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HoloDust said:

Played few demos over the weekend:

- Gothic Remake: This finally feels mostly true to original (unlike the first demo from several years ago, which was shunned by fans)...well maybe a bit more like mix between Gothic 1 and Risen 1, but that's good thing in my book. There are some rough edges, but than again, it's small team on small budget, and it wouldn't be Gothic without at least some jank.

- Esoteric Ebb: D&D 5e ruleset with heavy Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium influence. Really liked the vibe and quite looking forward to it.

- Solasta II: Follow up to first 5e game adaptation from 2020, Solasta: Crown of the Magister, which was from mechanical and tactical gameplay perspective as 5e game, IMO, vastly superior to BG3 (though given small budget, undercooked in some other areas, but user campaigns fixed some of that). Unfortunately, they decided to try going for BG3 audience and took worst things from it, so currently (it's in pre-alpha) camera is as bad as BG3's (it was superb in original game), UI is completely changed and for me quite unintuitive, original's clean ease of use is gone and currently game lacks features that the first one had. It does look nice, but switch to UE5 from Unity seems to made them go full retard in quite a few other aspects. It's pre-alpha, so hopefully they listen to feedback and fix it in time.

- Nice Day for Fishing: I had to check this out, this is pixel art adventure/RPG/fishing game based on "EPIC NPC Man" from Viva La Dirt League, which I enjoy watching. It's descent rendition of Baelin's adventures in fictional "Skycraft", but If you're not a fan, there's somewhat limited appeal to it.

Nice!

I managed to find time to try a few demos as well.

The good: "Deliver At All Costs" and "Chains of Freedom". Both have gone straight into my wishlist. 

  • Deliver At All Costs is a lighthearted driving game about driving around, completing missions, upgrading your vehicle, finding collectibles and side-quests. The isometric camera only has two positions, which kind of sucks, and the handling of the vehicles is a bit loose, but on purpose to follow the theme of the game. Once the content of the demo ends, you can still play the game running around in search of the collectibles and side-quests.
  • Chains of Freedom is a turn based strategy game that lets you freely explore the map when you're not in combat. I'm surpised by how well it plays given the kind of games the studio has made before this one.

Both demos are still up, if any of you want to check them out.

The meh: "Tempest Rising" and "City Tales - Medieval Era".

  • Tempest Rising is a new take on Combat & Conquer as many of you already know. It plays well but I wasn't a big fan of C&C and the demo hasn't done anything to change my mind. Don't get me wrong, it's very well done, but not my prefered style.
  • City Tales - Medieval Era is a city builder game that resembles the still unreleased Foundation. It's ok but the devs have decided to not implement an economy system... but buildings still require money to be build. And the money can only be had by constantly expanding the city and by leveling up the houses. It sound good in practice, but I found that it ends limiting the way you want to play the game, among other personal nitpicks.

Again, both demos are still up.

The bad: "Roadcraft" and "Secrets of Grindea"

  • Roadcraft_ I mostly knew what to expect as I played Mudrunner on the Epic Store, and the vehicle I tried behaved as I thought it would. The problem is that the game crased twice in less than 5 minutes. I bothered to send an error report the first time, but for the second (I checked the map, went back to the game and then forgot where I was supposed to go and went back into the map, crashing the game) I didn't bother.
  • Secrets of Grindea was even worse, as a message appeared on just after launching it saying that there was a workshop mod to run it in Spanish, asking if I wanted to try it... but the control didn't work and I couldn't click on any option or even close the game other than from the task bar. It's a shame and I hope they fix that once it launched.

The demos of these two are still available as well. You may be more lucky than I was.



Please excuse my bad English.

Currently gaming on a PC with an i5-4670k@stock (for now), 16Gb RAM 1600 MHz and a GTX 1070

Steam / Live / NNID : jonxiquet    Add me if you want, but I'm a single player gamer.