Recent reviews by Roo

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has some good ideas but is ultimately unsatisfying. Moment to moment gameplay is decent enough. The move to Mass Effect style combat works well, and the degree of control over your companions still feels essentially Dragon Age-y, albeit less tactical. The progression and ability to specialise a build is deeper than I was expecting, but I also felt like I'd experienced everything the combat had to show me after a few hours. There were some build-defining Uniques that did encourage me to play around with different playstyles, but more out of curiosity than a sense it would let me reach untapped combat potential.

Unfortunately the storytelling, supposedly Bioware's secret sauce, left me cold. Companion quest chains each told simplistic stories, going from A to B to address a personal conflict in a fairly rote way. Some voice actors, such as Bellara's, were able to elevate these somewhat with their performances, but there was very little to feel connected to. Regional quests were even more forgettable, with some feeling cobbled together at the last minute, such as Dock Town's ritual quests which are dropped through generic bulletin board postings. The main quest line is also a pretty simple "here is the big bad, kill the smaller bads, kill the big bads". None of these distinct story threads feel like they're enhancing each other, there is no sense of theme beyond little morality plays, and the tone veers from Saturday morning cartoon to action movie cliches without ever feeling right. There is no sense of ambition in the narrative at all, no sense of role-playing when every dialogue option is a clumsy but likeable retail team leader. There are hints of something interesting, like the ambiguous relationship with Solas, and the sense of scale of the final couple of quests, but not enough to rescue it from its blandness.

Absolutely more of the same, but that's no complaint. One of the most fun changes is how viable Air Raiders are to solo now with various automated drones.

If you’ve played Persona 5 you’ll know what you’re getting into, but personally I think P4 has a slight edge. The mechanics are familiar but with a bit less of the bloat that P5 sometimes suffers from. The dungeons are certainly less visually interesting but ultimately I prefer their pared back procedural approach that focuses on the gameplay. Much recommended!

The minimalist design is really beautiful, and the simple gameplay lends itself to trying a lot of strategies. Stations are represented as one of a number of shapes with passengers looking to be routed to a different shape, so lines need to be designed to effectively carry people around the network. This abstraction nicely mirrors the real world, with circles equivalent to commuter stops, squares as central hubs, and unique shapes representing individual points of interest. Somehow this game succeeds at being simultaneously relaxing and stressful as hell.