A little gem in a sea of major AAA releases in October. Jusant may seem just a nice looking indie game on the surface, but actually playing it reveals a suprisingly fun climbing simulator and an emotional journey with an enviromentalist theme.

Jusant is also one of the first UE5 games and it uses the engine's Lumen tech masterfully to deliver next gen visuals even with its minimalist style, albeit at the cost of some performance hiccups in the 4th chapter of the game where Lumen is used heavily and some minor bugs here and there throughout the whole adventure.

If you like the traversal of Death Stranding or the dreamlike atmospheres of the team ICO games, definitely give Jusant a try.

Cyberpunk 2077 has always held a special place in my heart. When I first experienced it in September 2022, over a year ago, the game transformed my perception of narratives, lore, and world-building in the realm of video games. The recently released expansion, Phantom Liberty, continues this tradition by delivering an unforgettable 20-hour narrative that left me profoundly moved and prompted a deep introspection of my own moral compass.

The expansion also introduces two new amazing characters. Solomon Reed, a new character brought to life by the masterful Idris Elba, is a formidable FIA agent wrestling with internal demons. Idris Elba's portrayal is nothing short of extraordinary, and as a huge fan of his past works, I thought his performance in this role stood out as one of his most compelling acting achievements. Songbird, on the other hand, is a character of profound complexity and an enigmatic backstory. Minji Chang's portrayal breathes life into Songbird's entrancing aura and presence, and the level of detail in her chromed up character design is truly awe-inspiring. Every encounter with Songbird is a testament to the exceptional hard work invested in crafting her character.

While the majority of Phantom Liberty takes place outside the familiar confines of Night City, Dogtown, a mini-city in its own right, holds its own unique allure. Despite its relatively compact size, Dogtown pulsates with life and tension, marked by frequent confrontations between rival gangs and the formidable Barghest. Upon close inspection, the remnants of what was meant to be a resplendent Pacifica are now reduced to rubble and unfinished architecture. Dogtown's aura is distinctly unforgiving and rotten, to the extent that even the NCPD and Trauma Team hesitate to venture within its boundaries.

Gameplay enhancements in Phantom Liberty are nothing short of exceptional. The skill trees have been meticulously revamped to eliminate redundant abilities that merely bolstered statistics, making room for meaningful additions. Melee combat, now refined to perfection, has become my preferred style of engagement. The ability to hurl adversaries with guerilla hands or execute brutal decapitations with a katana exemplifies the level of refinement. Even throwing knives have been reinvented, rewarding players with an immediate recovery upon a headshot kill, leading to thrilling moments of unstoppable precision. These gameplay changes not only invigorate the expansion but also breathe new life into the base game for those contemplating a replay.

Without venturing into spoiler territory, Phantom Liberty introduces a critical narrative juncture where the plot diverges into two distinct routes, each culminating in two separate endings. After experiencing these four conclusions, players are treated to a fifth ending that pertains to the base game itself. The enigmatic quality of each ending left me deeply conflicted, unable to definitively pinpoint the "best" outcome. This expansion perpetuates the haunting thematic undercurrents of the main game, where happiness remains elusive, and every character harbors a fractured and broken facet of their being by the story's conclusion.

Phantom Liberty is a testament to the true narrative essence of the Cyberpunk universe, and it leaves me eager to explore further depths in the forthcoming Project Orion. To this day, Cyberpunk's universe stands as my favorite place to be.

I may have plunged myself into the depths of the accursed, to the nightmarish house of creatures beyond every mind that has seen the light, faced the impossible and the inconceivable at the same time, unable to understand the otherworldly horrors that stared me at the eye and their sounds rotted my ears, and most of all, getting spooped really fucking hard and wanting to call it quits... but I couldn't... I had to do it... not for me, no... but for the dog

I think I feel pretty confident when I say that horror is perhaps one of the most personal genres in all of media in general. Yes, I know, bold of me to say this considering how many times I’ve stated that it’s the subset of books/movies/videogames I’m the least familiar with, but for the little I have allowed myself to experience, one thing became very clear; true fear in videogames does not come from immediate danger. A Goomba hurts Mario, an Imp attacks the Doom Slayer, space-ships try to shoot down Fox’s Arwing, but fear, fear affects you. I’m not saying that immersion is not possible in games like Doom or Star Fox, but rather that immersion is an essential key factor in horror games; series like Resident Evil or Silent Hill may have characters and protagonist that are their own beings, but those games succeed because the horrors they face affects them as much as they affect us, and is when that immersion fails, that indescribable horror of turning your back against anything but a wall, when a horro game fails. And it’s understanding this when both the successes and failures of Lost in Vivo are clear as water.

This statement may vary since in the days that come I’ll be playing more horror games than ever before, but at this point at time, the time were my feeble, still trembling hands are writing this, that I can say that Lost in Vivo has one of the best atmospheres that I have seen in a VERY long while, and the best opening areas I’ve encountered in any of the terror focused games I’ve played. The adventure to rescue your adorable canine friend doesn’t take long turn into madness made flesh, the sewers twist within themselves, going down and down, each floor more rotten than the last, mor unpredictable, more… impossible. The sewers lead to the metro, which leads to a seemingly forgotten temple, which leads to the mines, and it becomes more and more apparent that this place may not be as real as it might have seemed first, but that doesn’t make it the less scary, in fact that uncertainty of illusion and reality might help it even more terrifying. The fantastic OST and sound design pulls through in way that’s deserving of an standing ovation, the quiet melodies that plague each area tense you up in a way I can only compare to the internal doubt you may have sometimes wondering if you left the oven on, and that tension can turn into peace once you arrive at a save room and that wonderful melody fills your ears, or turns into the outmost despair when an indistinguishable instrument destroys the melody and you realize… you are not alone in this room no more. I can’t sing its praises enough, Lost in Vivo ambience is absolute perfection, accompanied by a visual style that, while clearly inspired by the PSX style and specially that one of Silent Hill, as many things on this game, it doesn’t stop it from feeling fresh and original, thanks to the spectacular enemy and area design and the AMAZING lightning. The puzzles are great too; the game tends to repeat the ‘’You can go to this place, you need to go for three things and every time you do a enemy appears’’ structure, but the steps and set pieces to get there are consistently fantastic and perfectly paced (at least until after the mines) and the small notes that connect to the main puzzles are honestly really cool and clever. When it comes at creating a deep rooted fear in you, the game delivers in spades… but as it goes on, while it never loses it’s essence and still has some stellar moments, by the time I arrived at the forgotten temple, much of the magic and initial impact had sadly vanished.

The game has a prominent Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion structure, which despite both games being made by the same main developer, is not a sentence I was not expecting to say; both games have a very clear linear progression, do break the fourth wall from time to time, and have a prominent ‘’main monster for each zone’’ type of deal; now, this itself isn’t a problem, what is when this clashes with Lost In Vivo’s particular design. The game has a far more complex narrative, not limited to lore itself, but to the main character’s psyche, to their experiences and profound psychological turmoil, so certain fourth wall breaks and some areas can feel a bit out of place, specially after the half-way point. It’s also curious that, while the game it’s linear, there’s a lockpicking system that depends on you finding the items for opening certain doors that have one use only; it’s fine to have secrets and keys scattered around, but the lockpicking being one use each feels a bit weird… and in fact can lead to soft locking! No joke, there was a point I didn’t have any lockpicks and couldn’t go back to get any, so I was… stuck, and I had to do some tuff outside the game to fix it, otherwise I’d have to start from the beginning. I have no idea how this isn’t fixed or if there’s a fix I just missed, but if you plan on playing the game, be wary of this.

And then there’s the combat, which… look, I’m all in for combat feeling clunky in exchange of creating even more dread and insecurity, a less reliable move set and weapons may invite you to not participate in it, and Lost in Vivo be going for that… and the you realize some enemies don’t do shit. And that your life regeneration is fast as hell. And just liked that, a ton of the tension poofs… It’s not all bad, there are some really interesting enemies like the Mimic that are stellar, but in general, I didn’t feel like the combat made the game more terrifying, in fact the moments where you DON’T have to fight or can’t kill the enemy are the scariest by far, and there’s a boss fight that plays very well with that, but aside from that, enemies become just minor inconveniences when you realize that with just being a but careful, you can easily survive (the fact the final area is ‘’Random bullshit, go!’’ when it comes to enemies doesn’t really help).

And the fact the game has these problems deeply hurst me, ‘cause it’s otherwise a beyond amazing experience, one that mad me shiver as much as it made me feel hope, one that made love it despite of the terror and tension. It’s a game that does some things good and does them perfectly, a everlasting bad dream that can end in a happy outcome if you face it, and has many secrets and many others to be discovered.

Just follow the barks.

You’ll feel better.

I never gave this game much thought from the glimpses I've seen of it up to release, but the quadruple combo of it being a shorter game published by Annapurna that got high review scores and is day one on Game Pass made it very hard to ignore. I'm glad I didn't as I can confidently say that Cocoon is so far my favorite Indie game of 2023.

The game never tells you how to do anything, which is one of my favorite things about it. It just feels intuitive, and its solely up to you to figure things out. I got stumped a lot but outside of something I'll get to in a bit, it basically never felt like the game was unfair. And even when things seemed impossible, every single time I found out the solution I was impressed with how clever the game was. The puzzle design is just simply excellent here and it feels consistently rewarding.

Now there is a reason this game is missing a star. A few smaller issues first: I didn't really care about the art style. It feels a bit generic but its not a bad looking game either so not really a negative. The soundtrack also exists. Its fine I guess, but I never really noticed it which feels like a missed opportunity. Also if this game has a story, its very vague. I'm sure there's some deeper meaning to everything but it very much takes a backseat. These three things are fine and didn't really bother me as the gameplay is still very engaging but they do stop me from fully loving it.

Now about the actual things I dislike about the game. It took me around 5 and a half hours to beat. This is a great length for a game like this, and the puzzles continued to expand and stay interesting the whole time. That being said, there were several moments that felt like finales where the game just kept continuing on after. It led to a conflicting feeling where I was enjoying the puzzles but still wishing for the game to be over. It was just a bit exhausting to be thrown for a loop that much. The only other thing I dislike about this game are some of the timed puzzles. For the most part these are perfectly fine, but in the last fourth there is three different timed sections each made up of three different parts. They're sort of like a boss battle but if you fail any part you have to restart the whole section. While other bosses do make you restart, at least they were based on skill, but this one is solely on timing. This led to a lot of having to redo parts I already knew how to just to get back to the part I was actually stuck on and it was quite frankly a pain in the ass. I don't like timed puzzles and this was a bad way to implement them. Otherwise the bosses are all sort of similar but still unique enough that their presence makes the game more interesting.

Overall, Cocoon is a fantastic puzzle game that's held back only by a handful of small things and the very occasional annoying section. None of its negatives take away from the fact that its highly creative and one of the best games I've played in an already stacked year.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far <3

Nancymeter - 85/100
Achievement Completion - 80%
Time Played - 5 hours 43 minutes
Completion #29 of September
Completion #192 of 2023

Starfield is the surprise of the year. The trajectory of titles developed by Bethesda Game Studios has consistently declined since the launch of Morrowind. This decline has been characterized by a noticeable simplification of game systems to cater to a broader, more mainstream audience.

Starfield is not quite the return to deep, engaging RPG systems, but it seems like the closest thing we could get from the studio now. After an admittedly terrible introductory few hours that feel like an afterthought, the game opens up and lets the player off the leash.

While many have understandably bemoaned the disconnected, fast-travel-oriented nature of the game's structure, when you're in the game's main cities, it's hard to care because it's effortless to get sucked into one of these locations. My first time landing on Neon, the game's cyberpunk-themed city, I got sidetracked from a main quest and wrapped up into the branching feed of side content that mostly felt well crafted before stumbling upon the planet's faction quest, which was shockingly excellent.

The world is much more reactive to the player than BGS's modern output. Characters involved in intersecting quests acknowledge your previous deeds, and occasionally, your choices can significantly impact quest progression, even allowing you to bypass certain parts. Admittedly, there are occasional awkward moments, such as companions who should be aware of specific events acting surprised by related revelations. However, the frequency of these dynamic world reactions is a notable departure from the typical approach found in both Bethesda Game Studios titles and contemporary AAA games.

Here, not only do your choices carry weight, but your character's background plays a pivotal role, too. This manifests in dialogue options that ground your character within the game world and in choices that profoundly impact progression and interactions with the world.
For instance, I opted for the "Neon Street Rat" background and assumed the role of a Cyberunner, and the consequences reverberated through my experiences in Neon and the Ryujin questline.

These effects ranged from characters recognizing my character's prior knowledge of local gangs and politics to dialogue choices that provided alternatives to persuasion when dealing with quest characters. Essentially, it felt like my character was more than just an apparatus for me to navigate the world; they were an actual individual.

It's also a beautiful game, and not just by BGS standards. This is easily the most robust art direction of any title made by the studio, and I found myself taken aback by how gorgeous environments or vistas were, whether I was in space or on one of the game's procedurally generated planets.

The procedural nature of these planets is a hangup, as the game always has a different sense of exploration than one would expect from a BGS game. However, this is offset by the quality of the individual cities, which are incredibly dense.

Even then, it often feels more like an elaboration on Mass Effect than it does Fallout or Elder Scrolls in space. But even within this segmented nature lie small nuggets of discovery that lead to some of the best moments in the game. For example, while fast traveling to a system for a faction quest, I came upon a ship hailing for immediate assistance. I found myself face-to-face with an AI developed from NASA's Juno probe that had been aimlessly wandering through the galaxy for centuries.

The quality of the writing is all over the place, with some incredibly rote dialogue that is easily skipped through and some legitimately gripping sequences such as this.

Other than the segmented nature of "Loadingfield," another issue is how long it can take for builds to activate and many of the game's most interesting systems (such as shipbuilding) being locked behind skills. I understand that this was done because the developers intended players to play through multiple NG+ runs, but it often feels at odds with the type of game that BGS wants to make, one that allows players to see nearly everything. This game has substantially benefitted from cutting players off from certain factions or questlines due to their allegiances since it focuses on NG+ runs and alternate realities.

My most significant problem was grappling with the game's confusing politics and vision of a future society that seemingly never evolved beyond contemporary neoliberalism. Jemison and the UC are emblematic of this, as they have classes for their citizenship. The Freestar Rangers, billed as the antithetical faction, are just a different flavor of capitalists in that they are raging libertarians. Overall, it tries to present a hopeful vision of the future.

Still, I was disappointed by such a myopic view of the future held back by contemporary capitalist ideology. That could be an unrealistic expectation since this game was made under said ideology. And Jesus does this game like cops. Almost every faction is a different flavor of space cop. Thankfully, some of these end with the player getting to choose to kill CEOs and political war criminals, which makes this an easier pill to swallow, even if the game presents these people as isolated evils instead of symptoms of a more immense superstructure.

All in all, Starfield is a thoroughly enjoyable, if low-stakes, adventure. The end of the game offers a rather poignant and genius play on the concept of the Bethesda protagonist that makes at least the main quest worth playing for anyone who enjoyed even one of BGS's previous titles.
If there are multiple realities, as Starfield posits, there's definitely a better version of this game in one of those. But in this one, Starfield would never be able to live up to the expectations placed upon it by Bethesda, Microsoft, and fans. But in a world where development times have reached 5-6 years, that's ok because sometimes a flawed but enjoyable experience is enough.

The good, the bad, and the... Starfield.

I was a believer, I really was. I didn't dislike Fallout 4 as much as most of my constituents and peers, and decided to waste none of my time on Fallout 76. Despite going on a somewhat downward trajectory since the release of Oblivion, I had faith that with the Microsoft purchase and subsequent fiscal investment that Todd "It Just Works" Howard was going to be able to Houdini an amazing game out of effectively thin air with Starfield. I, like many others waited with bated breath as the marketing wave for Bethesda's newest IP in decades pushed into the gamingsphere. WIth every announcement, every showcase, I became more and more invested in the world I would soon embark in. Science Fiction when done right is an exploration of limitless possibilities, of worlds and galaxies foreign to the audience waiting to be freshly explored. This is what my dream for Starfield was, and did I get it? The answer is simply: not really.

Fallout and the Elder Scrolls succeeded in the moments in between, starting with the trademark cold opens (as seen in Oblivion, Skyrim, and the Fallouts) and continuing on to your first moments of freedom. Remember in Skyrim as you escape the executioner's block in the first thirty minutes of runtime, how the entirety of the land the Nords call home is open to you? You have a loosely defined main quest to embark on, but there is an entire world and path to craft between you and your destination. Nothing is forced. Once you began to creep into the stories of each respective game, it felt like there was a limitless possibility of what you could find on your way from Point A to Point B. In Fallout, walking through a simple cliff face could see you crossing path with an entire colony of people with the name "Gary" all yelling their name as they attacked you without rhyme or reason. In Oblivion on your way walking through the countryside could find the player interacting with a formidable prince of an otherworldy deity.

Starfield however, it never had that... magical spunk that the aforementioned titles did. In Starfield you spend the majority of your time doing two things: chasing down quest markers and flying to said quest markers. In theory this isn't a terrible idea, effectively the other titles are all about the same thing, but the issue in translating that mantra to Bethesda's big 2023 title is that there is no in between. Now much against my chagrin this is my biggest gripe with the game, the inability to have a reason to explore and the lack of reward of doing so. As I mentioned previously, in the "good" Bethesda titles I found myself overjoyed at taking the long way because it meant that I was likely to find myself distracted and taken on a path to a babbling brook of curiosities. In Starfield, this doesn't exist as it takes the form of grav jumping from system to system (as your ship's capabilities allow) with complete lack of middle ground. You fly from your starting point to your destination, there is no random occurrence, there is no vista to pause at along the way, there is no mysterious force that will stop you in your tracks to explore. Not having anything to look forward to in my active journey in a Bethesda game just felt... wrong. They'd always been the antithesis of the open world epidemic as sprung by Ubisoft, which had towers to climb and random outposts to capture. Bethesda titles championed the random and gave you a reason, completely unprodded to explore. That wasn't present here. It's hard to stress how strange it felt getting an objective for a faction that was taking you to a world a plethora of lightyears away only for it to require the same sequence of system jumps that the twenty quests before it did, the only variance being the end destination. As I mentioned previously, this was my greatest and gravest letdown with Starfield and an unfortunate result of a scope that didn't quite meet expectations.

There's another avenue of complaint to my issues of exploration and scope, and it is in the worlds of Starfield at large. My next statement may gesture itself as hyperbole but I assure the reader that I mean it in sincerity: I found there was genuinely nothing interesting about the planets in Starfield. Outside of legitimately well constructed cities like Neon and New Atlantis, the planets you do land on for side and main stories alike felt completely lifeless. Recycled clear procedural generation made for planet after planet of monotony with no motivation to poke around in other than completing a flora & fauna scanning log and collection of materials for resource crafting that I also found rather unengaging. Starfield didn't position itself to be No Man's Sky in that aspect and the expectation of the general public for it to be so is completely unfounded and misguided. But in the times I did find myself off the beaten path on the seemingly endless worlds at large, it was simply a nothing burger out there. I'd look out at the vast expanse of the freshly landed-upon planet and continue straight on my way, as there was nothing for me to poke around and find.

This takes me to my next issue with Starfield, and I promise this review is not just a laundry list of problems I had with the game, as I am giving it a favorable score. I touched previously on the great job the (recent) Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles did, and that was give the player an organically engaging approach to side content in the ways of questing and base building. Starfield sort of just... dumps everything on you pretty much right away. Quickly jaunting through New Atlantis (the game's starting city and most important location,) dumps more quests on you than you can count, and they are almost all unprovoked. By walking through each district the activity log grows with people you need to speak to and places you need to find as a result of NPC's conversating about them to eachother. This in particular felt strange to me, you were no adventurer in need as you were in the Elder Scrolls helping the woman in her painted world, you were just an eavesdropper who heard a character complaining into the void. This didn't necessarily impact the quality of the sidequests, but beginning the game with four factions dropped on your and a laundry list of people I needed to seek out before even beginning the second main story quest was numbing.

My favorite part of this game was easily the factions and side content that it throws at you, despite the awkward nature that you first interact with it. I loved the way the factions worked and varied from one another. If you wanted to dabble in humorous corporate espionage, you had the Ryujin Industries questline. If you wanted to embark on a well thought out space pirate adventure (and who doesn't,) you had the Crimson Fleet storyline. Players looking for an excellent piece of science fiction with an incredible twist, there was the UC Vanguard. And lastly for cowboys, you had the uh, Freestar Collective. Each of these brought something new to the questing and enjoyment table that the other ones didn't, and I found the bulk of my seventy hour runtime was spent with these storylines and the missions throughout. I greatly enjoyed the variation of writing styles, mission structure, and combat that were involved and showed that Bethesda in all of its recent faults still had some incredible scenario writers on retainer.

I left out a faction, and that one would be "Constellation" AKA the main story questline. Because of the nature that Starfield drops its side content on you, I made sure to do as much as I could of it first before engaging with the main scenario. This meant for practically fifty hours I had gone without talking to the members of my crew patiently waiting for me in New Atlantis to set the events of the story in motion. By the time they had asked and instructed me to explore the galaxy, I had already done so. I had done things that led me to interesting storylines and met many interesting people. I'd been to the other two major cities in the galaxy, Neon and Akila City. I had already travelled from one end of the explorable system to the other and had weapons that could one or two shot most opponents. The point of the above is to effectively say that the main scenario felt diluted after doing the side content. I felt like I was saving the best for last, but in reality I had set aside the most mediocre and uninteresting narrative in the game which is... unfortunate to say the least for what is the main story. Maybe unfair because the tertiary questing in the Elder Scrolls/Fallout series was also probably more "fun" than the respective narratives of each game's set path, but the gap was just too large in Starfield. I didn't feel a connection to quite literally anyone in the faction that you fight tooth and nail with to protect. Sarah had a moral compass and ability to annoy you more than Fi did in the original Skyward Sword, Stroud was fun for the few missions you had with him but ultimately was a rich playboy, Sam was a boring version of Irvine from FFVIII, Vasco was a robot doing the recycled dry humor robot schtick, Barrett was supposed to be someone we cared about, and Andreja was just kinda... there. I couldn't empathize with a group like Constellation and their ongoing mission if I couldn't connect with any of the group. I felt a connection to the plight of Martin Septim and Jauffre in Oblivion, I felt a connection to the issues plaguing my father and the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 3, I didn't get that in Starfield. Every time I walked into The Lodge (Constellation's hub area,) I did a side eye at those around me. I just felt... 100% detached from a group I was meant to empathize with. I know they're completely of different strokes, but its impossible not to think of a series like Mass Effect and how it quickly got you to care about each of your party members in its expansive sci-fi narrative. Bethesda's never been about that to the same degree but man, it just makes you think.

Honestly thinking about it too, you just straight up don't matter in this game other than an advancement to the plot. Once more, I don't really expect too much more from Todd and his expertise but there came a point towards the end of the game where I read some testimonials from my brother and others who were also playing and came to the question: Am I really present in the story? I don't have the opportunity to say anything very interesting, I'm quite literally just the vehicle for a questline that chooses you as important within an hour of the game. I'm not the dragonborn, I'm not the son of an important figure reshaping a wasteland, I'm not the father of a child whose importance is likely beyond my scope... I'm just a character who touched a rock. Not the end of the world, but it made me ponder my actual intentions and level of engagement with the world(s) at large.

Speaking of engaging... you know what's really hard to engage with even with an Nvidia 3090 GPU? Ding ding ding... it's Starfield! Performance in this game on a good rig is straight up inexcusable and is responsible for a large degree of my detriment to this game, even more so than the previously mentioned dissent on worlds, questing, and player agency. I have a good rig, I'm fortunate enough where I'm at a position to be playing with effectively top of the line hardware... I should not be able to see Steam's frame counter register sub thirty in combat towards the end of the game. This is not okay. First person shooters are not fun below a certain threshold and Starfield managed to reach it. One of my favorite gaming experiences of all time, Bloodborne, saw its personal rating fall by quite a bit from me because it was locked at thirty on the PS4 and that was a third person action game! Starfield is a first/third person shooter in which aiming is... important! Movement and tracking is... important! Running around Akila City and feeling like I was in slow motion because of how astonishingly low the framerate was felt like a slap in the face to me as the player. Even Cyberpunk ran better at launch... on worse hardware!!! Sometimes I would find reprieve in smaller zones inside cities or at space stations where I was able to hit a reasonable seventy to eighty frames per second, but these moments were remarkably few and far between. The majority of my seventy hours of Starfield were spent sub fifty and I can sacrifice framerate SOMETIMES for fidelity and beautiful vistas... but that was not present in Starfield. When it was running well the game looked good but not great, not worthy of the tradeoff that came in the form of gutter-level performance.

The framerate issue made combat tougher than it should have been. I didn't expect fighting in any way to be the best part of Starfield, as it decidedly isn't in any Bethesda game, but it was another element of this game that added my ultimate takeaway of "meh" as I saw the end credits roll. The guns didn't feel very interesting to me as they were all variations of familiar Fallout formulas but without the nuance and strategy of V.A.T.S. You use shotguns, snipers, pistols, melee, and lasers to cut your way through unimportant humanoid and arachnid enemies alike just as you did in Fallout. Aiming though was a nice callback to the pre-Oblivion days where it felt like a complete dice roll. I laughed at the amount of times I'd have my reticle on enemies only to whiff shot after shot after shot because the combat mechanics of Starfield deemed a miss necessary. I was never frustrated... just confused.

Combat leads into another point of contention I had with Starfield: space flight. Not only is the shipbuilder resoundingly obtuse and unfair in the way it gates creativity, but actually employing the ship you carefully crafted in a combat scenario is a most woefully uninteresting and grating endeavor that I could have easily gone without. Dogfighting is a tall task to make work, but EA and Pandemic studios were able to do it with Battlefront way back in 2005. It wasn't complicated, as it was a simple follow and target system, but it was fun. Starfield's space combat requires the player to face slam three attack buttons that control cannons, missiles, and lasers, until however many ships you are forced to defeat have been silenced. The tracking system was a dud, and I didn't want to chase the skill tree to make it any better as I knew that would take away my enjoyment of more tangible and useful things like the persuasion system or on-world combat. If you accidentally ported to a system that had space pirates or enemies target you upon entry and didn't have enough ship parts to heal right away, you were effectively S.O.L. Enemies have a tendency to fly right over you and evade your targeting, forcing the player to spend an awkward amount of time just so they can recalibrate. Weapons had an annoying level of recharge period that took the active interest and engagement levels of the fights completely away. For something I really wanted to love and have that simply living-out-my-Star-Wars-dream-jubilee with, I was rather against ever partaking in. All in all, I stopped having fun with a lot of the appeal of the title real quick.

Starfield was a game meant for a lot of people, it is Bethesda's first big IP in too many years to count and unfortunately, it missed my mark by a long shot. What I had hoped would be a game to rival FFXVI for my GOTY spot, is really nothing more than another candle in the wind. Starfield is a game somebody is going to enjoy, but not me. If I want to build outposts and get some sort of vindication in doing so, I could play Satisfactory. If I want to dogfight, I'll just jump on Ace Combat. If I wish for an engaging first person shooter, I can get back into DOOM. If I want peak Bethesda, I have my Oblivion GOTY edition sitting on the shelf next to me. I can't recommend Starfield and it breaks my heart. It's the first time I've played a Bethesda game and truly felt indifferent. I reached the credits and I didn't clap, I didn't smile, I did the worst thing imaginable... I asked my friends to play League of Legends.

Man, that last case is some bullshit. I pieced together the story events and understood what was going on easily enough, but putting the right words in the right spaces proved troublesome. I don't think the game is succeeding in the intended way if the real challenge is found in using trial and error to get the exact wording down when formulating a sentence. There were just too many potential variations with the noun selections. It didn't feel fair to me. And the hint system was useless because it was telling me things I already knew, so in the end I had to resort to an online guide. Yes, my pride took a major beating as a result.

Otherwise, business as usual. A really intriguing story told via only brief cutscene snippets and dialogue exchanges. Golden Idol does so much with so little. Analysing a scene, taking note of character interactions/visual cues and paying attention to all the minute details makes one feel like a true detective. I think the main game comfortably surpasses the DLC though, because it has plenty of those "Eureka!" moments, and when they come, piecing together the sentences in the Thinking screen usually goes smoothly. Also, I prefer the smaller-scale cases of the main campaign compared to the fewer-in-quantity-but-much-broader-in-scope cases of the DLC.

It feels like there's a rare breed of games that catch the gaming community slightly off guard, games that are both popular and very well received, for all the good reasons. The Baldur's Gate series and Larian studio certainly had an impressive track record and history, so maybe that level of success shouldn't be a surprise, but honestly, I never expected in such a strong year, Baldur's Gate 3 would be one of the top contenders, not just for me but for a lot of people as well.

From an RPG standpoint, BG3 is honestly a masterpiece. There's a degree of freedom you rarely see in most games, and it's not just the freedom you have in how you tackle a problem. The story of the game complements your decisions really well, creating a very cohesive narrative, and the end result is a game with very competent writing that is also personal and tailor made based on the way the players chose to act. I think the emphasis on the companions, their stories and their relationships, is also an extension of the above, and I'm surprised with how much I ended up caring about my teammates, even though I kind of lost the plot concerning the ones I didn't travel with. Something that really surprised me is how much even small decisions affected events way later, and how seemingly filler side quests actually mattered for the main plot a lot. The game has three acts, with the first one serving as an introduction to many characters and plot points, but a lot of the meat of the game doesn't really become apparent until way later. I kind of felt that the two final acts were a bit more uneven, with some conclusions not feeling satisfactory, but they also had some really high highs that really won me over. Regardless, it's pretty clear this is an extremely ambitious game that for the most part actually accomplishes those ambitions and it becomes an unforgettable experience as a result. And something else to note is, while I'm rarely someone that replays games, the re-playability of this one certainly feels unparalleled for an RPG, with future runs certainly bound to be way different just based on having a different set of companions or a different play style. It is simply astonishing that this game has so much content of great quality, that people are bound to miss, wantint it or not, in one playthrough.

A big asset of BG3, that really bolsters the game's pathing outcomes, is the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset. The game features tons of passive and active skill checks, and you roll a lot of dice during your adventuring time, so based on how you might build your character and the party, the story is almost certainly already going to feel personalized. The decision to also include the DnD classing and race system is a brilliant one, as other than mattering for the gameplay, they also matter quite a bit for those checks as well, and offer their own roleplay options as well. Obviously, that level of choice is nothing new for an RPG, but every system basically just builts upon each other, and that only manages to work as intended due to the huge amount of effort behind the game, taking into account so many different success and failure scenarios for the vast amount of options BG3 provides.

And while you can always solve a lot of situations with just words, fighting is still a pretty big part of the game. A lot of elements from Divinity OS 2 are present, like the importance of the terrain and how it's affected by the characters' actions, but for the most part it has been revamped to be in line with DnD's ruleset. This has its merits, with a lot of really neat and time tested mechanics, spells and skills present, but the level 12 cap also feels like it limits a lot of the true potential of this system. And considering that you get exp pretty easily while exploring, and you're bound to do a lot of exploration, you reach that cap rather quickly, which halts the feeling of progression that the game very nicely built at first.

Last but not least, I really have to mention how impressed I am from the overall production values of the game. The dialogues are all voiced, with tons of unique voice actors, there are some really neat cinematics, the characters have a lot of unique animations, and the models feel very detailed despite the view you usually will have during your playthough. A lot of those might feel like a given to an AAA game with linear progression or a more homogenized world, but not to something as meticulously crafted as BG3. There's a big variety in the locales, from the gloomy Underdark to the huge city of Baldur's Gate, and the majority of the encounters you'll have are unique, either it's friends or enemies. The music is also worth noting too, with some especially good tracks, and some that might really surprise you once you listen to them. What I didn't really enjoy though was the amount of bugs the game had at launch, from small graphical glitches, to more serious issues like crashes and save corruptions, but at least, by the point of the 4th hotfix patch, my experience was already way better compared to my first few days with it, but still worth pointing out as some of them were rather frustrating.

All in all, Baldur's Gate 3 is the very definition of an RPG, and it really feels that there isn't a game out there like it, with that level of attention at least. It took me 100+ hours to reach its conclusion, after lots of exploration and many tough decisions, and really enjoyed it from start to finish a lot. I can't really understate how unique of an experience it is, and how great it feels to see all the different decisions you make coming to fruition. I'm a fan of the world of DnD as well, so despite having never played a Baldur's Gate game before, I really loved seeing that world realized in a game, with all those small details and references. However, I feel even someone that isn't into tabletop games (yet), will really appreciate a game as well made as this. Baldur's Gate 3 is definitely an important milestone for not only the genre, but the medium in general as well, and it's really going to be one of those games that will monopolize discussions for a long time. Highly recommended!

An absolutely wonderful little game. Deconstructeam have become some of my favourite game devs, with their focus on unconventional narrative experiences with a heavy queer and left leaning focus. From their small game jam projects to full releases like this, I always get something out of it and walk away with a lot to think about

Honestly, my main hangup (and I recognize this absolutely might be own my feelings of insecurity and invisibilty in queer spaces) is that it feels a bit alienating towards transmasc people, like another review mentioned. The game explicitly mentions that witches can only be women and non binary, and there's a plotline about a trans woman being a witch that I thought was sweet but also recognize that it's not my place to judge since I know some negative reviews weren't happy with it - but the game skirts around the idea of transmasc people existing, while it's awkwardly sitting in my mind and it just felt a bit cruddy. I guess in a way it can't mention them? I could go into the way "women and non binary only" spaces exist in real life, and usually serve as a way to alienate certain groups, but that may be reading too deep into things. Either way, there were only a few scenes where I felt this got in the way of enjoyment and am mostly able to push it aside

The writing here is so fun and powerful. Some might say it's cheesy but for me, it really works. Although it will often give you small glimpses and vignettes into its world, rather than super in depth looks, but I kinda love that because it feels like poetry

I think it's worth noting that the second half of the game is more of a political campaign sim, where you allocate people to tasks and try to influence others, which I did not expect. It isn't bad or anything, but I do think I preferred the first half of the game. Simply talking to witches, creating cards and reading fortunes were strong enough mechanics by themselves that they would have worked for the full game thanks to the high quality/intriguing enough writing

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's belief or expectation that said prediction would come true.

This game is a captivating, wonderfully written story. It has something to tell about fate, about ethics, about friendship, about identity, about politics (because, whether you like it or not, everything is politics). And it does it through conversations. A tea and a chat with an old friend. Or with a new acquaintance. Through their struggles and their successes. Their hopes and their fears. Every character is unique, is relatable. Every line of dialog is delightful and real.

And on top of that, Fortuna's ability to see the future. To read and create her own cards. At first, you start building a deck, wanting to make the right prediction. Then the game subverts that in a subtle way, but that changes how you approach the readings completely. And so, the cards become another way to interact with the narrative, making every decision count.

This game makes you reflect on your own political ideas and your values. How do you want the world to be if you had the chance to shape it. And, for me, it's about writing your own future rather than hoping for the designs of destiny. Like making a self-fulfilling prophecy.

This is going to be my favorite indie game of the year by far.

Holy fxxk.
I knew I would like this game because everything it sells on paper is up my alley. Cardbuilding game mixed with Visual Novel where choices matter? That was right in my field of interest. However, not only did this game succeed on those fronts, but it surpassed all of my expectations rocketing it to what would be a pretty standard 3.5 or 4 to a solid 5/5 and I have a lot of strong feelings why.

Firstly, I want to start by saying, this game is not the same all the way through, it throws some curveballs, both in narrative and gameplay senses, now it just so happens those oddballs (resource management and political sim) are both in my wheelhouse. I say this because I think this could turn away quite a few potential players. However, this is the only major issue I can find in the game, everything else is subjectively-based (such as gameplay and art-style) and just are good for my preferences (even this "knack" in itself is something I actively seek in my games).

This game impresses me in a few ways, to not expose too much about the game I just want to talk about the aspects I think made me come to my rating.

The Story is fxxking great. It's nothing too absurd or outlandish, but it is quite unique among VNs for telling it's story through a combination of flashbacks between two "realms" of reality, all while playing out the story of the game, with a few unique twists and fun reveals that are not all crazy insane or anything, but gratifying, albeit sometimes predictable. The Writing is similar in this aspect in both being a very unique style of writing that focuses on characters and interactions over exposition, which is a quite positive thing for me. At no time did I feel overwhelmed by text, but it also was super prevalent (hence the genre) in a way that was very engaging and endearing to the story and choices made. This also applies to the entourage of Characters that make up the game, you have unique interactions with each that fuel the story, none of them feel secondary or wasteful placements, there are even some that my run didn't pertain to, but look to have far more engaging moments and unique interactions if quarreled with beyond the scope of my run. This is all-wrapped in a mature (but not overly-so) story that encapsulates some really dark and light themes in a way that wasn't too jarring in my time with the title and really helped it be unique in how it approached difficulty topics. As a person of the LGBTQ+ variety, I also found representation in this game incredibly tasteful and refreshing opposed to the very cookie-cutter representations in other games. Overall, story has a lot, and I mean a LOT, of great moments for its 7-to-8 hour run that really had me engaged the entire time. I will note that one future playthroughs I'm unsure if I will have the same experience as the first run, but there is enough content and decisions you can take to vary the story.

The Gameplay will be mostly subjective. The game consists around a resource-managment deck-creating (or deckbuilding card-crafting) basis that sprinkles in relationship management and political sim. It's really weird to try and define all that the game does, but think about it as a choices-matter visual novel with lite resource-managment and a sprinkle of political strategy sim in the secondary half. The systems here are simple but effective with a lot of variety in how you approach them, from crafting cards that let you pick unique dialogue-choices to literally digging up dirt on people to then harass them with in a political race to become a leader, it does a lot of odd quirky things and I only really felt it disconnected at a few chapter intros, but not enough to dissuade the new or old mechanics. It is clearly thought-out and while not "balanced", it offers a unique way to approach each run in a unique way, until your 3-4 runs in, but honestly for what this game is, I'm shocked it can do more than one and have and uniqueness between runs in the first place. Note I say this after only one run, so I'm not certain on that case, however, even if it were only a one-run game, it's still a 5/5 on that basis as the gameplay and story speaks for itself.

TLDR: All of this is to say, it's a really refreshing take on a Visual-Novel game, and if your looking to try the genre but might not like the simplicity of a majority of the titles this might pique your interest. Overall an amazingly, lovingly-crafted title with a fantastic story and an amazing experience through and through.

Wow.

This game is far from perfect, the middle to end part of the game wasn't very interesting, there are too many interesting characters that you barely interact with and the worldbuilding is in some ways pretty bad, there's some frankly weird gender stuff going on with who can or can't become a witch and describing the home planet of the only major black character as more primitive was certainly a choice that could have been entirely avoided.

But when this game works, it works really well. I was hooked for most of it (except during the aforementioned middle to end part) and especially the final chapter had me glued to the game like very few other games have managed.
It really made me feel like an incredibly powerful witch, a level of power fantasy I have never felt in any other game.
The game never really explains how its core mechanic works and I think that is a brilliant move to make the magic feel more magical. And i intend to keep that mystery up by not replaying the game, at least not for a while, even though there are so many possibilities I wish to explore.
I'd even go so far as to say that it's one of those games that managed to broaden my horizon of what a game can be.