To think that I put off playing this game for years... I'm really glad I finally got around to play it though, because Xenoblade Chronicles might be one of the best JRPGs I've ever played.

First of all, one of the things I liked the most about this game was its world. Xenoblade takes place in a world of endless ocean where the only pieces of land are two giant dead titans, one made of metal, Mechonis, and one made of biological material, Bionis, the latter being where our protagonists live. Other than finding that simply really cool, I also love how well it's integrated with the world design. When you walk around the game's world, you often can see and feel that you're standing on a absolutely gigantic being. This is also helped by the fact that, when exploring the Bionis, you can actually see the Mechonis in the distance as well as its sword piercing through the Bionis, which really puts everything into perspective. The world in itself is also really varied, I went through grassy plains, swamps, jungles, floating island and much more during my 60h journey (including the Future Connected DLC) and all of these zones were beautiful to look at and made the exploration that much better.

The story was also one of the main driving forces that kept me going forward during my playthrough. I thought the story was well paced all throughout and I was always looking forward to seeing would happen next. The main cast of characters also enhanced the story with how charming they all were. Even Riki, the comic relief character of the group had some sweet, wholesome and serious moments that fleshed out his character and relationship with the others in the group. I liked everyone from the main cast even though some, especially Sharla, got side lined during most of the story. The ending, without going into too much details was really good, epic and made me smile.

In terms of gameplay, after taking some time to get used to it, I had a lot of fun with Xenoblade Chronicles' combat. Having to position your character correctly do deal more dmg or inflict some special effect on an enemy made for a fun experience. It was also really satisfying to pull off devastating chain attacks. It can get pretty repetitive after a while, especially if you play the same character for most of the game, like me, but if it becomes a real problem, every party member is playable and seems to have a pretty different playstyle that can keep things fresh. I personally found myself trying out Melia during the future redeemed and had a pretty good time with her after figuring out how to use her mage-like abilities. I also appreciate how levels really matter and can drastically change how an encounter goes, since it really gave me a feeling of growth during my playthrough.

For the side quest, I'm a bit more mixed on the subject. While I didn't dislike them, per say, I also didn't find them that interesting. They were fine for the most part, but they were pretty much all fetch quests that needed me to kill a certain number of monsters or collecting a certain amount of materials. It was pretty fun to complete these quest while going to my next main mission objective, since most of them auto-complete without needing to go back to the quest giver. I appreciate the fact that you don't NEED to complete a large amount of these side quests to progress relatively easily through the game, but I feel like the absolutely HUGE quantity of them must be a nightmare for any completionist trying to 100% the game.

What made completing side quest more enjoyable, while also adding to the story and overall gameplay, was the music. Xenoblade Chronicles has an amazing soundtrack that really surprised me. Be it with a soft overworld music during the night time, or an absolute banger of a music theme like You will know our names, almost every track in the game got me bopping my head around with a smile.

In conclusion, I think that Xenoblade is gonna be one of those games that stay with me for a long time. I'm an absolute sucker for huge RPGs with expansive stories and world and Xenoblade Chronicles absolutely delivered on that front. I really look forward to playing the other games in the series !

Sekiro was not as similar to the average souls-like experience from From Software as I initially expected but I still had a lot of fun with it.

First of all, I want to say that the game is absolutely BEAUTIFUL. It was even more striking to me since I recently went through Dark Souls III and even if it's a beautiful game in its own right, it was a bit lacking in colour. So coming from this game to Sekiro was a real shock. The game is full of pretty and vivid colours and, as always with From Software, the environments were really well designed and had some breath-taking views. My favorite zone, in term of visuals, was Fountainhead Palace with its beautiful sakura trees and huge waterfalls all around the map. From Software never fails to deliver huge and gorgeous environment and it's especially true with this game.

Even though the game is beautiful, the real meat of the game comes from its gameplay. It took me a little while to get used to parrying instead of dodging like I usually do in Souls games, but after that it became really satisfying deflecting enemy attacks with almost perfect timing. Our main character has a moveset that I found just fast enough for me and more varied than I anticipated with all the prosthetic arm upgrades and combat arts you can unlock. Altough, I have to say that, since I missed one or two prosthetic arm during my playthrough, I was locked out of almost all of the upgrades in the prosthetic arm upgrade tree, which I found really annoying since I did not get to fully interact with the system. Other than that, gameplay was really solid and fun for the most part.

In terms of Bosses, the game has a pretty solid cast of main bosses, and a lot of mini bosses, with some of the latter being more annoying to fight than most. The last boss, Isshin, is easily the highlight of the game with how good and especially how difficult it is for the average player like me. Having to beat another boss right before him was really annoying for me though, because I was trying to learn Isshin's pattern and it felt like I was taken out of it when I had to fight Ganechiro before him every time. Ganechiro by himself and Owl were also some really fun and pretty challenging bosses that I enjoyed fighting. One boss that I ended up skipping was the Demon of hatred, even if I liked how it reminded me of Dark Souls, fighting him was a pain, he had way too much HP for my liking and he had 3 whole phases, thankfully he was optional. Almost every boss fight felt really fair and I really liked how it played a bit like a "dance" or even a rhythm game.

Story-wise, I was surprised by the fact that I could understand, at least a little, what was going on, unlike my average experience with Elden Ring and DS3. Story felt like it was a bit more at the forefront in this game and I quite liked it, the little pieces of lore I found were interesting and I enjoyed going through the main story.

Overall, Sekiro was a great experience and I'm glad I played through it.

It's almost mind blowing to see that Ubisoft actually made a good game in 2024.
Jokes aside, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is a well made and pretty fun Metroidvania.

Strongest aspect of the game for me was the gameplay, and more specifically the general feel of the character. Sargon just feels so smooth, for lack of a better term, I really had full control on his movement, even in the air. The general feeling of gameplay is also enhanced by the really well made animations for the protagonist. I also thought that the combat was a lot of fun. Being able to, and also encouraged by the game, to combo enemies in the air, and even being able to extend the aerial combos by shooting with a bow, was amazing and reminded me of Devil May Cry in a way.

The abilities we unlock while progress through the game were fun and sometimes pretty original. Some of these were a bit more standard, like an aerial dash and graplin hook, but they were still fun to use ! Other abilities like setting up a point where you can teleport back to and a bow that could turn into a chakram were really original, well at least to me, and spiced things up a bit for someone who played a fair amount of metroidvanias like me. The only ability I found underwhelming, was the ability to switch dimensions, which sounds cool but is actually just a way to make platforms and obstacles appear and disappear.

Exploration was fun, but I have to admit that towards the end, I was getting a bit tired of finding a hidden area only for it to have crystals, which were of almost no use to me at that point. There was a lot of variety in environment and the art direction was pretty solid so it was always fun to discover a new area.

I didn't care much for the story, but it might be important to add that this is my first prince of persia game so it might have to do with that. Other than that, the acting was pretty nice, although there were some moments were the line delivery wasn't as impactful as it could've been, but, in the end, it's not really what I played this game for.

One thing that I found odd was the overall lack of music throughout the game. Don't get me wrong, there's some really good tracks in there, but a lot of the time the game was weirdly quiet, which feels really weird since metroidvanias are generally full of iconic and nice OSTs.

In conclusion, I had a great time with this Prince of Persia game. I really hope Ubisoft will continue making smaller and more focused gaming experiences like this one !

Dark Souls III was an absolute blast !

For context, I did play this years ago, but I was really bad, got stuck at Abyss Watchers and gave up. Since then, I played through Elden Ring and absolutely loved it. I recently went back to ER to beat Malenia since I was really hyped for the DLC. I still had a From soft/souls-like craving so I decided to try Dark Souls III once more.

Dark Souls III feels really good to play. It's very similar to Elden Ring, missing some features like jump attacks, but it's still really good. The character movement is butter smooth and every attack feels really satisfying to hit. The sheer variety of weapons and builds you can use is also really impressive. I ended up going with twin blades and it felt really fast and strong.

The art direction of the game is also nothing short of amazing. The biggest highlight in term of art direction and scenery is easily Irithyll of the boreal valley, the architecture and grandeur of everything in the city is just jaw dropping and I also like the abundance of blue in the zone being a nice change of pace. The other best looking zone for me was the Ringed City from the DLC, simply beautiful, and looks absolutely huge. Some places were not as good looking though, like all the swamps in the game and the catacombs of Carthus that were my least favorite areas of the game.

The game's level design is also really good, unlocking shortcuts is satisfying and the run back to every boss is usually not too bad, even though I prefer Elden ring's placement of respawn points. Exploration was also a big highlight for me. It felt so rewarding exploring every areas of the game and sometime finding cool weapons, armors and sometimes whole different secret and optional area. Finding a dark and twisted version of the shrine by randomly exploring was a big highlight for me, especially since it allowed me to unlock another ending !

Speaking of bosses, the first few bosses of the game felt pretty underwhelming and were not the most fun to fight, but the game quicky picks up. Dark Souls III has a some really great bosses, especially towards the end. Lothric, dancer of the boreal valley, Pontiff and the souls of cinder were probably my favorite bosses from the main game. They were not that hard, but still challenging, for me at least maybe because of my recent experience with Elden Ring or my build, but they were really fun. they felt like a dance and were for the most part really fair.

The part of the game I have way more mixed feelings towards is DLC. Both DLCs have absolutely beautiful and stunning areas for the player to explore, the problem being that exploring them were, for the most part, straight up not fun to explore and traverse. Indeed, each areas were filled with enemies that were really annoying to deal with, they had either to much HPs, too much damage or an annoying move set, and they often had all 3 of these problems. So all of this eventually made me run past everything in search of bonefires, a key item, or a boss which is a shame because I think exploration is one of the best aspect of the game and usually feels really rewarding. Running past everything and picking items so fast that I'm not even sure of what I picked up felt really unrewarding. The biggest redeeming quality of these DLCs are the amazing bosses they hold. Sister Frieder can be a bit annoying with her 3 phases, but the fight was probably the most challenging for me and I found it pretty fun. The demon prince was also pretty cool, starting up as a duo boss and then fighting a giant demon was pretty awesome. The best boss, though, is hands down Gael, and he's not only the best boss of the DLCs but probably of the whole game. The fight against him felt so epic and his moveset was so fun to fight against. His 3 different phases were all really fair and the most fun "dance" of the game.

In the end, even though the DLC left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, I really loved Dark Souls III. When I first played it years ago, I just assumed that the game wasn't for me, but now I think I understand why people love these games so much. I might not like it more than Elden Ring, but i'm really glad I finished it and I'm now really interested to try From Software's other gems.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a pretty good time ! I don't know if I'd say it reaches the same height as the first game, but it certainly is a worthy and fun sequel, well, prequel.

As an immersive sim, the game does a pretty good job giving a lot of freedom of choice to the player. There's a lot of different paths and ways to get to the objective of almost all missions and exploration still feels rewarding. Although, I will say that I feel like the game encourages a bit too much the non lethal playstyle with the XP system compared to all other approach, which is a shame since the all the gadgets available to the players are pretty cool. Gunplay is vastly improved compared to previous instalments but isn't anything crazy either, it's alright. Overall, it felt really satisfying sneaking around and finding ways to take out my enemies non-lethally without being detected, finding some hidden passages or hacking my way through missions.

The story of Human Revolution is pretty cool, the theme of transhumanism is an interesting one, especially as a fan of cyberpunk. I didn't find the story as interesting and thought provoking as the first Deus Ex, but it was still a good time and got me thinking a couple of time. The ending is a bit abrupt in my opinion but the choices given to you at the end reminded me of the first entry in the franchise and was also a pretty though call to make ! The characters are pretty good but could've use some more development, depth. I especially would've like to see a bit more of Adam Jensen, the game's protagonist, inner struggles and things like that.

I also came to learn that the Director's Cut directly and seamlessly includes a DLC into the game's main campaign. Playing through it at first, it did felt a bit disconnected from the rest of the game but it still was a good time, the story it added was nice, The worst part of the DLC mission is that it resets your character's skill tree, which I found really annoying since I felt it really slowed things down in the beginning. It also kinda dragged on towards the end of the mission.

Visually the game still looks alright, except for pretty much all the characters' model that aren't Jensen. Detroit and Shanghai, especially, looked really cool and nailed the futuristic vibe of the game.

In the end, I liked my time with the game. Going through the Deus Ex franchise is a really fun experience and I'm excited to see what Mankind Divided has in store for me.

Deus Ex was surprisingly good !

It's easy to judge the game by its dated visuals, I mean the game is literally older than me, but in recent years, I grew to love these older graphics, and even find them really charming. It's also just pretty funny to see these old NPC models and rough animations. And even if it's not graphically outstanding, the game still manages to nail the atmosphere, mainly thanks to its amazing OST.

I can't talk about my experience with the game without talking about all the memes surrounding it. They're pretty much the reason why I know about the game in the first place. Actually seeing the context behind some of JC Denton's iconic voice lines and actually getting to hear them in game was really amusing and cool for me. Speaking of voice lines, the voice acting in this game could be described as "pretty mediocre"' or even bad, but I don't care, I love it and it's amazing, it's both funny and charming.

One of Deus Ex's biggest flaw but also it's biggest strength is its gameplay. I say this because the shooting is genuinely bad, you can tell that the game was made in the early years of first person shooters. The way the game handles accuracy is really weird and made some weapons pretty much unusable for me after a while (looking at you, pistol). But Deus Ex's gameplay still manages to shine with how much freedom it gives to the player. After playing the game, I can really see just how influential this game must have been for the immersive sim genre as a whole. There's so many different ways to approach every missions with a nice amount of different builds. For example, you could go non-lethal, using stealth and implants such as an invisibility cloak, a taser to stun enemies and using hacking/lockpicking to get around, or you could go all in with a build focused on melee, guns or/and explosives to destroy everything in your path. All of these options are valid and make for a very replayable experience, and an all around good immersive sim.

I also really liked the story. I was initially scared that the themes and politics of the game would go over my head (to be honest, some of it probably did) and that I wouldn't get the narrative of the game, but I was pleasantly surprised. Deus Ex has a really interesting narrative with a lot of twists (that were probably less obvious back when it released) and a lot of interesting themes. I also liked how at the end, you're left with 3 choices for an ending, with none of them being totally good, it made me think for a good moment, and it's bound to stay with me for a while. The characters aren't the most memorable, but JC Denton certainly manages to be an iconic protagonist with his one-liners and funny line delivery.

In the end, I'm really glad I got to experience this immersive sim classic, and I'm pretty excited to, one day, get to Human Revolution and Mankind Divided.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon was actually the first game of the Yakuza series I finished. I did try Yakuza 0 for a few hours, but dropped it, in part because of its gameplay that wasn't really doing it for me, at the time. I'm really happy that I tried this one despite not getting into 0, because this game is spectacular and I absolutely loved it. I might even try Yakuza 0 again after this.

What made me interested in this game, in the first place was its combat, since it was different from the rest of the series, and I'm a fan of turn-based combat. The combat in this game is pretty fun, but it has some flaws. The main issue is that it's weirdly balanced. The game starts out way too easy, and when you get to chapter 12, the difficulty suddenly spikes and you need to grind for levels. Past this point, the bosses have a bit too much HP, in my opinion, and it can take a pretty long time to defeat them, time that is spent almost always spamming the same attacks and healing when necessary. What carries the combat is mainly the animations, they're really fun to watch and full of charm, especially all the "ultimate abilities" and summons. Having to time button presses to deal more damage and block incoming attacks is also pretty neat and makes combat more engaging, reminds me of Sea of Stars since I played it pretty recently. In brief, the combat is, in itself, good, but needs some tweaking to really hit right for me, which is apparently fixed in the most recent entry.

While the game is a "classic" JRPG in itself, I really liked what it did with the genre to twist it in a modern and semi realistic setting. For example, I find it so creative how ice magic is actually using cold alcohol to make the enemies drunk or catch a cold, or how the class/job system literally works by switching actual jobs, like foreman, musician or cook. Using Ichiban's imagination and love of Dragon Quest as an excuse to make everything more crazy and similar to a classic JRPG is also a genius idea and I loved seeing all the silly things Ichiban Kasuga made up.

I really loved the main cast of Like a Dragon, they were just so likeable. Ichiban is easily my favourite and makes for an excellent protagonist, you just CAN'T hate him. His voice actor, for the English dub, is also really good and does an amazing job, especially in more emotional scenes, to the point of almost making me tear up at the end. I really loved how the game justifies all the RPG elements and visuals with Ichiban being a big fan of Dragon Quest, I thought it was pretty funny and charming. I liked every member in the party, Adachi being my second favourite, I do wish that Zhao and Joon-gi Han got a little more screen time in the party, since they arrive pretty late in the story, but I still liked them for what they were. Eri is easily my least favourite and I'll say that it's pretty funny how poorly integrated into the party she is . Eri is optional, you need to advance in the business management sim to unlock her as a party member and the game does not acknowledge her even a little bit during the game as a party member, the only exception being the small dialogues that pops up when wandering in the city. Speaking of which, I liked all the banter that the party members had in these short interaction, it did a good job of making them feel a bit more alive and interesting, while also fleshing them out a bit.

Visually and on a technical level, the game might not be anything special, but it also manages to do so much with what it has. Sometimes, and especially during side-stories, the animations are so janky that's it's funny, and, on the other side, the cinematics during story moments and special attacks are just so well made and fun to watch that the contrast is pretty funny to see. I just wished that dialogues during side stories were a bit more animated, because even though they're pretty fun to go through and full of charm, it gets a bit boring reading all the, non-voiced, dialogue when all the characters do is stand and stare at each other.

What impresses me with this game, and I learned that the whole series is pretty much like this, is how silly this game is while also being serious. One moment, I was watching one of the most emotional and serious moment of the game during the main story, and right after, I would be doing karaoke, driving in a kart racing mini game, going a side mission to save a lobster from being eating and all sorts of hilarious and fun shenanigans. It's really amazing to see how much fun the devs must have had when making the game and it's a blast to experience.

The side content of Yakuza: Like a Dragon is also really entertaining. The sub-stories, while really simple and kinda repetitive in their structure, where fun and interesting. The absurd amount of mini games present in the game is also a big highlight. The business management sim, by itself, consumed a couple of hours of my total playtime.

The main story of the game was really good, It certainly had its slow moments, but even then, they were pretty enjoyable since I liked seeing more of the main cast. The few last chapters are really what did it of me though. These last chapters were just so good on every level, the cinematics where awesome, the twists and turns the story took were really captivating and it all led to a simply phenomenal finale that made me tear up.

After playing Yakuza: Like a Dragon, I now understand what makes this series so special and why it has such a cult following. It's really something unique, funny, while also serious and emotional. I'm really excited to play more game from this franchise and see where it leads me.

Alan Wake II was an amazing experience.

First of all, this game absolutely nails atmosphere, especially in the Dark Place. Moving around a dark and weird version of New York while hearing voices whispering "Wake" and some of Alan's writing really adds a lot of tension and spookiness to the experience. Even when you're in the real world, the atmosphere is still pretty spooky. Even in broad daylight, they manage to keep you on your toes with some weird noises and keep the environment around you relatively dark. One really good example that comes to mind is the Coffee World amusement park, you spend the whole time in this area walking around a relatively dark and decrepit area while hearing this creepy amusement park song that echoes throughout all the zone, it really made for a spooky and immersive experience. The game does like to "jump scare" you quite often thought and even if it got me quite good a few times and added to the tension of some scenes, I feel like they were a bit too much jump scares at times.

Second of all, I really liked the gameplay in this one, a huge improvement over the first game. This is my second survival horror game (or third if you count the first Alan Wake) and I must say that I really enjoy the resource management aspect of the genre. Having to carefully manage your inventory and your ammos while also trying not to panic and waste a ton of bullets as multiple enemies come at you when you least expect it is great. The shooting feels good, I also liked the variety in weapons, well at least when playing Saga Anderson in the "real" world, I especially liked her crossbow. Most of the weapons upgrade seemed pretty significant, except for the handgun, in my opinion.
The only problems I had with the gameplay-side of the game was that I was often tempted to avoid enemies because of the small amount of batteries, which I believe are necessary to fight most enemies, I was finding. My other problem was with the exploration, more specifically, backtracking, since movement is pretty slow, which makes sense in a game like this, back tracking for the missing collectible/ cult stashes felt pretty annoying. Add to that the fact that enemies respawn and I felt pretty discouraged to go back and explore at times. At least, the map were small enough that it made all of that less annoying, and some shortcuts helped with the backtracking.

The whole mind place and writer's room gimmick was also something I thought was pretty neat. I liked doing all the detective-style investigating with Saga's investigation board, linking evidences together to try to understand what was happening and what my next move was. The mind place in itself was also pretty cozy, especially compared to the environment you go through in the rest of the game. On the other hand, Wake's writer room felt really isolating and creepy, really fitting of the dark place where Alan's trapped. The writer's room gimmick of being able to change the player's environment by finding "inspiration" for Alan to write new things into existence is also really cool. It was fun seeing all the different variations of the same place there was and all the little details it changed.

Graphically, the game looks really good, even on medium setting, although I wished it run a bit better on my pc. At least, the game was running fine on medium preset settings with balanced DLSS. There's a lot of detail in all of the different locations you visit and the art direction is simply phenomenal. The Dark Place looks so cool, weird and eery I just loved looking around while I was there.

The music is absolutely one of the biggest highlights of this game for me. Every part of the game with songs from the Old Gods of Asgard is just so memorable and fun. You can feel all the passion and love the developers put into the game. The whole Herald of Darkness segment with the live action musical is just so charming and funny, especially since it contrasts so hard with the general vibe of the game. My favourite Old Gods of Asgard song from this game is probably Dark Ocean Summoning and the whole sequence that comes with it is just so cool and fun. Fighting hordes of Taken on the stormy beach, trying to bring back Alan Wake to fix everything while the song plays in the background, with lyrics that match what was happening feels really epic and simply just cool. The chapter songs that played when finishing a chapter were also amazing, my favourite being Wide Awake. Having all the songs' lyrics somewhat match what was currently going on in the story is such a neat detail that really adds to the whole experience.

Story-wise, Alan Wake II blew me away. I was captivated during my whole playthrough, I was reading every manuscript pages, FBC files or other pieces of lore I could find to try to understand a bit more of the world and story of the game. It certainly helped that I played Control and the first Alan Wake before this game, I probably would've been a lot more confused if I hadn't. The game sure knows how to confuse the player but a the same time make them think. I always had at least two different theories on what was happening and what was going to happen, it was a ton of fun seeing when I was right or when I was totally wrong.
Having the choice to play Alan Wake's story or Saga Anderson's story in whatever order your chose after a certain point was also really cool and made for a really unique and captivating narrative. Sometimes, some questions I had while playing as Saga were answered when playing as Wake and vice-versa, but more often than not, even more questions and theories popped up in my mind every time I switched characters and I really loved that.
The whole build up to the ending feels really epic and is really well made, but I will say that the normal ending of the game left me a bit "confused". I was thinking "is that it? that's how it ends?". At the same time I want to say that it was a pretty good idea to end with a bit of uncertainty though, because you'll be left wondering and thinking about the game and it will stay with you longer. I later saw that there was some sort of "true ending" when finishing the game in new game plus and since I was not planning on doing that anytime soon, I looked it up and I'll say that it does a better job of giving a proper conclusion to the game while still leaving the player curious to see what's next for Alan Wake.

To put it simply, Alan Wake II was a really unique and truly great game for me. Remedy Entertainment certainly knows how to make strange and charming games that'll stay with you long after you've beaten them and I'm excited to see what will come next from them.

I'm really confused about how I actually feel about this game. It's good, but it has its flaws.

I'll say that I didn't really beat the game, I beat the dragon, but I did not complete the remaining quests that come after. I feel like I had my fun with the game and, who knows, I might come back to it someday.

The best thing about Dragon's Dogma is easily its combat, and by far. It's a lot of fun. For me, it felt like a faster version of Monster Hunter's combat, in a way. I say this because you can climb on huge monsters and attack specific parts to break them or weaken the monster in some way. I mainly played as a rogue (strider) and a magick archer, it felt fast and it was really fun climbing on monsters and doing all sorts of acrobatic moves. Every vocation (class) in this game seems to feel really different from one another, and the fact that you can pretty much switch whenever you want in a playthrough is great. The movement also feels pretty good, especially for its time. It can be a bit clunky, sure, but I was surprised by how responsive it was most of the time. The controls when climbing a monster were a bit janky thought.

The pawn system was pretty interesting. I'm personally more a fan of fleshed out actual characters for companions, but the idea of a fully customisable companion that learned with you on your journey is pretty neat ! It was also pretty cool to be able to summon my friend's pawn, it gave a feeling of connectivity to the game even though it's single player.

Graphically, the game's fine, it's certainly not the prettiest game you'll ever see, but I didn't mind it, I thought it had some charm. The environment are a bit lacking in my opinion although. Indeed, the dungeons feel a bit uninspired in their design, and I personally didn't find the map in general to be really memorable.

My biggest problem with the game is probably its narrative and characters. I simply did not care for neither in this game. There were some moments that I thought were interesting, such as the witch who was originally a pawn "became human". But overall, every character is simply not interesting, I couldn't get myself to really care about any of them. The story in itself just takes way too long to really get going, it eventually gets more interesting, even if it still could be better, but it's overall pretty bland and nothing really happens for a good while. When I say that nothing happens, I really mean it, for a good while, the main quest consist of basically just going on random chores for the Duke until at some point you decide to face the dragon. This game also has some sort of romance or affinity system that's just not implemented at all. It certainly doesn't help having uninteresting characters for a romance to begin with, but it just feels so sudden and almost forced on the player when nearing the fight against the dragon. I will say though, that it was pretty funny to accidentally seduce the duke's wife in like 5 minutes. The game overall did make me laugh at times with its mediocre writing/dialogue, so I don't mind it as much as I would if it was just bad and unfunny.

The quests were also something I wasn't the biggest fan of in this game. It might have been partially because of the environment in which they took place in, which didn't stick out to me. Overall, I'd say that the quests in themselves are alright, I was just sometimes bored by fetch quest and running from point A to point B. Some quests could also be a bit clearer on how to complete them, and I learned a bit too late that some side quests are time sensitive.

Even though I seem to complain a lot, there was always something that brought me back each time. The game is overall okay, but it's also something special, something unique. The gameplay is really a ton of fun. Even if I didn't properly finished it, I'm glad I played Dragon's Dogma and I'm pretty excited to see how they improve the formula with the sequel !

I don't even know where to begin with this one. What an amazing RPG.

For context, I played the game in 2022 with a friend for a couple of hours but we eventually dropped it. I came back to the game and started a solo campaign in July 2023 because Baldur's Gate 3's imminent release made me want to give DOS2 another shot. I played up to around 3/4 of Act 2 until BG3 came out, I then dropped DOS2 to play BG. I wasn't sure if I would come back to DOS2 since it can be a bit hard for me to go back right in the middle of a huge RPG after some time away. But I did and I got back into the swing of things in no time, even after 4 months.

I was honestly really surprised by this game's narrative, but to be fair, I think my initial expectations where a bit low. Even then, the writing of the game is simply amazing and pretty funny ! Even though there is a lot of reading/dialogue in this game (I personally don't really mind game with a lot of reading or dialogue, and quite enjoy them, but I know it's not for everyone), almost all of it is voice acted, which made the whole thing a bit more "fun" to go through, The voice acting especially helped since there's not a lot of animations nor close ups for dialogue or story moments (except some of the major ones). I found the lore of the game's universe to be really interesting, I liked learning more about the races, their relations to one another and their culture as well as learning about the origin of the world and the gods.

The companions I had with me during the entirety of my playthrough were Fane, the Red Prince and Lohse. I liked all three of them, even if I thought that the Red Prince was initially the least interesting. I still liked seeing how he evolved throughout the story just like the other two, and I always enjoy some sass. I would've like to see more interactions between party members, or even just more dialogue between my character and my companions. At least Baldur's Gate 3 is a step in the right direction on this aspect. Each of these character's quests were pretty good and I especially liked their act 4 quests since they felt really different from each other and some even had their own unique environments, which I thought was neat. Fane and Lohse were definitely my favorites, their voice actors did an amazing job portraying them and gave these characters a lot of charm, their story and development were also really well written and fun to go through. Although I will say that the romance aspect of the game felt a bit tacked on and could've been fleshed out a lot more, it's not necessarily bad, but it could've been better (And it did become way better in Larian's most recent game)

All 4 acts of the game were really solid in my opinion. Act 3 is really short compared to all of the other, but it's honestly welcomed after going through the second, and by far the longest Act of the game. Some may also say that Act 4 could have more content, but honestly I think that after going through the 3 previous acts, I can appreciate the fact that it's not as massive as Act 2, because I think I would've been a bit tired or overwhelmed by even more content. And honestly Act 4 is still pretty beefy, probably comparable to the first act of the game. Speaking of which, the first is also a lot of fun to go through and honestly surprised me by the sheer amount of content it had despite the size of the map, and also when considering it's technically a "tutorial" or an introduction to the game. It may look like i'm complaining about Act 2's length, but it probably still is my favorite of the bunch, in part because of the sheer amount of content it has, and the fact that none of it feels like filler ! The town of Driftwood was a great hub with a lot of repeating NPCs' dialogue I could never forget even if I tried ("keeping it together Bree?"). It's also in this act that you go through the most growth and getting stronger felt really satisfying. Every act is a bit overwhelming at first, because you don't really know where to start, but every time I started going through them very naturally, the way the game is structured in a sort of non-linear way really helps.

Gameplay-wise, I think that DOS2's combat is a ton of fun. from the very beginning I had a lot of fun playing as a rogue and my mages got really strong as I found new spells for them. Fighter was probably the most underwhelming class of me, but I'm pretty sure it's mainly because I built it "wrong". The elemental and surface system really makes for a chaotic, but also strategic experience. Altough, I will say that the game was pretty difficult, for me at least. I played on normal and some encounters were really hard or annoying (the black pit fight with all the oil monsters comes to mind) and it could be a bit frustrating. However, it was surprisingly fun to cheese some of these annoying or hard encounters, and it never really felt like I was cheating because that's just how the game works, it just lets you break the rule and play how you want and I think that's really cool. What I also love about this game, just like BG3, is that every level matter. I'm used to games letting you level up to level 50, 80 or even higher, but each level isn't really that meaningful since the difference between each level is generally pretty small, but in this game, I was level 20 when I rolled the credits, and I did most of the side content, I believe. Every level up is really significant and makes you feel a lot stronger. The build variety present in this game is also really crazy, I personally went with a pretty simple party of a rogue, tank/fighter, Fire/earth mage and a water/air mage, but I've seen the sheer amount of crazy build you can do and it honestly seems like a ton of fun to try out, This is certainly one of the best turn based combat system I've ever experienced.

The one thing I liked the least about the game was the last boss/encounter. You have two choices right before the fight and depending on what you choose, you either make the final fight way too chaotic and hard (well at least in my case) or stupidly easy, which makes the ending a bit underwhelming.

The ending in itself was alright I'd say, nothing too crazy, but it was nice to talk one last time with my party and seeing some of the results of my choices and actions I've made throughout the game.

After coming back from Baldur's Gate 3, I honestly expected DOS2 to feel like a downgrade, but I was pleasantly surprised, the game is still phenomenal. Even if it doesn't have the nice and pretty cutscenes/dialogues of Larian's most recent game, the game manages to captivate me with its good writing and voice acting. The combat system, while similar, is its own thing which I enjoy just as much as BG3's adaptation of 5e DnD.

Graphically, I think the game looks beautiful, even to this day. It was made in the same engine as Baldur's Gate 3 and it shows. It may not be as heavily detailed and realistic looking as the latter, but I personally love how this game is stylised. The lighting is also really nice, nothing more to say on that front.

In conclusion, I think Divinity Original Sin II is probably one of my favorite RPGs (might be recency bias, we'll see). It really goes to show how much love and passion Larian Studios put into their games because they're really is nothing like these games. I had an absolute blast during my 100-ish hours with this gem.