With bugs like these who needs features
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I think that’s definitely true of Witcher 3 but like, as good as this game looks, it really is scaled down by comparison from a fully 3d open world action game type thing. If anything the wild success of this game ought to be evidence that mid sized studios can make good looking games with modern tech in old formats and still do business (instead I think it will only be considered evidence that the D&D license prints money again which unfortunately I think is also true)
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Larian’s not really that midsized anymore though, and this thing both had a 6 year dev cycle and is massive. it’s actually deceptively huge, isometric engine or no – that’s why I don’t think there can really be anything else like it. you actually need both the track record and the license combined to get to do something like this.
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the gameplay style of the witcher 3 lended itself to wasting so much more time walking around than an isometric game. like I thought that game was ok but I’m glad not every huge game is like that. witcher 3 is like arcanum if you never learn how to travel on the world map and walk through interminable wilderness screens to get everywhere. i mean you can literally fast travel in the witcher 3 and i was like this game is TOO BIG
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like, the brief CRPG revival from like 2014 to 2018 that seemingly ran its course and went dormant until this was actually much stronger evidence for medium budgets in this department (including building larian’s own reputation) than this is. this is a whole new thing, but it’s not clear if anyone can or will follow it. disco elysium is the only other thing I can think of in the category of “wouldn’t have happened without the 2010s CRPG revival, but is too unique to signal any kind of new trend.”
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i want shorter games with worse graphics and more penis options made by people who are paid more to work less and i’m not kidding
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yeah this would rock. It literally doesn’t hurt a crpg to be only 25 hours long (you can tack like 10 more onto that because of how people play these games anyway), you can do a real lot in 25 hours!!!
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5 hours of dick customization, 20 hours of gameplay sounds perfect
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i always think about how nwn2 makes you sit through a campaign for 50-60 hours that most people will grow tired of so you can play 20 hours of an actually interesting game that’s a direct sequel to the garbage you just sat through so you can’t even really skip it.
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not sure if you were around when I was talking it up but the second pillars of eternity is extremely good, much much better than the first, and it got near-universally slept on – maybe now that everyone loved pentiment I have a better shot at recommending it. it’s not overlong either!
the second of the 3 recent shadowruns is also imo the best and relatively short
the first original sin is meaty but feels extra light
really there were a lot of these like 6-9 years ago already, I figured they got overlooked in part because they were that small and relatively off-brand and off-cycle in terms of what excites people about tabletop adaptations (I have 0 experience of the original BG or NWN stuff and only played the first fallout and planescape torment later on)
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I played shadowrun returns to the encounter with the insectoids, which I think is like one of the last things you do in the game, but i quit anyway and didnt play it anymore (it was like 2011, sue me) but dragonfall was alright, idk if i remember how far i got. i never played hong kong. I recently explained my troubles with the first original sin which is less the game being bad and more it being buggy as shit pre-enhanced edition/the dumbass person i was playing with. I’m sure it’s fine. I wanted to play pillars 2 some day but the infinity engine style of gameplay can suck my pee pee these days. I played too much bg2 and i do not want it, im just not nostalgic for that sort of thing anymore.
pillars 2 has gambits and that’s what makes it good unlike all the other infinity engine combat
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Is pallegina still the best. That’s all I care about
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yeah she’s p good
(I didn’t play pillars 1 though because I thought it was terrible, both the writing and the combat, and I honestly never get tired of talking about how I’m the only one in the world who thought that 2 was 5x as good)
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Maybe i’ll play deadfire after i play pirates of the sword coast
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Poe2 is okay but honestly nothing can make infinity engine style rtwp combat not terrible and the turn based mode is grotesquely slow
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the turn based mode was a bad idea imo, because it just isn’t interesting at all and the game wasn’t designed for it, whereas gambits make RTwP combat good to me 100% of the time (that is, FFXII, dragon age 1, and PoE 2) when it’s otherwise unplayable. and the first 2 of those games are pretty bad in other respects, PoE 2 is the closest thing to a complete package that actually works and is representative of that design that we’re ever gonna get
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gambits are just homework to automate the shit part of the game as much as possible, they don’t fix anything
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I find them endlessly interesting and just about as satisfying as actually good turn-based combat! I love to work out new patterns and see how they play out in practice and intervene as needed. it’s night and day for me.
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