a triumph for scenario design aficionados. hour after hour of slices of the real world perfectly aligned into a playground of roving militants and hapless civilians. rarely does a game ever make its missions feel properly explorable while keeping it taut and linear at the same time, and yet deus ex routinely weaves both together. for every point A to point B underground lair with traps laid out in sequence there is a completely open venue, such as the suffocating catacombs and their dimly lit hallways giving way to the Champs-Élysées avenue of paris, with a bakery to pilfer contraband drugs from, a hostel with full bar access, and an arms dealer's loaded apartment, all off the beaten path from your main objective. military bases and science labs retain the layout you'd expect had you ever toured one, and you'll find that locker rooms, rows of cubicles, and break rooms feature just as prominently in the dungeon crawling as warehouses with guards patrolling or tightly wound mazes of laser tripwires and turrets. the authenticity and legibility of these areas comes first, and yet more often than not the designers still manage to weave in appropriate challenges without violating each location's fidelity in the process.

and really, dungeon crawling is the name of the game here, more or less. at least half of the game takes place in some sort of complex with a destination and a set of non-linear gates along the way, all of which serve as hinge points for the player to choose which resources to expend. the "immsim" label comes from just how many resources have all gotten slammed together in your control: lockpicks and "multitools" for bypassing security, ammo for many different varieties of firearms, bio-energy for utilizing your augmented abilities, and a slew of consumable items meant for tanking bullets, running past enemies undetected, or breathing under water for long periods of time. at its most taut, the game generally puts some sort of barrier up in your way and then a way around it, with the direct option being something like combat or picking a lock and the indirect option being finding a vent or waterway to circumvent the barrier. with enough of these situations back to back, the game hopes that you'll avoid sticking to one gameplay style in order to preserve your resources in that area for later when they seem more necessary; you can't crack every door with lockpicks, so you'll probably have to get your hands dirty or crawl on your belly here and there if you want to keep your picks for when the alternative is, say, running through a irradiated area. the nice part of this is that it truly does work: I explored, snuck around, and fought off enemies all in equal measure throughout the game through entirely organic response to each of the situations. the downside is by endgame the resource economy has completely turned in your favor assuming you've been rotating all of your options, making decisions on resource expenditure past a certain point much more about cleaning out your inventory rather than rationing.

when the game is firing on all cylinders, you'll get something like bunker III from the aforementioned catacombs. the area is two large rooms with a camera and turret tracking you at the back of the first room right in front of a cell full of hostages, multiple floors connected by stairs with archways for cover in the second room, and a back hallway swarming with rocket-strapped operatives where the camera/turret controls and a key to the next reside; a waterway additionally connects the front of the first room with the back of the second room. here you have actual tradeoffs to deal with: just grabbing the key and skipping the whole area by going through the waterway works, but the coverage in the back hallway can be intense depending on the AI's behavior, and your direct path to the key is blocked by strategically placed crates as soon as you leave the waterway. gunning for the security controls instead is feasible, and you can leverage the fact that hacking computers (sometimes?) pauses enemies for a bit to quickly run out, disable everything, and hop back in the waterway. you could also sneak in from the front and use an augmentation that hides you from cameras to avoid triggering the turret, and if you rescue the hostages with lockpicks instead of locating the cell key and leave the area early, you'll get the next area's key from their camp leader anyway. when the game constructs situations like these, they not only make the discrete tradeoffs impactful on the flow of a given level, they also weave it into the actual second-to-second movement, stealth, and combat as well.

at its worst it's the opposite: individual rooms with a guard or two and maybe a computer system or locked door stitched together by long hallways that inoculate each scenario from one another. in these sections the main appeal is exploration, either through finding nooks and crannies hidden from view or by reading the many "data cubes" with flavor text strewn around. it can still be exciting, especially earlier on when you don't have tools to detect enemies through walls and the suspense of moving around still persists. later in the game when one has more abilities at their disposal, breaking apart puzzles or barriers by jumping over them with enhanced height, moving large crates to use as stairs with enhanced strength, or shooting down doors with a mastered rifle ability can potentially make the monotony less apparent. some of the barriers don't fare quite as well due to a lackluster implementation: the hacking, for instance, is more or less free even with minimal upgrades, and for every camera you have to actually maneuver around there's at least four you'll disable without thinking just because the security terminals are easy to access. if the mission locations didn't adhere to the small details of real environments or didn't have cute little secrets in vents and lock-boxes, these issues would likely overcome the holistic experience and result in tedium.

the tiny details extend further than objects in the world as well. from early on when one of your augmented colleagues begins spontaneously complaining about getting the wrong can of soda from a vending machine, I had hoped that the scripting for the NPCs would stay high quality, and it absolutely persisted to the final moments of the game, when a civilian mechanic distraught by my actions pulled a gun on me behind my back. the tight pacing of the levels compared to a full open world experience allows for many of the individual NPCs to have unique dialogue, behavior, and even inventory when subdued. of these the most fascinating to me may have been a conversation with a chinese bartender in hong kong, who extolled the CCP's commitment to capitalist enterprise outside the purview of the new world order by emphasizing authoritarian nationalism against main character denton's idealized western democratic order. it's something you wouldn't see now in the xi jinping era and weirdly reflective of the game's almost non-ideological view of politics: people-facing organizations controlled by layers upon layers of shadowy organizations, each manipulating social behavior in a top-down way compared to the bottom-up class struggle and ideological superstructure of reality. not really a thought-provoking work unless you're particularly animated by vague gesturing towards "control" and "liberty," but at least you can tell the developers didn't take it too seriously either. there's roswell-style gray aliens running around for christ's sake.

adding another feather to my cap by winning this year's monkey ball tournament at magfest after last year's typing of the dead win. a friend of mine has run lights and lasers at magfest on and off for the last decade or so, and when he told me there was a monkey ball cabinet in the arcade during a walk-through the night before it opened I was overjoyed. memories of old cons with filthy, unmaintained cabinets that one could barely roll through beginner courses on drifted away as I hoped this would finally give me the monkey ball arcade experience I had waited for. the last-minute announcement of a tournament was even more appealing; this would finally put my endless pandemic training to good use.

they had two cabinets in fact: an original stand-up cab, near flawless except for an uncomfortably dim screen, and a naomi kit and 3d-printed banana shoved into an astro city cab for those who preferred to sit down. both cabs were swarmed at open time, but I snuck in some time on the astro city cab late the first night. the setup was appreciated but god was it sensitive; imagine a joystick with the same deadzones and behavior of the gamecube analog stick, but with a porn-quality cock-sized banana attached to it, nauseating yellow from the printer filament. I resorted to two-handing the monster, using one hand to brace it while gently pressing it with the other. the original cabinet was completely stiff by comparison. even minimal motions required cranking it to either side, and certain full-length presses felt like they lacked the tilting distance of the gamecube version. definitely a learning curve, but it was to be expected. it was my first time, after all.

unlike typing of the dead, which at least had some head-to-head scoring support, monkey ball's tournament was structured as consecutive single credit runs between two players in bracket matches. begs the question of why they didn't just do a pool structure since it was all single elim anyway; a friend of mine who runs my hometown arcade organized the proceedings, so I wasn't about to crawl up his ass about it. score attack also left the crowd puzzled, as most of us ignore score in comparison to floor count. a quick google search as the competition started rolling led me to this particular guide (specifically section 2.6), which outlined the scoring system in some detail. effectively the number of seconds (including centiseconds) multiplied by 100 gives the bulk of the score, with the score doubled if it was done in less than half of the allotted time. bananas contribute another 100 points for each one obtained. however, warps contribute significantly more points, as a green warp goal will give 10000 additional points on the base value (reds give 20000) along with an additional multiplier for each stage skipped. the latter multiplier makes up for score lost on skipped levels, but the base bonus is pretty intense overall; there aren't levels that can give you anything close to 10000 points as a base, much less several in a row! when it comes to a score attack competition, warps are overly centralizing, to the extent that a player could perform worse and still secure a win by locking a warp.

so to the player I unfairly trampled first round, I'm real sorry. you breezed through beginner without dropping a single life, showing off little skips and flair in the process. I popped in after and warped through most of it and demolished your score, even tho I dropped a life and missed the extra stages. it was honestly a screwjob, and I don't blame you for running off afterwards. in the final round a similar issue happened, where two people in a match on expert each got the warp on floor 2, with one person failing at the infamous floor 7 (also known as Exam-C), and the other getting a couple floors beyond that. the former person flew through the warp and got the time bonus, doubling a 70k reward to 140k points and completely blowing the other person out of the water, floors be damned. hell, the same round I took a single credit all the way to floor 16 and I still did not get as many points as she did thanks to an overly cautious run through floor 2. it really was a bit ridiculous. however, these tournaments are about understanding the rules, not necessarily agreeing on whether they're fair. so, emboldened by my rather strong previous showing (only one other person got a run past floor 10), I threw caution to the wind on my floor 2 attempt, snagged the time bonus, and that was it, even with a total choke on floor 7.

of course, in console play I can comfortably take a 1cc all the way through expert extra, so this shouldn't have felt that impressive, but on the chunky banana the gamefeel transformed the game a fair bit. the whole tournament was on the original cabinet with the weightier controls, so nailing the precision of floors like 14 where nudges around pegs that will bounce you off ledges was as easy as just pressing the stick in the right direction; no attention to minuscule movement required. it's when it got to floors demanding quick build-ups of speed or wild tilts such as floor 18 that it began to dawn on me that perhaps the cabinet was not as in perfect of a condition as I had hoped; could have also been some early control mistuning by the developers, but I'd like to think they understood their own game well enough to design levels around the original stick. still, we got lucky that plenty of extremely challenging stages are front-loaded in expert, as we all still got a good show of some very solid east coast players taking a crack at a sega classic. maybe we would've all preferred to play on gamecube instead tho lol

Polaroid's Mega Rush to the 2023 End!! Game 5
Finished: December 24th

I don't really hold much interest in Touhou, nor had I for most of my life, although I've certainly known about it for most of my life- since I first started getting into gaming really. Outside of playing Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil, I haven't really dabbled in the property or read into the lore of Touhou proper...but I do know my Megaten.

What you have here is a best case scenario revival of classic Megami Tensei gameplay, while painting everything with the flair and mythos of the Touhou series. A combination I didn’t really expect yet blends surprisingly well once I started getting into the later sections of the game.

Generally when going back to older SMTs I appreciate them for establishing such strong, abrasive worlds- sending casts into wastelands of a familiar world, getting caught in dogmatic wars fought on loop for time indefinite and metaspace infinite. There’s not a lot of mythos as convoluted and cool as Megami Tensei in the gaming industry and I’m glad that it's persisted as long as it has (if overshadowed by a golden Morgana idol in ATLUS’ office building, but I'll take it).
The issue would just arise from how oddly paced or cryptic some of these games could get. Shin Megami Tensei difficulty remained prevalent throughout the series, however modern gaming design would help alleviate or spice up the monotony. The advent of the 'Press Turn' mechanic along with other unique combat mechanics helped to further distinguish SMT from other franchises with a new array of ways to exploit waves of demons. The older games, by comparison, just get to a point where the combat feels a bit too thin for my liking while dungeons get actively more complex by comparison (or in other cases way too simple if you just Divine Judgment everything).

Where classic SMT remains, a new take on the formula helps breathe some life into the idea, from Touhou of all things. Touhou: ADiA takes many of the mechanical ideas and elements found from the first Digital Devil Story to Strange Journey in 2009- and makes a game that well encompasses while actually avoiding some of the pitfalls I feel these titles all too often dig themselves into.

The general gameplay style reflects the usual first-person dungeon crawling of the older Megami Tensei games, with sparse bases surrounding a dungeon rife with enemies, treasures, NPCs and other opportunities. Your equipment and stats are a mix of several games throughout the series- you don't have to buy individual types of bullets separate from the guns you wield although armor will often come with their own unique properties outside of boosting defense/attack. You generally have less armor than the usual SMT title but there's enough distinguishing from certain armors that you might prefer the cat ears that give a giant AGL boost to something that might have more DEF, but lack that agility boost. Your main character, Sumireko gains abilities and resistances/weaknesses off your Sleepers (demons), however you have to sacrifice them in order to gain them, so use these wisely (or just grind money for database splurging).

The use of Grimoires to toggle on 'risk/reward' type passives is a very cool addition to the mix, and can be well exploited if you know when to turn on certain Grimoires. These can range from 'expands your Map discovery radius but gains less SP throughout battle' to 'Damage against a Sleepers' weakness is further increased, but you otherwise deal less damage' they're a fun way to spice up your dungeon crawling. I would recommend against using the explorer grimoire, alongside a careful use for the ‘Map’ item. Both of these help clear up the map and fully exploring a map does get you a monetary reward, much like Strange Journey. These are fine in practice, especially with clearing out dungeons that are much more obnoxious, although part of the manual cleanup without these tools gains you additional battles with which to gain exp. Exp isn't everything in this game- especially if you're better than I am at party building but its always nice to have the level advantage at all times.

There's maybe a few hiccups in difficulty although I think this happens quite often in these kinda games. Where you have a strong party going through a dungeon or two but run into a snag where you wanna fuse your guys into stronger 'Sleepers' but something about the party composition just isnt giving you the 'Sleepers' you want. I never memorized or figured out a pattern(?) for how you should fuse demons and would often run into this problem of never having a new wave of demons to fuse into, usually just stuck with results that were the same as sleepers from the dungeon I just came in from, maybe one new sleeper? I’m not sure.

The music is mostly fine- there's some tracks early on that feel a bit grating but I was quite elated when- as soon as you hit the halfway point of the game- a new battle theme starts popping up. Always enjoyed whenever RPGs shake up the usual battle themes partway through- and here it happens twice! I would have also liked maybe some better indicators as to who everyone actually was when I was fusing. Somewhat embarrassing on my part, although I still have a hard time remembering most of the characters that weren't from EotSD. On the fusion screen all that's shown is their name and their placement in the party menu, but not levels or any showing of what the characters you’re using look like outside of going back to the status screen. Earlier SMTs also had this trouble before they grew into more iconic designs, with a lot of recolors, some generic looking designs and a lot smaller of a database to choose from- although I would have liked a better indicator as to who I was sending out to be fused not just off name/moveset alone.

Story wise its nothing too complex, and I don’t really know how to comment on any fanservice or continuity or anything like that as someone that is not privy to the Touhou mythos. What I will say is that it somewhat succeeded in piquing my interest for later on- I might actually look further into what Touhou gets into or the importance of certain characters. Why was (X) character the final boss? Why is there a lunar colony with a bunch of rabbits on it (why am I playing another game where this is the case)? What’s up with Torifune? The game itself doesn’t dive too deep into this madness and I think it's better for it, not clogging up the main premise for too many in-jokes or needing to explain everything to the main player if they’re someone like me. Certainly not everything is left in the dark and there’s plenty of nudges I think touhou fans will enjoy but its not too overindulgent which I appreciate, letting this game stand on its own.


Overall, Artificial Dream in Arcadia, while a callback for those longing for another kind of RPG like classic SMT, might ironically serve as a good starting point for those that might wanna try out the old style of Megami Tensei for themselves. It's certainly got its learning curve and a lot of the dungeons can feel somewhat arduous, but with the addition of some Quality of Life features mixed into its mechanics, it doesn't take too long to understand what this particular take is asking of you. I was pretty surprised with how much the game had to offer and how many new things it had to show me- it wasn't a parody like I had been expecting but a full on homage to SMT and hell, the JRPG genre. While not a series I generally have interest in, I'm glad that something I had only seen gifs of during its development turned out less as some kinda gag-crossover, and moreso as a fully realized title that improves upon what it homages.

About a month ago, I challenged myself to give an approximate ranking of my fifteen favorite video games. By the end of this personal challenge, one third of the titles were those of the mainline Dragon Quest series- and I felt remorse for the ones I left off of the list. If it was not alluded to enough, Dragon Quest is my favorite video game franchise of all time, and as much as I love Final Fantasy and Castlevania- it really isn’t a close contest. Despite my immense infatuation with this franchise, the Monsters subseries is one that I have remarkably little experience with comparably. I have played through Terry’s Wonderland 3D, but no GBC original, DQM2, Caravan Heart, or Joker trilogy quite yet. However, Dragon Quest tickles my brain unlike anything else- so when this title was announced a few months back I was immediately sold.

In the time since its announcement, I have not had the best streak of luck with my personal life, and I have been immensely sick, tired, and in need of an escape. This game also released right at the end of my quarter in college, and between that and my love of the series I used it as an excuse to unwind with a title for a bit, and because of such I have thoroughly sank my teeth into this title. I may lack context of the series as a whole, and certainly lacking enough to tell the nuances and innovations apart from something that has been potentially introduced in the unplayed titles, but I do consider myself an expert on this specific title and have a lot to say about it. If you are a Dragon Quest, monster collector, PS2 or 3DS era JRPG, or cozy game fan- I say just take the plunge on the demo and I am sure you will enjoy it, but if you want to hear the reasoning behind those specific reasons keep reading. Regardless of such, immediately note that I loved this game.

Let me open with an anecdote here. Because of the previously mentioned run-in with illness, one of the effects of such as being a legal inability to drive since I have been on a handful of medications that could very easily make me behind a wheel a danger to myself and/or others. Not good, obviously, so to pick up my pre-order I drove down with my dad. That night as he was going to bed, and as I was playing my game, he stopped by and asked how it was. I simply retorted with “preying on my addictive tendencies”. That sentiment reigned itself truer and truer the longer I played. That sentiment proved itself true by the end as I reached my 100% completed monster compendium. This game is not just fun, it is ridiculously so.

There is a borderline dangerous gameplay loop to be experienced here, one that pushes the limits and expectations of Dragon Quest’s deliciously satisfying party composition, turn based combat mechanics, and attentive exploration in new and inventive ways. While it does not have a cohesive and seamless open overworld found in the mainline titles, every inch of the provided world has some micro-decision to make that can be as simple as checking around a corner for an item, to ones that greatly impact how you experience the game as a whole. The usual trappings of mini-medal hunting and metal slime grinding are here in their fullest and Dragon Quest-iest, but it is accompanied with two monster arenas that give entirely new challenges to encounter, a monster synthesis system that blends the best of Dragon Quest 3, 8, and Shin Megami Tensei’s impressive party growth options, and a simple but effective story that had its hooks in me from beginning to end.

If you are anything like me, you will be absolutely enamored and addicted to adding every monster into your lineup, partially due to the thrill of discovery- and partially due to the slew of options each monster adds to your potential. There is some unprecedented amount of strategy you can pour into this game if you so desire, optimizing each monster to be freakishly strong compared to their standard counterparts. It is never necessary, but it is a testament to how wonderfully this game is open to your input. I played this game in a room with two Slimes, a King Slime, and Platypunk plushes in my peripheral vision- and putting them into virtual tournaments and watching them obliterate the opponents was always satisfying. Outside of the battling, there is still a huge quantity of areas and story dungeons that provide new puzzles, potential party members, and big-hitter bosses to fight. The structure of the game is fairly linear and repetitive, but in a way that is not inherently in a negative context and still provides plenty of choice and approach. In my own time, I brute forced through harder areas and arena battles earlier than intended due to my party optimization allowing me- and it was great!

While the hours I spent between story beats simply walking, scouting, and leveling around the seasonally-changing worlds in a way that didn’t serve pacing particularly well, I still really enjoyed the story. Terry’s Wonderland had a really solid story hook, but until the end was almost exclusively gameplay driven with only flavor-text and occasional character interactions. This game, conversely, has full cutscenes, unique stories for each area, and side characters to explore alongside you. If you have played Dragon Quest IV- a favorite game of all time contender of mine- you will be fairly familiar with many of the events that take place, but seeing them recontextualized in this pseudo-prequel is a ton of fun. This is definitely an alternate take on the characters, but I prefer that for how it allows for new and creative explorations of it all. The added flavor of playing as a villainous character in a Dragon Quest game in general is a lot of fun, too.

Something that I did not expect but felt right at home with was how this game felt. Many games of many eras feel different to play for various reasons- and modern JRPGs have a unique feel to them just as ones from past generations have. It’s difficult to describe without just feeling it yourself, but something about this game feels like it is a lost JRPG from a distant era- and I fell in love with that as a JRPG enthusiast. If not already for the dungeon design and monster synthesis, the rotating of the camera with the shoulder buttons, way you move, openness in choice, and environment design heavily reminded me of my time with games like Shin Megami Tensei III and IV, along with Dragon Quest VIII and other PS2 or 3DS JRPGs. It is incredibly refreshing that something new like this could be so evocative of that era, and I would love to see more new JRPGs that retain that feel when games like Final Fantasy XVI and Shin Megami Tensei V, for example, certainly did not.

The other aspect that remained from the PS2 era unfortunately is the presentation, because this game is definitely not a Triple-A title to say the least. The art direction is stellar, and all the monsters and characters have great designs, models, and animations- but goodness the environments are rough. While Dragon Quest XI S is ironically the stellar example of Nintendo Switch optimization, this game looks like it would’ve been right at home next to something like a resolution-boosted DQVIII via emulator. Again, I quite enjoyed that and found it refreshing, and even then there are aspects of it I found impressive like the seamless season switching, but for every impressive part of the presentation there is a lineup of framerate dips and loading screens that take the attention. The worst of it, unfortunately is the horrendous amount of times the game flat-out crashed. I am thankful for the generous autosaving, but a patch needs to come out that lets other players avoid the dozens of crashes that plagued this game for myself.

My other major gripe with this title is the RNG you have to deal with if you decide to be a completionist. I saw that you could unlock final bosses of previous DQ titles and that hook made me enamored to the point I couldn’t resist completion. It was satisfying to synthesize the big baddies- but the hours of walking around and grinding were not the most fun part of this experience. The very worst of it shows itself through the egg hunting- good god the egg hunting. There are probably 15 or so monsters that can only be found in eggs, which require a quantity of fights to respawn, and then are randomly peppered around the map for you to find and hope you get what you want. Some of these exclusive monsters took hours to find, and it doesn’t matter where you stand theologically you will be praying to the RNgods by the time you reach the compendium completion process. You’ll even need duplicates of some of the egg exclusives for full completion. Good luck!

Despite that, however, the game is still so much fun it hardly dented my enjoyment. This game is so entertaining, addictive, and endearing that I could easily have sunk in plenty more hours if there was more content to be squeezed out. This game doesn’t quite hit the highs of the incredibly dense and thoughtful DQ Builders 2 or Rocket Slime, but in terms of this specific gameplay loop (technical issues aside) I couldn’t really have asked for more. I loved Terry’s Wonderland, but this is the title that has truly cemented me in and made me excited for the next entry and to catch up on my Monsters backlog. This game was worth every penny, but when tech patches come out to fix the issues, any ports to more powerful platforms, or even a “professional” version akin to the Joker titles to add even more to this title it is absolutely worth the time and money investment. It has been confirmed that there are more DQ Monsters games coming in the future, so I don’t need to beg for sequel sales as I have with some other titles- but until then I will be clearing my backlog and preparing for the next time I get to scout slimes until sunset once more. I loved this game, and I hope anyone who plays it does too.

First time I played Touhou, loved all of it, from the mechanics to the ost ( which is phenomenal ).

Gameplay is your classic bullet hell shmup but I feel as if it's more elegant than the classic arcade one, the bullets are also a bit slower than what I played before ( I feel so, might be wrong ), you can survive most of it on pure skills without learning patterns and that's mainly why I enjoyed it, because it's pleasant to play and doesn't feel too unfair ( depending on the patterns .... )

It doesn't have the QOL of Perfect Cherry Blossom but I don't really mind it as the game is still fully playable without it.

A good place to start Touhou ?

Doing a replay of this through the Ultimate Edition to catch up before Alan Wake 2. What an absolutely fantastic time.

Control takes all the elements that detract from Alan Wake and improve on them greatly. Combat is frenetic and tactile and gives you good options for creativity. The story is told in bits and pieces, but much more cleverly and fully engaging than its predecessor. The switch from a half-baked Stephen King novel to SCP story gives so much great perspective on the supernatural elements and engages the player with little mysteries and stories the whole way. Remedy's technical prowess shines as the whole game is just gorgeous, especially with some of the coolest particle effects in gaming.

Won't go into details on the story, but nearly everything sticks. The cast of characters are great, and Jesse is a very good protagonist. I'll be moving on to the two DLCs, Foundation and AWE (Alan Wake) as prep as well.

Highly recommend checking this out. Engaging gameplay, a great and imaginative setting for a third person shooter, wonderful to look at, and paced quite nicely. Moments like the ashtray maze and the dynamite video really add to the unique quality of the experience. So happy that Remedy kept improving over the years.

It's obvious that as time goes on, more video game remakes will be released. The amount of games that exist is always increasing, and the more that exist, the more there are to remake. And with an ever expanding player base, there will always be a market for them; both for players that are wishing to play their old favorites on modern consoles, and for new players who want to experience the classics in the best way possible. But while it can be great to get these legacy titles on modern hardware, it's also an area that's ripe for nostalgia exploitation and disappointment. Obviously any resources spent on a remake could have instead been directed towards a new project, but even beyond that, many of them aim to do the bare minimum, offering barely any improvements dressed up with a $60 price tag. With this context, it's especially important to acknowledge when a remake actually does it right-by taking the core of a beloved game, fully repurposing it, giving it modern amenities and graphics-and competently recreates the feeling that the original gave players years ago. And if you're looking for an example, look no further than Grezzo's 2019 remake of Link's Awakening.

Link's Awakening was the 4th game in the Zelda series, first released for the Gameboy in 1993, so for a modern title, there was a lot to improve. The graphics were the first step, and beyond obvious advancements in tech, the 2019 effort's improvements suit the story as well. As the title implies, Link's Awakening takes place in a dream setting, and while hand-drawn animations bookend the game, all of the gameplay has a toylike, retro-modern design which is equal parts lovely and off-putting. It almost feels like the game takes place in a shoebox diorama, and it's a bold yet fitting aesthetic choice for a game that is defined by its subversion of norms. Both visually and sonically, Link's Awakening is respectful of its past without being a slave to it, and as a result, the music-box laden soundtrack and the tilt-shift layout help in successfully recreating the feeling of the original, while breathing new life into the title.

And, even more importantly, the gameplay is modernized right along with it. This was originally a Gameboy game, so simplicity was key. Link's Awakening did the best it could at the time, but what is a remake for if not to address the limitations of previous hardware? The sword and shield each have their own buttons now, many of the game's combat techniques feel far more natural to pull off, and you'll find yourself switching items in menus far less often. This isn't a complete redesign, so some of the dungeon bosses are still a bit simple, and this is still the Nintendo Switch, so it's customary to say that the game comes with some minor slowdowns and framedips. But it's emblematic of a game with no overworld loading screens that LA's menuing, just like its gameplay, feels as seamless as possible.

A lot of these elements would fit perfectly in any other 2D Zelda remake, but what sets Link's Awakening apart from the crowd is its utter commitment to a unique setting. After over 35 years, Koholint Island is still the series's most interesting; a curious and concise world that takes only a minute to venture across, but is filled with enough nooks and crannies and secrets to keep you engaged for hours. And while many point to this game as the one that was always a totally different Zelda experience, only time has revealed it to truly be so. There's the obvious things that stick out; no Zelda, no Hyrule, characters from other Nintendo franchises. But it's what just beneath the surface that makes LA such a jewel of the Zelda series. There's no conflict (at least, not immediately), and there's certainly no world-ending threat. Link acts only for his own preservation, and while the Wind Fish is saved by its awakening, the primary goal is always clear, just as the title states.

Perhaps that makes Link's Awakening the only Zelda game without a hero. As the game progresses, it becomes clear to Link that waking the Wind Fish will end the dream, and as a result, Koholint Island (and its inhabitants) will disappear. Of all the worlds you visit as Link, this is probably the most welcoming. Is their reward for their hospitality their own destruction? Did they ever exist at all? And if so, is Link responsible for their dissolution, or is the player? Beyond being an incredible game, LA is great because the memory of its themes persist like an oft-forgotten dream; carelessly floating in and out of our minds, directing our thoughts, guiding our actions. In a series of almost 20 games, Link's Awakening has no trouble remaining one-of-a-kind. Its seemingly simple premise is the springboard for an incredible amount of philosophical thought. And it's an incredibly fun game, updated with the modern charm and quality of life that it's deserved since 1993. This is one of Link's best adventures, and on the Switch, it's better than it's ever been.

Stormblood
(Finished on October 5th)

(Note half of this review is just me ranting about Monks off the playstyle of two games I just so happened to be playing at the same time feel free to skip that)

Post-Heavensward
I forgot if I already brought this up.
Anyway, what if Estinien went joker mode. Pretty cool follow up to the events of Heavensward, although these kind of quests do kinda make me think "some of this feels like it shoulda been in the main expansion?" but I understand why this is the case, I guess.
Like post-ARR there's some rando missions laid throughout that are supposed to be like "hey! here's the stuff that's leaning into Stormblood get excited!" but it still felt very weird leading up to it. I never really know how to judge these quests/patches as they mostly act as a medley of prepping for the next expansion, of course but then it flip flops to wrapping up a lot of loose ends from the prior expansion. (also this expansion took a bit longer than the other two so much of this honestly left my brain).

STORMBLOOD (Proper)

Leading up to this expansion, I had heard all sorts of opinions regarding this section of FF14. I wasn't entirely sure how to tackle it at first other than to have an open mind and just go through the motions as I went from quest to quest. While I think I understand the hangups a lot of other people had with Stormblood, I still enjoyed it most of the way through. It just has a few sections of GLACIAL pacing, and some really rough character writing depending on where you're coming in from. It's a divisive expansion, but overall I enjoyed it, if only a couple of steps behind Heavensward.


I think one of the more standout points about Stormblood is just how damn good the instances are in this expansion. Heavensward was definitely a step above A Realm Reborn in terms of scenario and the required dungeons, but Stormblood has maybe 1 or 2 dungeons that feel 'mid'. I really enjoyed just about every dungeon or trial that the expansion had, from the Susanoo giant sword blocking QTE to the Mario Party-esque trials of Bardam’s Mettle. The only dungeon I don't think I cared about was the grave shipyard but it was kinda neat as what I think is a FFV callback?

I also really liked most of the areas throughout the middle chunk of the expansion. I'll get to the first and last chunk later, but from the sprawling streets of Kugane to the rolling plains of the Azim Steppe, to the overwhelming Dairyu Moon Gates from the bottom of the Yanxia basin
there was a lot of really nice locales throughout the expansion. You get this weird diving mechanic also which gets shoehorned into a lot of places throughout the expansion, but your first use of this is in this huge ocean map with a bunch of underwater locales throughout.

The main issue regarding Stormblood is that it does have some really slow parts in its plot. It reminds me of Fire Emblem! No but actually, the whole 'we need to gather and unite the oppressed masses to rebel over their imperialist overlords", the arid environments of Gyr Abania, the nomadic tribes... it felt like I was getting a fusion of Thracia, Blazing Blade and Fates Birthright all in one! I mean, if you squint, Yotsuyu is basically like Aversa. I’m not crazy. Regardless, I did enjoy the new rotation of the cast for this expansion, as I appreciated the return of Alisaie into the main lineup for this expansion and in always happy whenever Raubahn is present. On the other hand, Lyse is so milquetoast. I had heard whining and complaining about some of the characters in this being really rought and while I don't think its all that bad -sometimes you like a toxic bitch, who doesn't?- but Lyse really is just way more pushed than she really needs to be. To give her some credit, she's mostly just mid, but she's got so little sauce for who's supposed to be the central character for this expansion. I don't know, I was kind of waiting for her to commit some atrocity- hell if she did do that at least she'd be somewhat more interesting. Nearing the end of the expansion I was wondering if she was gonna do something into post-Stormblood, but nah she ends up leaving the Scions to help rebuild Ala Mhigo.

The two main villains this time around are really fun though, I was really shocked when I heard people were on the fence with Zenos. I guess I can kinda understand with how simple his motives are, but Zenos is so delightfully hammy I can't help but love whenever he's on screen. Hell, if I had one problem with Zenos it'd be that he didn't have enough screentime, he shows up every now and then but it's divvied up between the two main villains, who already take a bit of a break for a 1/3rd of the expansion.

I did wanna get cocky this expansion and see if I could manage two jobs at the same time throughout the expansion but it got to the point where I was underlevelled for pretty simple missions so I decided to hang up the MNK clothes and go full time as a Dark Knight. This felt like a fine decision to me, although I was still left grumbling to myself that I wish levelling was significantly easier in general.
Dark Knight continues to be probably one of the more interesting classes on the docket, continuing the Sidurgu and Rielle sidequest with a new addition in Myste- a young boy who’s stolen a portion of your aether for the purpose harnessing it and of finding some closure for those that have died. The end of this questline was really cool so I'm excited to see what the next expansions have in store, since they brought the writer for the DRK questline onto shadowbringers.

I did decide to try a bit of Samurai as well, considering its one of the new additions in this expansion. It's a little overwhelming at first as its a class that starts out at level 50, using a lot of skills that weave in and out of similar combos. Once I got the hang of it though it felt...okay. I'll probably load into leveling for it every now and then but don't think I'll be wanting it to become a mainstay in my arsenal. Part of me wanted to get back into MNK-ing after a small break throughout the post-HW questline, however with how bad DPS wait times are and how same-y MNK can get I just wasn't feeling up to switching over to that job to level it up.

I had planned an entire rant in my Baldurs Gate review where I wanted to talk about how much I wish Monk was a cooler class but I figured I'd cut that out since it was already a lengthy review, so I'll just graft it into here- man I wish Monk was so much cooler (BG3's version of monks are fine, they're just weird and require a bit of tooling- it just took me 9 levels to get an ability I thought was cool enough). Part of that desire to rant was predicated on going through MNK in FF14 around the same time, though. I always liked classes and weapons that utilized martial arts or bare-handed fighting in their gameplan. It's a unique way of handling the traditional swords and magic (or guns, Fallout has unarmed skills too) you come to find in these types of games by kind of tossing both out the window. No swords, just your bare strength- no magic, but the Ki in your soul. But in reality, what you get is a really boring questline and some okay feeling combat.
It did kinda worry me that Dark Knight was considered the best job sidequest by a wide margin when looking into it- mostly because I wasn't sure if this meant there'd be this wide gap in quality between that and the rest of the jobs. Not sure how consistent of a given that is just yet, but as it stands for Monk, I never really wanted to know what the Monk dude was up to or what's up with the rivalling tribes or whatever.
Also while I do like the new mechanics introduced for Monk in Stormblood, there was a part of me that just wants Monks to have a more interesting energy to them- Lyse being the closest thing to a Monk in the main cast is maybe the worst example you could produce. I dug the pugilist storyline enough, and at first I kinda understood what the ARR Monk arc was going for- I just wish it went more into a spiritual or a more personal direction.
Or you could just make your martial artist class storyline just be Kengan Ashura, that'd be sick. I don't care how involved and bizarre it'd be make the Monk storyline turn into a damn tournament arc with corrupt-business-conspiracy-superhuman-experimenting-nonsense and lemme learn moves that look like they'd break my bones just as much as they break my opponents'. They should give me a suplex like Sabin's- it doesn't need to take the enemy model off screen or anything- but I'd like some allusion that my Monk could just be like Sabin. Some Monk combos should almost look like Bogartian power geysers- Monk abilties that almost feel as good as God Hand roulette attacks- maybe even just give me a BM 'Taunt' ability like im Kiryu.
Hell, give me Asura's 6 arms- why not!
I don't literally need Star Platinum behind my back, but if I had an attack where the animation were my PC holding a stance and an outburst of flying fists came from the side, creating an illusion that I'm just rapidly firing blows from nowhere, I'd think "Monks're really cool!"- instead its some neat acrobatics and whatnot but, not really what I had in mind. You get some neat supermoves in the new 'Master Gauge’ mechanic in Stormblood, it just requires a lot more I guess I wouldn't mind so much but I do like a lot of the Monks that appear in the standard FF games up to the point that I've played. Sabin, Tifa, Yang- hell I think the FFT Monks have more carnal moves early on- they get a damn Ki blast! (Looking over this before I post the review, forgot to mention how much I liked Matthew's playstyle in the most recent XB3 expansion. You can make non-action brawlers feel good!!)
I just wish Monks had a lot more going for them is all. It feels like the class should be flashier and more 'unga' -and maybe by the endgame of FF14 it gets neater moves, I don't know- but I was getting really bored playing Monk by this point (also Baldurs Gate 3s' monk up until Level 9), in terms of questline, moveset and . I could go further into how even non-action game move animations can go a long way, however I started talking about Pokemon and I felt like I should save that for later.

Sorry for the tangent I needed some outlet in which to spew this out, its been stuck in my head for a few weeks.

For what its worth I think this isn't a huge step down from Heavensward, and its just about as good on a lot of fronts, its just sandwiched between an incredibly slow beginning and parts of the end of the scenario. Much of what lies in between I think is a lot neater but anytime you have to traverse back to the Gry Abania map, it always feels a lot more monotonous of a task getting much of anything done. Glad that it's getting added along with HW in being free for new players, as I think this being the first paid content users had to go through for a while there might have been a bit of a mean joke.

Baldur's Gate 3
(Finished on 9/29/23)

Usually whenever I open up to the start of the year I don't entirely know what I'll be playing throughout the months to come. After all, there's a bunch of games that just drop on a dime with little to no warning nowadays. Usually I have about 5 games that are certain to come out and I just scrounge around and see what looks good as the months go by. Here, with Baldur's Gate, is a weird cross section between a game I had known about for sometime but didn't think about how it was fully releasing this year nor did I really think I'd be getting my hands into it. Lo and behold I begin correspondence with someone for a few months and they, on top of a few podcasts, bring its release date up in conversation and suddenly the idea of getting it felt like a good opportunity. And here I thought I was gonna check out Starfield as my game for that August... shudder. My expectations were pretty moderate but I was pleased that the game offered a breadth of customizability and intrigue from the start, so as to keep me hooked and continuing to play. Prior to this I had played a couple of hours of Divinity II, longing for a DND experience without the need to set up or rely on everyones' schedules to align perfectly. While I enjoyed my time with D2OS, it didn't really get sucked in like I did here, probably in part to the overwhelming amount of discourse at the moment, but also the near immediate critical uproar upon release convinced me to start it up once it dropped and follow through in finishing it.

For my run I decided to play as a half-orc Monk, with the folk hero background. I had recalled one of only a few runs of TTRPG I'd ever played where my preferred class of Monk had just ran up to a first boss and ended up comboing a string of good dice rolls in one turn, tearing the fiend in half. It felt glorious having my character ostensibly run up and style on a boss in a game that feels so magic heavy. I loved it! Here I was hoping to rekindle some energy of that and, as I'll explain later I got something a bit different than what I had in mind. Here we have the first and perhaps largest dissonance between the gamified ttrpg vs the tabletop-ified rpg(?). Imagination is a wonderful mechanic, so little effort and so little cost but it's hard to share the sentiment. I do wish I had chosen a different background as you soon meet another character in solo play that has the same Folk Hero background that I had. On the one hand this meant any chance to get 'Inspirations' as a folk hero meant I got two points just because I had Wyll in the party, but on the other hand it just didn't feel as unique.

Currently this game is receiving the utmost critical and commercial success, praise from all ends and its looking to be a lot of people's GOTY, including mine if we're not counting remasters (thanks Katamari) or expansions (thanks Xenoblade). While I feel this is a solid contender I did want to point out I think this is far from a perfect game and I do think there's a lot of ironing out that needs to be done, but what's presented is still a strong release for this year. I think the cast overall is incredibly fun, and you get more winners, at least in one aspect, than duds. I think the expressive ways to customize your characters both original and the builds you can do with your party members can lead to interesting builds. The ease in which you can recustomize and rebuild your party is very appreciated, and I took advantage of it pretty early on (went way of the four elements and switched quickly to Way of the Open Hand, good change). The game looks really nice and you get to see a lot of really neat locales throughout your journey (although I never did go back and check out the githyanki creche area). The amount of detail put into 95% of the game's interactions is stunning to say the least and several times I was glad to see the game took account of certain actions I had taken several play sessions prior. I was always glad to see my character's backstory, race or class have unique dialogue and it even helped me gain access a few times. The amount of details regarding every element of the environment during battles is staggering, with many details probably still not found or well known yet.

I think the idea of relationships with your party is pretty fun overall and I think the game does an alright job fleshing out your characters throughout the adventure. It’s a bit hard to judge at the moment as I’ve only really experienced one and maybe a half relationships the game allowed. Sorry to say I went basic mode and romanced Shadowheart, however I did find her questline to be the most intriguing. I did NOT have sex at all during the act 1 party however the rest of the relationship progressed pretty naturally. Only slightly odd given how fast certain characters’ approval will max out compared to the ‘questline’ requirements needed to progress romances forward. Just a weird disconnect I had with the games’ romance system.

It’s also very weird just how seemingly flexible much of the party relationships can be, on the one hand I can understand the going ons behind the machine -to a certain extent- but then I read up on other people's experiences regarding certain variables or understandings of certain characters that differed from mine and I tilted my head a bit. I kept seeing impressions of Shadowheart being someone that strictly preferred a more monogamous relationship, yet late in the game when asked by Halsin if I wished to pursue anything romantic I kinda humored him and said 'yeah lemme ask shadowheart', I saved my game just in case something went awry, but when I asked she seemed to have been easygoing about the idea, even kinda curious. I was floored! Here I was extremely late into the game, pretty deep into the SH relationship and maybe I had maintained such a healthy understanding of each other that she was supportive of me humoring Halsin as a bit.

What I will say is i think the usage of the whole "X approves!" mechanic can look really stupid in certain situations. It didn't bother me too much but on occasion an event would play out that would just tilt my head as to why certain acts would proc a disapprove. In one instance, my team was coming up on an assisination in progress- our culprit monologuing to his paralyzed victim, blade to the epidermis of their neck. Before the assassin can finish the deed I was given three options :
1)<Monk> Something, something i cant remember but you reveal yourself
2)<Stealth> Keep to the shadows…
3) <Half Orc> You're a coward.
Picking the 2nd option gains disapproval from Karlach and Wyll -both of whom were present in my party- seemingly because my option just wasn't...bombastic enough? These points end up being minor in the long run but I had Machiavelli over my shoulder throughout some of these encounters considering how petty some of these disapprovals might be. Astarion disapproving of certain acts feels a bit more natural, he's a pompous silver tongued rogue so trying to act high and mighty runs counter to his desire to. But what, does sneaking up on someone just bore Karlach that much? Does Wyll need me to announce my presence to every meddler in tow? This guy has dimension door shoes! We need to catch him off guard!!

Alright I will say this game was already battings pretty high and I was pretty elated throughout most of it, but there was always one thing nagging over the back of my shoulder and I was never sure what- but after 120 hours I think it's fine to materialize that complaint:
I don't know if I like the combat system. Or if its just hiccups regarding 5E in general. or if its just Act 3 fights that are hammering this nail into my head. Man I don’t know, I just got really tired of fights by the end of this game.
Throughout the game I felt kinda rude doing this, but I figured I should compare its moment to moment gameplay with that of Fallout New Vegas and Disco Elysium, two of my and assuredly many others favorite WRPGs. What I lack in what feels like some petty originality I'll try and make up for in some form of critical comparison, if you may forgive me. One of the things I appreciated most about both of these games is its consistent and in games like Fallout New Vegas, almost insistent chance to try and talk your way out of given combat encounters. If you've played FNV pretty thoroughly and are of a high enough level it feels almost impossible to not have maxed out one of the few skills needed to talk the legion out of invading the west. Maybe it decreases the stakes or the dramatic tension that you can talk down a guy just by saying his trade lines are gonna be fucked if he expands territory any more than he already has, but to me I think its a fitting way to conclude a game that was already so talkative and so skill check intensive. Disco runs a more similar path to Baldur's gate by having most of its skills be dice rolls altered by your boons and banes. The main difference is that Disco does an excellent job namely for having 0 combat outside of tense standoff moments. I think this also does a great job in characterizing our prenamed and predetermined character Harrier by having us, the player, feel like some kind of a trickster god in our failures and our insistence to keep failing- as there's very few ways to truly 'lose' in Disco Elysium. Most outs in DE involve you deliberately choosing options that might cause your self destruction. Hell even in events with constant health or morale hits you can continue to spam your medicines mid-dialogue just to keep yourself as alive as necessary. What I'm trying to get at here is that whenever I am in combat in this game I feel less like a tactician or a player character or even some god and more like I've been dragged along by whatever the game's predetermined choices have in store, and unlike FNV where I feel as thought the game offers a variety of outs for major fights, there's a lot of times the game wants it to be this epic battle of varying satisfaction; and unlike Disco Elysium there's a very real chance to die often, these dice rolls mean everything and you just have to live with whatever the dice give you. While I don't think the dice do a bad job at giving you a fair fight, it is very easy to get frustrated whenever you have a good shot at targeting something and just end up whiffing it.
It reminds me a lot of fire emblem (I say this to myself a lot whenever I play a video game, I hope I never say this again in a game that isnt fire emblem or fire emblem adjacent, please message me if I betray my wishes in future reviews)
Overall I think the combat is completely manageable and there's a lot more interesting encounters in the first two acts. However, I can't help but think that the third act really drops the ball in a lot of these encounters. There's not 1 nor 2 but 3 different encounters that have the same build up, descending into a circular arena where the boss is surrounded by cronies (maybe a 4th i haven't done every 3rd act sidequest). These fights range in difficulty but when they get bad- man did I wanna throw something.

(Sorry the next few paragraphs are just me ranting about certain encounters maybe you had an easier time with these, Orin bugged on my run but I know others had a way worse time with her)

The worst in my case was Viconia, namely because there's just 20 other dudes surrounding you. This is the main thing that frustrated me about a lot of the late game encounters, it just felt like there were so many encounters where the main difficulty was that you had to deal with a group of enemies if not 4 times your squad size, than only somewhat smaller but with more 'elite' opponents that are harder to handle or have a lot of spells at their disposal. Not helped that it feels like good dungeon design would ask that you deal with certain smaller encounters that prep you as to what's to come, maybe have enemies that mostly deal with Necrotic damage to let you know hey you might want Necrotic resistance. They actually do this a few times like when you're about to fight Orin or Gortash. In the - Viconia fight nah you get allowed in and dont have too much of an idea as to what she's capable of and will Blight one of your party members instantly, all the while you get drowned in a sea of darkness.
This and the Gondian questline where you have to sneak into the backroom of a factory and find plans regarding a submersible, but afaik you have no idea that there's supposed to be a clue about the questline back there? And if you head in normally you have to fight several guards, the gondian slaves and the last few mechs roaming around? And if you do get to that submersible you have to go on a rescue mission where you have 4 turns to rescue several hostages (rest in peace duke ravengard I didn't care, sorry Wyll), go back to the factory and then deal with the same enemies one last time but the Gondians now rebel against the masters and are....useful 10% of the time. Hell, most NPCs in this game are only good half the time aside from a few recurring characters. For the most part this wouldn't be too bad but this encounter got really obnoxious as the higher ups in this fight will begin activating signals that detonate the collars around the slaves' necks both in this room and for anyone that was working in the room prior. This got to be pretty obnoxious in any case where the Gondians DID decide to be useful and attacked these higher ups but were so far away that none of my allies could get over to the signal uninterrupted before the signal went off (that or the staircase got so crowded my member literally couldn't reach it).

This is how a lot of the fights in the last act feel, not literally but there's always just 1 aspect that complicates things for the worst and I just wonder why all of these were lined up in the last 10% of the game. For comparison, Act 2 had a pretty interesting build up as there's three major fights in the town outside the Moonrise Towers, each of which had their own manner of fighting but also their own way to beat them through skill checks. It's fun! I'll admit to cheesing the tollmaster a bit as she was my last, but I did fight and lose to Thisobold (the bartender) and I naturally beat the surgeon- mostly because I accidentally started the encounter as Astarion and had a way better persuasion proficiency. The second of this group, Thisobald is probably my favorite encounter in the game, both as a fight and as a gauntlet of several skill checks. Just a few rounds of drinks and maybe a few constitution saves and I made the dude kill himself.

Lastly I did wanna just touch on some general QoL stuff that I ran into that I think could be easily fixed/touched up on now that games are just living things now so I didn't wanna hark too much on these points.

-Namely I wish it was easier to manage your members back at the camp- it got incredibly tedious switching between two party members throughout the later half of the game. For a large part of the game I had Astarion/Karlach/Shadowheart on deck but rarely took any of them out until the end of Act 2 when I was told to put Wyll back in for one section. He had been severely neglected for most of the game so he got back 5 levels or so and seeing that massive upgrade I was able to understand what tools in his kit to focus on, making him a much more potent fighter in one sweep than whatever stealth build I was trying to mold. So, I kept Wyll on for my main team. However! Astarion is hands down the best lockpicker, and this game loves give you locks to pick, well above the usual 20. Act 3 is also the point in the game where combat becomes MUCH more frequent and large scale. Act 3 constantly had me going back to camp, talking to Wyll, going to Astarion, unlocking something that seemed important, going back to camp talking to Astarion, and then re-talking to Wyll to get him back and each time I just thought "why can't I just do this from the main map"

-Also why can you just attack empty spaces? I guess if you wanna be a hot shot and guess where invisible enemies are, the game will allow it but I was always pretty frustrated whenever I clicked around an enemy too fast and clicked on an empty space a foot away from them to attack.

-Would it kill for maybe a few more levels? I hit level cap way earlier than I’d like.

-Why does Act 1 not end at the Grove party? Why does it persist into the whole Underdark area? Act 2 feels way shorter than 1 or 3.

-I also don't know what the weird missing exp issue is? It's hard to explain but the game keeps track of what I guess is 'lost' exp as a result of either a party member dying or not being present in the party to gain the exp from quests, kills etc. However because of this you might have party members in your party throughout the entire game (I basically just kept Karlach and Shadowheart on deck since getting them) with way less exp than others. To remedy this you just tell them to leave the team for a minute and when you ask them to come back, they regain that exp. Thankfully it's that simple but it was such a weird thing to encounter.

These aren’t the biggest of issues and hell some of these might be fixed over time or hell! maybe its something i missed! I was gonna complain about how there’s no multi select in the inventory but it was shift click the entire time. Sometimes I’m just stupid.

Baldur's Gate 3 is an excellent showcase to Larian's commitment and critical eye as to how to make a wrp 'video' g as similar to a real game of '5e DND' as it can get, while having the presentation to boot and the gameplay fine tuned throughout. It's an easy recommendation but I did have some hangups by the end of the game that kept it from becoming an all-timer like some of my other favorite WRPGs. Maybe with time and a more focused build I can fully indulge myself in what the game has again, but by the end of my first playthrough I had drank what felt like twice than enough.