During rough periods in my life I always find myself coming back to play through the opening hours of this game; there's just something cathartic about the first few hours of Dark Souls 1 in how it reminds me that facing adversity is not hopeless. So despite the notoriously unfinished back "half" of the game, I find it difficult to not love the game. FromSoft's action RPGs are at their best when they allow you to form meaningful personal narratives within their worlds, not through dialogue trees or arbitrary event flags, but through the unconscious tapestry of synapses forming from both the strife and triumph you experience within their titles -- and the first Dark Souls, in my mind, is undoubtedly the best at providing a canvas for those memorable experiences to be made (at least during its strongest moments).

I don't say that last bit to devalue anybody who does find meaning during their time within Lost Izalith or the Tomb of Giants, I guess I just feel like I'm playing some weird ass experimental PS2 game during those points. Which don't get me wrong, that's cool as hell in its own way, it just feels wholly disconnected from the grandiose adventure I experienced for the first 50% of the game. And really, I can't blame FromSoft for really taking those big ass swings post-Demon's Souls. That game already hit like 15 homeruns within its more confined scope, so I can see the situation they were in and how confident they must have felt to attempt to actualize a version of that game with a fully connected 3D map and even cooler setpieces.

Likewise, it's easy to see why they kinda hard pivoted away from that when moving into Dark Souls II, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls III, with each of those game having their own set of priorities separate from the unachievable ambitions of the first Dark Souls. It really wasn't until Elden Ring that they were able to attempt a more actualized take on a similar large scope 3D map concept thanks to what appears to be an increased budget and elongated dev cycle, though that obviously came with its own set of pretty severe sacrifices that I'll talk about in its own review.

Either way, regardless of its technical and structural hiccups and its failing to perhaps really achieve what it set out to do, it's undeniably a special game that I think about a lot and will probably keep returning to -- even if my playthroughs do seem to mysteriously taper off shortly after completing Anor Londo. Also I just gotta say, Blighttown is a really cool fucking level and anybody who tells a new player to pick the Master Key as their starting gift is depriving them of an extremely important and formative experience.

Being the thrifty gamer girl I am, I decided to check this out through Game Pass for $1, and I don't really regret it! There's a few cool expansions on the FromSoft Souls formula here, and I wanna say in a lot of ways the combat is just strictly better than FromSoft's. I'd say it feels a little inelegant, but I appreciate how the game attempts to keep you engaged in combat and incentivizes a healthy balance of guarding and dodging.

It's impressive how well they've replicated the basic framework of FromSoft's games; it almost reminds me of those extremely confident Super Mario 64/Banjo-Kazooie clones of the late 90s and early 00s. But much like those games, even with the new toys Lies of P introduces, the familiarity does start to set in, especially when you're going through the motions of the levels themselves. Oddly, I wasn't really filtered per se -- I beat the first boss second try -- but after I encountered Lies of P's version of a crystal lizard, I made it to a robot bonfire and decided to just throw in the towel.

Really nothing personal against Lies of P, I just find it hard to imagine it's gonna do anything for me that the FromSoft Souls titles already haven't. If anything, I'm glad this game exists for the people who are still hungry for this style of game, and hopefully steps on FromSoft's toes enough for them to step up their game with Elden Ring 2 or whatever they do next (though I also really wanna see Round8 themselves step up their game on the level design and expanding past the basic souls-like fare in their next game).

E aqui estou eu novamente, reclamando de um gênero que não consigo gostar mas é como dizem: só podemos reclamar se jogar.

Para quem curte o estilo, Lies of P parece ser uma ótima recomendação, porém preciso destacar que diferente de várias análises que acompanhei, o jogo não é difícil ou com um sistema complexo, ele é só frustrante.

Difícil são Vagrus e Pathfinder :WotR que elevam questões básicas e saem de um padrão de combos. Dificuldade é muito mais do que apenas colocar pouco dano no personagem principal e muita vida nos inimigos.

Mesmo com minha experiência de "abandonar" jogos com a mesma ideia, acho que tenho propriedade para falar que Lies of P não é uma recomendação para quem nunca encostou em algo parecido, pois apesar de bem ambientado e com um enredo curioso, o jogo carece em sua resposta a comandos, tornando até elementos simples como correr e esquivar demorados e relativamente lentos quando comparados com outros.

After about 100-ish accumulated hours, I think I've had my fill on Baldur's Gate 3. Some of that is just how much I'm able to tolerate the sort of loosely content-driven nature of the western-developed open world RPG -- which BG3 isn't necessarily open world, I actually really love how tightly designed its overworld maps are, but unfortunately it does happen to share many of the same pitfalls that tend to wear me down in those games like endless vendor trash and dogshit inventory management. But I also feel like there's something missing from the game itself that would elevate the experience to something truly incredible, and I can't quite put my finger on what that could be.

Maybe it's that the game's narrative feels somewhat devoid of meaning or message; it feels like a means to an end for the developers and writers to get to the important combat set pieces. But even then I can respect how difficult that can be to implement in a game that's largely about fulfilling personal fantasies through diverse and emergent gameplay. On the other hand, Larian has kinda compromised true freedom for a facade of sorts, dialogue trees are bland and the dialogue pacing itself can feel jerky and awkward -- and I say this having not played the game as the Dark Urge, so maybe that could potentially alleviate this little peeve of mine -- but it doesn't feel like there's enough functional variance to make that feel more understandable.

I love the party members, but it's disappointing how rarely they ever play off each other. I get that there's so many variables at play that they can't reasonably have a conversation ready for every set of characters in every situation, but even just having banter at the campsite would've gone a long way. The vast majority of the game's dialogue is the game talking at you, but even then it rarely even feels like a conversation. The whole romance aspect is probably the most revelatory of all though: I'm just really, really not a fan of how western RPGs (and a few non-western RPGs like modern Fire Emblem and Persona) implement romance as this utilitarian content thing. I think the only time I've walked away from a modern game with player character romance options somewhat fulfilled was Judy's romance in Cyberpunk 2077 (and even that had its issues, like the "sex" scene that felt like they just stole animations from a Second Life NSFW server). Anyways, my point is kinda just, in the pursuit of making a world where they want you to go about things in your own way, they've created an entire framework that exists purely for the player at all times -- even within the facets of the game that should feel more human.

And before I let this whole thing run away as purely negative, which has not been my intention at all, because ultimately I think very highly of the game and there is A LOT that I do love about Baldur's Gate 3: the main party has cool and distinctive designs, the music (while a bit safe) is always pleasant and appropriately utilized, like I said earlier the scope of the world and the design of its maps are how I wish more modern devs would handle the scale of their games instead of just big open maps, I really enjoy the combat even if the 5e power scaling kinda hurts the pacing more than it helps it, the game is gorgeous on the whole, and I think the voice acting is pretty fuckin' great! The entire package of Baldur's Gate 3 is undeniably incredible; it's a landmark title and it honestly deserved getting so many GOTY awards (though personally I just found 2023 to be lacking in amazing experiences, mostly being a deluge of decent to good titles, and Baldur's Gate 3 was the real standout for me).

But, I think it also has illuminated a lot of Larian's weaknesses if their other games hadn't done so already, and Larian being able to address those or not in future titles is gonna be the deciding factor on if they become the next BioWare/Bethesda (in a bad way). Like, they seem to have solid writers, but the structure of the game just does none of that narrative justice. Dialogue is exhausting and annoying for the most part, more CRPG devs need to do the Disco Elysium thing of putting it in an easily readable sidebar. If what I've heard about Dark Urge origin is to be trusted, it makes me want to see them do something more focused on a specific character framework instead of spreading themselves thin with seven origin characters and a blank slate -- say what you will about the Mass Effect trilogy, particularly its politics lol, but having a singular character anchored into the world was clearly economically effective (in terms of development resources and probably money) for the scale of each project, and effective at allowing the player to roleplay meaningfully at the cost of freedom. Or just lean harder into that freedom aspect, make the dialogue a more meaningful part of the experience, and not just feeling like the part of the game where you have to eat your vegetables before getting back to the good stuff (i.e. murdering all the bad guys on the map).

Maybe I'm talking out of my ass, but I'm at least speaking for what I am personally craving from one of these RPGs. It was a bit frustrating how close BG3 came to satiating this feeling I've been left with post-Mass Effect 3 disappointment, but ultimately BG3 didn't really stick the landing for me and that has kinda sucked, especially when I think it's otherwise a pretty fun experience. Also like, at least allow me to have Karlach, Shadowheart, and Lae'zel be in a relationship if you want the game to be hinged on this design theme of indulgent, hedonistic freedom. Not sure if that's a real complaint or if I'm just trying to find an excuse to bring up gay things in my reviews like usual, I just want to see them all hold hands or something, all these party members very clearly want to kiss each other and Larian won't let them... I don't even really want a romance when I'm playing as Tav (cuz like I said the romance feels so empty when it's just a game talking at nothing lol) I want to see the actual characters be happy with each other!! Idk let Astarion make out with Gale or something, if these people really are so horny, they should canonically be fucking each other too or something, man.

Kinda lost the thread here, but uh, what's something inflammatory I can end this on. Oh, how about: Baldur's Gate 3 is the first game I've ever played that makes content-driven media seem good actually. Hm, too back-handed and maybe not even true. Baldur's Gate 3 is the Chrono Trigger of CRPGS? Not sure what that means tbh. Let's just take a little of both: Baldur's Gate 3 is simultaneously the best Dragon Age game and the best Elder Scrolls game released in the past 15 years. It's also somehow less racist than Mass Effect? Idk man, maybe I should've played Planescape: Torment instead.

Darksiders: Warmastered tinha tudo para ser um ótimo jogo, seu início com combos, inimigos e chefes bem diferentes entre si parecia mostrar que essa poderia ser uma franquia muito interessante, porém o que o jogo teve de animador rapidamente se tornou chato e por fim desnecessário.

Meu primeiro contato com a franquia foram 22 horas no Darksiders 3 e mesmo sabendo que cada jogo tinha um estilo próprio eu estava decidida a jogar tudo na ordem. Mas, sendo bem sincera após essa péssima experiência acho que prefiro continuar somente com o terceiro oficial.

O enredo apresentado de forma geral não é tão surpreendente, o mundo que foi construído ao redor de tudo é muito estranho, morto e por diversas vezes solitário, o que se mostra um ponto bem positivo para o quesito ambientação. A ideia de misturar um pouco dos conceitos de fim de mundo com uma mente própria foi um efeito muito especial e me causou grande interesse em continuar aprendendo mais sobre o universo, porém é preciso destacar que entender tudo pelo primeiro jogo é um processo chato e só ocupa espaço, pois nada parece importante na narrativa.

A gameplay inicialmente foi satisfatória, possibilitando reproduzir combos e ultrapassar os desafios com grande facilidade (coisa estranha de se comentar, pois joguei no nível mais difícil liberado), o maior problema vem após essa reta inicial onde todo aquele glamour de diversidade se perde e os inimigos começam a se repetir intensamente junto com os chefes secundários, o que obriga o jogador a repetir os mesmos movimentos de uma maneira extremamente enjoativa pela maior parte do jogo. Além disso, conforme chegamos na reta final tudo se junta e vira um monte de elementos desnecessários, principalmente os puzzles que quebram o ritmo punitivo que foi apresentado anteriormente.

Um outro elemento que participou bastante do jogo foram os bugs que não só atrapalhavam os puzzles, mas também me obrigavam a voltar quase 10 minutos de jogo e isso acontecia principalmente em momentos dos famosos Alt+Tab, então pra quem for jogar fica uma recomendação de evitar essas coisas para não ter a mesma dor de cabeça.

Apesar da péssima experiência, essa franquia continua me chamando muito a atenção e isso significa que ainda tenho muito interesse em continuar explorando o universo, mas espero voltar somente após a limpeza do meu backlog.