Finished Kingdom Hearts III, my first Kingdom Hearts game.

Story-wise I understood nearly nothing. That wasn't much of a problem for large parts of the game as the different Disney kingdoms had their own story which was either completely unique or pretty close to the story of the movies. Each of these kingdoms took me around 3 hours and they can vary in quality. Toy Story kingdom was surprisingly boring, Tangled kingdom was great.
In terms of dialogue, you get to hear tons of cliché stuff about hearts, love and companionship which gets tiresome quickly. In general, I feel the dialogue is more aimed towards children.

If this is your first KH game, you will be confused by all these characters. Some of them are pretty much duplicates in appearance but aren't the same person at all. Don't get me started on the main bad guy and his clones from the past. I also think that the villains in this series are very poor. I would've loved to fight more Disney bad guys but nope, there are barely any in the game.

Combat is alright. Lots of button mashing and using special moves etc.. It looks good but isn't really challenging or strategic and if you don't change your keyblade (why would you if it works and you keep it upgraded?) it can get quite repetitive.

Graphics can be fantastic (thanks to UE4) at best and good at worst. Character models are highly detailed, environments are varied and colourful. I made 100+ screen captures during my playthrough, so this should mean something. Most characters look very much like their movie equivalences. Only the hair detail is a clear indication that this is a game and not a $100m+ animation movie.

The main story took me 25 hours to complete but there are quite a few achievements left. Overall a really enjoyable game but considering how hyped the first two games on PS2 are, I feel a little disappointed. I will definitely check out the ReMind DLC and the others that will follow, but most likely not the HD remakes.

8/10

I finished another game on the same day, the Insomniac game Song of the Deep.

What a disappointment. There were multiple instances in the game where I couldn't believe that Insomniac made a game like this. This is definitely one of the less fun Metroidvania games I've played lately.

Combat is not fun at all. The main attack (hook) and torpedos are enough to kill every enemy. There are two more kind of torpedo attacks (fire and ice) and a sonar attack but there's no need to use them as combat is far too easy. There's only one boss fight close to the start of the game. Again pretty simple but okay. The only other boss fight is at the very end, except it really isn't a boss fight at all. Just a few waves of regular enemies you've fought countless times before.

Visuals are more bad than good. Your submarine is a pixelated mess, OG Xbox graphics, no joke. I know this game came out before X1X but there's no reason why the main vehicle in the game looks subHD in resolution. There are also lots of foreground objects that are blocking the view and it's hard to see where you can go as most stuff you'd assume to be in the background are actually on the same level as you are.

Puzzles are alright but not terribly challenging either. Probably the best part of the game.

Story is alright but not nearly as well presented as Ori or Child of Light.

While this game is still decent, I'm glad it's over and I don't have to play it again.

6/10

There are talks that the next Pillars game could leave the 2D isometric view and be something more like an AAA Pillars X Skyrim (link).

I think that may be the AAA Pillars RPG by Chris Parker that Ryuu is referring to.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is currently available for €20 on the MediaMarkt and Saturn homepage if someone is interested (Conina?).

Bought Naruto Legacy Collection, DMC 4, MvC 3, SAO: Fatal Bullet, Life is Strange season 1 and Before the Storm and a bunch of DLC season passes for games.

btw. Kingdom Hearts is currently available for €13 on German Gamestop and roughly €14 on German Amazon.
https://www.gamestop.de/Xbox%20One/Games/29392/kingdom-hearts-iii

A high profile 2019 game ladies and gentlemen.

Each Fable game featured a different setting and gameplay mechanics.  There is nothing within this concept art that says this isn't the next fabled.

I'm getting Witcher 3 and Assassins creed vibes from that art. Hopefully they reveal the game during the Scarlett reveal or E3.

I generally dislike games as a service and always live games. I also dislike paying a third of the cost of the game for a DLC episode of tacked on content. That said, you can see the problem for AAA game developers, especially third parties.

If they dont have an immediate and early hit, they're definitely not going to be making money on a game a year later.