Recent reviews by Quoth_the_Raven

Nice little game that at the end of the day, has quite a few nifty concepts. Kinda like Vampire Survivor, but more customization for your....Being? Worth the few bucks to the dev.

Basically just an updated version of the original STALKER, so I love it. Is simple, and a semi-generic story but one that's entertaining enough for the cost. The game hasn't crashed and seems to work well with my given system so, upvote from me.

CPU: 5900X
GPU: RTX 3080
RAM: 32GB
OS: Arch Linux

Steam is ran via a flatpak on my nvme drive and my GPU seems to hover around 80% util.

Game feels very very different than what I feel like a Dragon Age should be. I was hoping the tactical combat would come back, but instead it feels like an attempt at going for The Witcher style combat which is just.....Not great feeling coming from DA:O or DA:I. I'm unable to do anything beyond be a little bit snarky, and everyone's conversation style feels measured. (as well, annoying that I'm forced to be so friendly) Everyone feels far too friendly and jovial for an "End of the World" scenario, the tone feels all wrong.

Barring the social commentary, why am I unable to have any meaningful moments or conversations with party members? Why does every choice I make feel so....Insignificant? It feels like the world and everything in it has already been decided, I'm just rolling through. No consequences for actions leads to me not really caring. I'm still playing the game as I'm just here for the achievements now but....Not a fan of the game, not a fan of feeling preached at. The identity politics being forced in such a way was jarring, especially considering I can't act any other way than the way I'm told to.

EDIT: I think I'm now basically done and can say: I don't care for this game at all. As stated earlier, the main issue I have is that the Dragon Age IP was used and basically all of the established lore was tossed to the side. (looking at that ending in particular) The combat got boring pretty quick, even after you hit 20 and start messing with the specializations. (I tried both Rogue [Duelist/Saboteur] and Mage [Spellblade/Death Caller]) I would also like to point out that the difficulties were goofy.

I played Rogue on Nightmare and Mage on the easiest difficulty, the only real difference was larger hp pool and hit harder....That's it. No fancy accolades for playing higher difficulties, no different tactics employed, nothing. I would also like it noted that I REALLY hate that all the enemies focus me.....I get that the tactical gameplay was removed, but having a taunt on a cd on two characters is obnoxious.

And while we're at that, I still need to mention Taash. Is one of the ones who can taunt and is basically a berserker, but is insufferable to play with. Constantly giving me edgy quips and unable to get along with any of the other cast. I feel like the character must be a teenager.......But why was she written in such an antagonistic way? Completely waste of a character that I really wish would allow me to either get rid of her or at least answer her back. (though as mentioned, you're "on rails" and basically just have to agree with her) Instead, any single scene is basically me agreeing and affirming the world views given. I also found it annoying that the character I enjoyed most, Emmrich, was the target for some of this vitriol and I basically have to tell him to say sorry. How am I supposed to agree with a character that demands "I'm a them" when he literally says "I don't like being called a death mage" and her response is "What? You ARE a deathmage". I can't demand she apologize or leave him alone, nor can I point out that a spectacle is made of the pronouns portion of a character that is actively antagonistic and aggressive to all other cast with her world views.

Overall........This game feels like they should have just made a new IP. Taking over Dragon Age like this all to push your own world views and thoughts of what DA "should be" while tossing out all the established characters for your own just feels bad. Basically saying "forget the other games, this is what we're doing from now on". This game has made me decide not to pre-order Mass Effect as I worry if the treatment will go the same over there........Truly a loss here.

I'm also curious how only 6% of the owners of this game have the achievement for beating the final chapter, yet there's over 10k reviews.....Did anybody even play enough to give an accurate review?

I play on Linux, and as such was messing with different versions of Proton and run commands. Game is currently locked due to anti-tamper.......Few hours of play on Windows, ran okay but then switched over to Linux and thought I'd try tinkering, now can't play at all.

There are some performance issues, but realistically I feel like they're livable. (unless you're the type to stare at the FPS counter) But having the cash shop work fine but not letting me try to get it run better without your anti-tamper locking my game is beyond obnoxious for something you charged so much for.

If we're honest, I'm not sure I care for the "forced lantern" scenes. But if we're also honest, I don't think I care. Game was fun, graphics are great.

Solid 8/10

This, and the original, are both amazing games. But even after 90+ hours, am still finding new map configurations and mini-bosses. 10/10, would recommend.

I think the Red Dead Redemption and God of War offspring reviews definitely sum this up pretty well. You'll get about 9 or so hours out of it by playing on normal and not going out of your way for collectibles.

I'm normally not one for Westerns, but I will say this one has a HUGE variety of monsters, and the bosses are all unique. 9/10, do recommend.

I've now played this game on my Steam Deck and on my PC. (PC has an overclocked 5900X and 3080 in it with 32GB of RAM) The graphical difference was definately stark, but I'll say that I intentionally locked the game at 60 fps at max graphics with Ray Tracing and all enabled with zero dips. I've experience no crashes, and overall have had a good experience as far as stability goes!

However, as with all good comes some negative. The game itself is actually not a terrible one. But in the same vein, I'll say that the story is a bit....Lacking. Thankfully this one doesn't have the same long pauses as The Quarry did, but the story sure did seem to try something new and I don't think it worked for me.

While creepy, I wouldn't say it fell into "terror" for me. Beyond a few jump scares (which I hate, and only look past if the horror elements actually work) there just wasn't really any feeling of dread throughout the story. The death scenes also lacked a certain dramatic flair, they seemed to just be simple.

Can also say that I don't think the new "coin" mechanism quite did it for me either. I come to this game type looking for basically a movie that I can change the outcomes of. Something where my decisions ultimately have some say in what goes down. Instead, I feel like I spend quite a bit of time simply walking and hiding as opposed to watching anything. I feel like the tension gained from the scenes is lost from the fact that I just endlessly wander. I suppose this would be a pacing issue?

Overall, the game is okay. I don't think it's amazing, but I do think it could've used a bit of refining. I'd say snag it on a sale.

A good game, with a good story and cast. However, marred by poor design decisions that make it tough to want to play through more than once. If you can catch it on a sale, go for it. But the design decisions made me think I won't pre-order their next game, as I really didn't care for the cons at all.

Pros:
+ Gorgeous graphics
+ Great story
+ Awesome UI
+ I do enjoy the soundtrack
+ Very good job to whoever did the casting
+ They fixed a vast majority of the technical issues that were causing my crashes from thermal throttling
+ Props to the animation team, all active (in the scene) characters move smoothly
+ Good amount of updates and costumes

Cons:
- Whoever decided to go with the widescreen really needs to start listening to the community or find a new line of work that allows them to ignore it. Seriously, all of the Horror Anthology games have files being passed around to remove the black bars from each individual game, why do you keep adding them? Nobody spends $200+ on an expensive visual peripheral just to decide to use 60% of it. And for the rare few who do, why not just make it a toggle option? You have filters, find a way to make this one or at least stop using it.
- Worst save system I've ever seen. No manual saves, just checkpoints that over-write. You beat the game playing through once, then decide you'd like to do achievement runs. But you're constantly restarting the game because of how they did their checkpoint save system. Want to make manual saves? Again, community came through with a workaround to do these devs jobs for them. They didn't do this in the Horror Anthology games, so hopefully they don't carry it forward. I played it on the Xbox and got one playthrough, but then couldn't hate myself enough to keep restarting for an achievement run. When I got back to my PC, started it up to just do an achievement run and a small mistake causes me to have to go ALL the way back to the start....Just decided the games not worth it.
- VERY strange pacing. Characters will literally just stop talking in the middle of a conversation to wait for your response, but it's a LONG pause....As well, the non-active characters that happen to be in the shot will literally just stand in the background having zero response to anything going on....Almost like a default idle animation.

Ton of fun, and the fact that the dungeon maker also allows you to upload what you make leads to some really cool stuff on the workshop. Scripting of torches, traps, dialog, etc. And you can make a MASSIVE story and tether levels together if you've the time.

Definately a lot of fun, do recommend.