Florien
1994
I hate this game, and I hate how far its influence stretches. It's really not that good. It's creative and all but it isn't actually good. (In principle I should rate it 1.5 stars but also I personally dislike the legacy it left and the masterpiece status it carries.)
I can't actually bring myself to hate this game, despite the really weird tank controls and multiple trial and error sections. I think I actually like it despite everything.
2014
It's a serviceable point-and-click, but occasionally has downright bizarre puzzles that have awful solutions that don't make sense relative to every other puzzle in the game, or hide their answers very out of the way where you'd never think to look unless you're very well versed in the subgenre's worst behaviors.
It's an excellent shooting gallery type game, and it has a good gameplay loop and excellent story that's short enough that you can get some replay value out of it. However, getting stars in the arcade mode ranks you against other players scores rather than strict thresholds, and thus it's nearly impossible to earn stars when the scoreboard is filled with cheaters and experts who can pull off sixty-shot long headshot combos, effectively rendering certain achievements unattainable via normal gameplay.
Better than the original, though it does struggle with many of the same issues, in particular the difficulty being erratic.
But Alcander is there to be a whiny deva so that makes it better.
But Alcander is there to be a whiny deva so that makes it better.
2017
It's better than the first one, in particular the relic system being able to prolong your reign is fun. The core puzzle feels solveable also, unlike the first game where it was very much a "how was i supposed to figure that all out start to finish"
2005
A transitional fossil of a game, it's very fun, but awkward, coming at a weird moment in spiderweb design philosophy. The maps are also very restrictive compared to both earlier and later entries.
2023
The music is worse than its predecessor, significantly so. It does talk briefly about war politics, colonialism, and the consequences of personalist rule, but then doesn't go into them nearly enough after touching on them, which is unfortunate, as I think the game would be excellent at exploring the bilateral nature of colonialism and in particular stranger kings if it actually tried.
Easily the best of the original geneforge games, but you really should play them in order to get this one. The gameplay is solid also.
2003
An improvement over the original, but has a bunch of minor bugs and major jank that can render large sections of the game a pain or completely trivial if you know how to exploit the extremely unbalanced mental magic spells. It is also showing its age, like the first.
It's good, but a bit slow thus far. I may someday finish it and have more of an opinion.
2001
Classic, obviously, but is really starting to show its age, following many older spiderweb game design choices that have since been abandoned. It's still playable of course, but the remake is better.
It's pretty good, I assume it's an improvement on the much older original. The setting too is fairly interesting.
This one is quite good, and greater party member choice (lizard, kitty) does make the game interesting, but this is counterbalanced with the weird way the game is structured. It works though.
2020
Very solid, and the bugs tend to be minor. Nearly any ruler is fun to play, which is great.