY the game in this current release state. Get the originals for now.

Critiques/Complaints include mostly things that are absent/cut that were present in the originals day 1(yes, even Shadow of Chernobyl 1.0)
- lack of NVGs(even the basic sunrise suit as far as I remember had them in SoC)
- abundant overuse of bloodsuckers which cheapens them extremely compared to the originals
- no real mutant hunting quests or loot from mutants, thus making them primarily just an annoyance and waste of bullets(run if possible, fight as a last resort)
- ingame economy is an extreme mess and EXTREMELY discourages from sticking to your favorite piece of gear due to prohibitive costs of repairs and upgrades
- no zone ranking stats or faction standing information in the PDA, basically most of the time you have no idea what your standing looks like until randomly loners turn green or someone else becomes antagonistic towards you
- instead of aligning with Duty/Freedom or Bandits if you were real fancy in the old games, now its just a railroading list of choices between ward and spark which feel underwhelming
- the writing is very good, returning characters and reveals are an A+ but the focus at times on the main quest and narrative can often take away from the freedom to explore the older games had
- based on the point above, certain choices will remove bases and most importantly TECHNICIANS from certain parts of the map which makes further free play and exploration even MORE PROHIBITIVE than it was before
- currently mutant balance is an extreme mess with the majority of them being overtuned to hell and back compared to the originals, having weird/bad hitboxes and many of them breaking the golden triangle rule for enemy design
- A-life being a mess is also something that will deter people as it is not fun to fight off random squads of enemies or packs of mutants that spawn 2 meters behind your back just because
- also, why can't we hire random squads of friendly npcs to be our guide like in Call of Pripyat?
- not going to talk too extensively about what can be described as "modern slop" mechanics and choices that sadly seeped into the game but most of them can be ignored

Summary:

At times the game feels like the developers newer played the originals before and then it flips 180 and then back again, over and over. Writing is very enjoyable in my opinion but the gameplay needs considerably more cooking time. All in all, old veterans of the zone can jump right in. The rookies are better off going through the originals with maybe some QoL mods and wait until the dust settles a bit on this game.

Since patch 3.0 this game has become dead weight and useless to me as a non-windows user due to the developers stupidity/incompetence/malice. Stay far away until there is official confirmation that they restored online functionalities for non-windows users.

Edit: online is semi-fixed, still has some issues that should be polished out

Would fly on borrowed wings

Git gud/10

After the genmaji temple stage debacle and insidious monetisation I cannot in good faith recommend the game anymore. Get it on sale or somehow but unless they clean up their act, this is just feeding and enforcing their cash grab nature.

Got a group of friends or at least a loyal buddy? Go ahead, plenty of fun to be had in my opinion. For solos I have to advice caution as it can be very hit or miss matchmaking wise. Many aspects are solid, the talent trees give a lot of options, there are hiccups here and there but nothing too major.

Throw me Manon

World great, story good. If you can get pst the occasional bugs, worth it.

it's good

Synthetic Ascension/10