The continuation of the game turned out even better and more exciting than the previous part.
Once again we return to the role of a powerful overlord and his army of loyal little demonic creatures. The game has even more satire, jokes, and dark humor. There are funny moments at almost every turn.
The game has become even more atmospheric and beautiful. The locations and scenery are stunningly beautiful and exciting when exploring new places. Winter locations, tropical jungles, fabulous underground caves, imperial palaces - everything looks just awesome!
The minion controls have remained almost unchanged, except that they now have separate squads of riders. Mounts are unique to each type of minion and have their own abilities. Minions also level up in battles and gradually become stronger. But now there is an opportunity to revive the deceased veteran in exchange for several newcomers. There are now even more elements of armor and weapons that servants can wear. But the appearance changes individually only in brown demons, as it was before.
The overlord itself looks even cooler and more epic than in the previous part. He has more options for armor and weapons. However, from the magical abilities, only lightning remained, which can be strengthened by magical catalysts. There is still an opportunity to absorb the life of one of the minions or throw it like a bomb charged with magical energy. Using magic, the overlord can also turn ordinary citizens into his servants. Thus, they become like obedient zombies, working and acquiring resources for you. Additionally, in some locations, the main character can inhabit his minions' bodies to enter previously inaccessible areas. Unlike the previous part, The Dark Tower is now located underground and looks even more sinister and epic. It can also be improved, which in turn gives certain bonuses. Now we can have as many as three favorites, one of which we can give preference to.
The plot has become even more global. The Empire, which is a parody of the Roman Empire, gradually took over the lands and captured almost all the fairy creatures, including the minions. The Overlord travels throughout the fairy tale world to find his minions, build a powerful army and deal a crushing blow to the Empire. Now we will be able to control a ship and take part in sea battles, fight in the arena against monsters, and capture and destroy entire cities. The game has choices on which the ending depends. The overlord now has a balance scale where he can choose a chaotic or more cold-blooded path.
The first part was a great game for its time. The second has become even better, more interesting, and more fun in almost every aspect.

This game is peak late 2000s edge rawkino ubersoul. Its an extremely fun superpowered open world game which, to this date, still feels fucking incredible to control. A decade+ later and this is still one of the best feeling open world games to just traverse and explore, with Alex's different mutated abilities, parkour and gliding allowing for seamless and really damn good feeling movement. Being able to just wallrun up damn near anything and the flow state presented from chaining jumps, airdashes and glides together is something that few open world games have ever really gotten close to, maybe only really Insomniac's Spider-Man has made open world movement feel as good.

The game is definitely a little rough around the edges though. Its a little buggy, some missions are definitely super rough, and the last two bosses suck mega ass, but the core gameplay experience of causing carnage is just super satisfying to the point of being able to carry the game through even its weakest moments.

What an insane improvement over base XCOM 2 man. While I have grown a begrudging respect for that version after playing it on Rookie difficulty, I still heavily dislike how it plays on Veteran and above. However, War of the Chosen rectifies most of my major flaws. The new classes help combat the insane difficulty curve (particularly the early game) and are generally fun to mess around with. Using combat AP instead of chance for new soldier upgrades was ingenious, and some of the new story missions are dope as hell. Actually being able to play on Veteran mode without wanting to kill myself was a huge bonus as well.

Some minor criticism regarding this specific version of XCOM 2 is that the Lost (while incredibly cool in the first few encounters) can become a bit tedious in later missions, and I'm not sure if adding resistance members to Terror missions was the right call; they end up taking up a lot of time just to deal chip damage.

The steam page of "Disco Elysium" flashes on your screen. You've heard things. Good things. Buying it doesn't support the developers though. You consider getting a key instead.

you scrape your fingernail on the cheap white plastic of your mouse. It's rough, scraping it is only slightly more pleasant than doing the same to a blackboard.

Its thirty four dollars. thirty four bennies. dollary doos. moolah. You run out of synonyms for money.

That's like five hamburgers. Maybe. You haven't eaten them in a while.

A sepentine voice whispers in your ear. "clickkk your mousssse"

The pointer on your screen hovers over the glowing Smaragdine "Add to Cart".

You've finally lost it. The voices in your inky black conscious have come out to play.

You feel the flesh on your index flatten, a short drop, then it stops.
"click"

The mouse slides across smooth fabric, and the feeling repeats.
"click"
"click"
"click"

You've opened it.
The screen is filled with watercolor paint, the rough strokes of a brush, a grungy city/town/place/area/thing , its layers moving, the blue sky, clouds lapping like waves in an ocean.
On its left, a black box with "NEW GAME" in it.

"click"
You have a feeling that you wont regret it.

Welcome to Revachol.

i really tried to see this one through, but i couldnt.
it was fun at first! but it quickly turned into me pushing myself to play for sake of completion rather than actual enjoyment
open world is hard to get right, and i just dont think botw put the pieces together to make it work. the side quests often felt meaningless and there wasnt ever really much reward for my exploration. every character i met felt really one-dimensional too, so i had no reason to actually care about them or the story
all in all, botw just felt really underwhelming compared to the hype around it and im really glad i borrowed a friends copy rather than shelling out 60 usd for my own

was hoping this would click with me more upon a replay but i think it fell even further in my favor instead. at least i feel better about the original game again in hindsight.

the open world and whether it was a fit for the game or not has been beaten to death as a topic at this point but i genuinely still can't understand why they bothered.

what we ended up with is an empty and confusing to navigate (both because of runner vision seeing a downgrade but also in terms of just overall readability of the environments with the samey color schemes and constant glass) that strings off into more traditional linear story based missions. the issue is most of said story missions were either rushed, not the best quality wise, or both at the same time. the big climax of the game consists of waiting for some elevators you're on top of to rise, climbing some elevator shafts, some shitty combat, and a lot of hands off gadget use more or less. it's almost as bad, if not worse than the combat gauntlet that the first title ended with.

skill rolls are for some reason locked behind a skill tree (not far into it but again, Why?) in addition to countless combat abilities and gadgets that help with your parkour abilities as if anyone ever liked the combat or the movement system wasn't great as is. the level of feature creep is astounding and probably came at the cost of god knows what else.

it isn't like the game is broken or whatever but i struggle to think of a sequel from at least the past decade or so that has been this off the mark. very sad.

Let's start with the negatives, because there’s a refreshingly small amount in Fallen Order. Besides a single element of the story I felt was rushed, there’s only one major drawback to speak of: the technical issues. Even after playing years after the release and with a brand new RTX 4070 the game had some pretty major frame rate and render hiccups. Kasshykk especially was downright horrendous at times in areas of high detail foliage or large amounts of enemies. It never broke or crashed the game but it definitely took the winds out of my sails at times, with it undercutting tense scenes or would-be epic battles. Luckily It got better in the later portions and planets but was never fully gone. Which is a shame, because ignoring that the game is gorgeous, responsive, and has the best lightsaber combat I’ve experienced thus far.

On that topic, let’s talk more about the combat. I can definitely see some Dark Souls influences all over it, with some added force powers as a bonus. However, parrying in Fallen Order is far better than dodging when you can help it. And I know they expand on the moveset in the second game, yet even just with what’s here I’m as giddy as I was back when I used to swing a broom around the backyard pretending I was a Jedi. Of course by back then I mean yesterday, but nevermind that. Being able to force push into a lightsaber throw into force pull into a double-bladed wombo combo was peak badassery. With every game that offers multiple movesets I always try to incorporate a decent variety. Both to play the game as intended and to experience all that it offers. Some games are better designed for varied combat, and others you learn very quickly to only rely on the fundamentals. With Fallen Order it fell thankfully and completely into the first camp. It never discouraged trying out new methods, and I loved testing the limits with each new encounter. And that’s with playing on Jedi Master difficulty, which is no cake-walk by any means.

Still, I enjoy a good challenge, and mastering Sifu was more than adequate as a prerequisite to feel confident in that choice. Just like Sifu, parry timing is key in this game, and I am grateful to have long ago honed that. And honestly, after finishing Fallen Order I actually think Jedi Master should be the default difficulty for everyone but the greenest gamers. The hit speed and damage felt like it perfectly struck that sweet spot of requiring you to slightly improve your timing with every new enemy and making hits something to avoid rather than shrug off. The health system was not quite what I expected, even so I dig it. Like many parts of the game it’s very RPG-like. I was really hoping for an ability to regain some health on special takedowns, but the replenishable stims and respawning enemies system worked just fine on their own. For one it makes grinding a breeze if that suits your playstyle, though this game doesn’t really ask that of you, and I did just fine getting nearly every ability by the end without doing that. It’s also good practice if you feel less confident facing certain enemies and need to run a fight back.

Besides the timing quirks the only other element to get down is when to use the double-blade and when to lock on. The game helps you with the former dilemma by straight up telling you how to use it, though I would caveat that the double sided blade can also be good for single enemies when they have a fast recovery or hit speed. For the latter question, generally it’s best to lock on when all enemies can be seen on screen at once, or when there’s only one or two enemies to worry about. As a last note about the combat, I’ve heard a lot of disappointment that the game doesn’t offer more violence, as in no dismemberment, decapitations, or bisections. While it is a limiting factor and perhaps not the most realistic, I’m kind of indifferent to the idea. I wouldn’t protest some scarce limb and head removals, but I WOULD be outright against bisections in anything that’s not a dark-side focused title. Nevertheless, I’m perfectly content with just the scorch marks we were given to denote damage.

The story and its planet-hopping consequences were a great chance to see more of the galaxy in game form. Seeing Order 66, Dathomir, and Kashyyyk gave me a painful desire to see team Respawn do a hundred more planets and situations in their unique to Star Wars Metroidvania style. I also liked just about everyone, even if they fit a little snugly into their archetypal boxes. They all had succinct arcs, and even gave me some warm fuzzies by the end when they all became closer. Hey, I’ll admit I’m a hopeless sucker for found family dynamics when I care about the characters. My only complaint in that department is that Merrin joining the Mantis crew was way too rushed. Going from trying to kill you to becoming an eager flight companion was welcome if comically jarring. But whatever, I just need her and Cal to make some sweet Jedi Witch babies, stat.

Straddling the line that Fallen Order had to is far from enviable. It had to cover a well-documented and relatively common period of the galaxy while still adding new enemies, challenges, and important missions so as to make it distinct in its significance. At the same time it had to be self-contained enough so as not to step on the toes of the Original Trilogy. Despite those unique obstacles, I think the game nails the landing and offers a good excuse as to why Cal wasn’t leading the charge for the Rebel Alliance. He’s a strong fighter, but as can be seen with his encounter with Vader, he’s nowhere near ready to shoulder the responsibilities for the fate of the galaxy at this point, emotionally or physically. What a great subverted sequence that Vader one was by the way. I’m still not 100% sold on the idea of Inquisitors as a whole, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say they have drip for days and a presence that elevates the boss fights to a level near epic. If you have even a passing interest in Star Wars I would implore you to pick up this game when it goes on sale for dirt cheap, as it often does.