Recent reviews by fabula_rasa

I enjoyed Avowed immensely. There is so much good here, and I do love the setting of Eora.

The main story is well-written, interesting, and presents the player with some unique choices that are not always clear-cut. All the side quests are well-integrated into the game world, support the main story and/or the setting. No trashy fetch quests here. And there are also smaller, simple encounters that are not quests that make the world feel all that much fuller and alive (e.g. a guy looking for a lost ring, an animacer that lost his memory, a woman that wants to put flowers on her brother's grave). Companions are also well-woven into the events, they have their role to play in the overarching story and will not hesitate to express their opinion on your actions and choices. There is a nice fellowship dynamic that forms in your little party over the course of the game.
The writing is strong overall, with both humor and gravitas appropriately used.

Where Avowed really knocks it out of the park is exploration. Each area has its own character, feels cohesive and unique. And the game knows very well how to incentivize and reward the kind of gameplay that I enjoy most - going everywhere and sticking my nose into everything :). I positively LOVED exploring every nook and cranny of this world, even on my second playthrough.

When it comes to making the hero of this story your own, Avowed will give you many opportunities to roleplay - making choices of various degrees of significance, or just expressing your character through dialogue. When it comes to mechanics side of roleplaying, there are only three classes and not many abilities to chose form. As such, deciding on a build is very easy, and you will not be discovering any hidden synergies or interesting combinations - everything is super-obvious and just there. Whether that is a bad or a good thing depends on a player and expectations (I lean towards bad, as I prefer more involved and complex systems). But even though character building is easy, combat itself is still quite fun and dynamic. Shame there is only six slots on a hotbar - I blame consoles for that one ;).

My only real gripe with Avowed is the difficulty. The game is much too easy. Path of the Damned is not even hard. I'm not an action gameplay expert - I'm much more of a strategic, turn-based, RTWP, let-me-ponder-dammit kind of girl. And you can count the times I died in battle during my Path of the Damned playthrough on the fingers of one hand, and you'd still have fingers leftover (well, apart from the parrying tutorial on the first island, as my character was a mage with 0 constitution, so zero room for error on that one - there I died a few times indeed). And even those deaths were not wipes that make you stop, rethink your approach, positioning or buffing - they were rather accidental or resulting from distracted attention. Devs also made the game even easier in the last patch by giving the player additional ability points on several levels. Hopefully, they will improve the balance in further patches.

I wholeheartedly recommend Avowed overall.

Everything that could be said about BG3 has probably been said already, but let me add my voice to the fold.

It's a great game, very engaging and enjoyable to play. The world feels reactive and alive. Your class, race, who you are - it all matters in BG3, and your surroundings will react to it. There is so much replaybility here, it's insane ;).

The story is solid, and there are many, many elements from the world and history of Faerûn in it (not only callbacks to the original Baldur's Gates). Companions are interesting as well, each one with their unique story, approach and ties to the main narrative.
Gameplay is fun, even though (appart from rolling skill/ability checks) it feels much more like Divinity than actual DnD. Want DnD implemented well, go play Solasta.

Buuuuuuut... BG3 is far from perfect. It has issues. For me, apart from the fact that anyone can cast any spell (ridiculous – what is the casting ability of this Battle Master Fighter? Strength?), there are two main ones.

First one is multiplayer. It sucks. Gameplay wise, it's good. But character and story wise it's just plain bad. The companions sometimes treat you like one person (acting like the conversation you had with them your mp partner had as well), and sometimes as separate ones. You easily find yourself 'accused' of saying something you never did. The whole game does that, really. It either does not acknowledge thar there is two (or more) of you at all and treats you like one person or suddenly, for no apparent reason, considers you two separate beings. There are also no common conversions or an ability to at least give the control to your mp buddy (like in Wasteland 3), so most of the time you will feel like you and whatever companions you control do not exists. In a game that relies on 'your character matters' this is pure tragedy. Multiplayer was much better in Divinity.

Second one is relationships. There seem to be almost no friendships. The second a companion approves of you, they will try to sleep with you, with no prior chemistry, hints, relationship development required. And they ALL act the same here, they ALL want you. It's hlirarious, moronic and exhausting. Anything but emotional. Neither companion has ANY preferences what so ever, they will go for any gender, race, whatever. It's okay to have a character that wants to hump everything in site, with no preferences. But all of them? It makes companions feel more like gratuitous puppets than actual 'people' and completely devalues any relationship you may have with them.

Of course, I still wholeheartedly recommend BG3. Thereis so much greatness in it!

I've been the Lego games' fan for many years. The old Lego games - where the characters mumble their merry way through all the cutscenes. I lost interest when they started talking, as a long with that the slapstick charm was gone. And for me that, more than anything else, is a draw of a Lego game.

That charm is also mostly gone here. Yeah, you can enable the mumble mode, but that fixes nothing. This game was written and directed with talking in mind, making the charakters artificially mumble does not suddenly remake the cutscenes into good slapstick.

But that is my only complaint about this game. I had heaps of fun playing it in coop with my husband. Being a Star Wars universe fan definitely add to that, but this game is just fun to play.

There is always something immensely satisfying about smashing the whole world into a swirl of bricks and studs. :) But that's just an icing on the cake. The world is interesting and offers a wide variety of quests. None of them complicated, it's still a Lego game, but many quite amusing. There is many characters and vehicles to unlock and choose from. There are interesting locations and setpieces to find.

This game is great for a bit of relaxation - as it takes zero brain power to play (if you are not a literal child) but throws you into the world that is pleasing and vibrant enough to keep you engaged.

Recommended for 'children' of all ages :).

You most probably heard it all before: the broken launch, the misleading marketing, the plethora of missing features, the mountain of bugs and promises unkept. But most of all, the belief and trust we had in CDPR – the trust they basically smashed to pieces and I doubt they can ever get back. We wanted to believe that they are different than all the EAs of the game industry and we were sorely disappointed. Never trust a corpo – how very cyberpunky.

I, thank the great spaghetti monster, did not try to play this game on a last gen console and I did not come into it believing it’s the prophesied saviour of the game industry or the next step in evolution of the open-world games. I met some bugs (but nothing game- or quest-breaking), experienced many graphical glitches (that mostly just made me laugh), and just hated the mindless, repetitive activities hiding under the blue map markers (Helping the police? C’mon, that’s not punk at all). But non of it prevented me from enjoying my time in the Night City. And I’m very, very glad I played this game.

The city is beautiful and a pure pleasure to traverse and explore. The sound design is simply superb – from the soundtrack, through sound effects, to voice acting – it compliments the world and adds to immersion. The levelling system is very enjoyable (and would be even more so if all the perks actually worked, as some of them are still broken). And hacking, hacking is just super-fun – even though it’s totally overpowered (but it kinda doesn’t matter, as the whole game is unbalanced and way, way, way too easy, whichever build you go for).

Where Cyberpunk shines the most is the writing. Exposition is masterfully done, as is the world-building, there are great and impactful stories to be had in many, many side jobs and even gigs, and the dialogue is well-written and natural. The characters, their unique and well-defined personalities, as well as the relationships you create with them through the course of the story are an absolute highlight of the game. Even the fixers – each one with their own personality, style and approach towards the world – are done with care.

There is a lot of brilliance in Cyberpunk 2077 and it’s a shame that much of it will be simply overlooked because of the drama, lies and mismanagement.

There are many things I like about this game. Exploration is super fun and I really enjoy the level design. It was a pleasure to just walk around, poking my nose into every nook and cranny. If it only wouldn't be so dark (yeah, the lighting sucks). Interacting with the environment is also great. I had fun setting stuff on fire, throwing things at enemies, and even trying to climb extremely wonky crates.

This game invites experimentation. Even its magic system wants you to mess around, try various runes and see what you can conjure up. That's awesome.

Buuuuuut... the pure level of "I don't care" from the devs is extremely visible. And I don't just mean bugs. Oh, there are bugs and glitches by the truckload, but those are not what bugged (pun intended ;)) me the most. There are just so many things that feel unfinished, undercooked and, again, just scream "I don't caaaaarrrreeee".

In the process of trying to fix the disaster that was this game at launch, the devs changed a lot. And they didn't even care enough to keep their changes consistent.
There are feats in the game that in theory you should be able to do, but in practice you can't because the devs removed the needed spell but didn't care enough to remove the feat.
There are skills that will happily inform you that you cannot acquire them because you don't have the prerequisite skill (even though you do), because the devs did not care enough to update that message to a proper one that would tell you what you ACTUALLY require to get that skill.
There are achievements that used to have triggers in the game but don't anymore, and again - the devs didn't care enough to remove them.
There are rune combinations that create valid spells, which you can cast - yet the game will happily inform you that those combinations do not create a valid spell.
And that is just a tip of the titanic iceberg of "I don't care".

I could go on, but I think I made my point. I honestly never played a game that was so hated by its own devs and I really hope I won't ever again.

You don't play Solasta for the quality its writing. The main story is there and is just fine, it's just unremarkable, cookie-cutter and really nothing to write home about. It has its enjoyable moments, but you'll probably quickly forget it anyway. Most side quests are very simplistic, short and mostly can be boiled to: go there, kill that and fetch that. And the writing itself is extremely uneven. Some of it is fine, enjoyable even and some of it is cringeworthy, very basic and, well, just bad.

But damn, is this game ENJOYABLE. The locations are great, unique and interesting - a pleasure to look at and explore. Especially with all the additional exploration "tools" you get - like flying or spider climbing. The setting is nice (and I wish it was even more fleshed-out). Maybe we will get more history pieces later.

Building your party is a pure pleasure (especially if, like me, you are a D&D fan). I recommend going with point-buy system - it enables you to create a balanced party and not a bunch of overpowered super-gods you can get with scumrolling;). And the fact that your created characters have personalities and interact with each other is just purely awesome.

Tactical turn-based combat is a definite highlight of this game. I love it. As you would expect from a D&D system, there are many skills, spells, builds, tactics, and possibilities to consider. And it is a pure pleasure to develop your party, figure out your equipment and go smash everything that stands in your way.

I would definitely recommend this game to any D&D 5e fan and really anyone that likes tactical, combat-focused RPGs.

It's a great puzzle-filled game.

I especially fell in love with exploration. Every area you go to is also like a little puzzle. You will not be able to explore it fully until you gain certain abilities, figure out some secrets, notice certain details. There are treasures waiting for you behind mysterious rune gates and all you need to do is figure out how to make them open for you. And the game does not hold your hand here at all - not everything is a quest in your journal or a marker on you map. But the world itself invites you to discover its secrets and be observant.

The various puzzles you meet are mostly not particularly challenging but quite enjoyable to solve nonetheless.

Combat is nice and tactical. And you can always mix it up by changing your party if you get bored with a particular set of skills and related strategies. Wanna try going around with six bards now and see what hell they can raise? You certainly can :). Your party members (even those you create yourself, not only the pre-made ones you meet) all have personalities, things to say. They interact with each other and comment on your travels. Crux is my personal favourite.

Story is quite nice and the many big and small references to the original trilogy are just lovely. I am still laughing at 99 waves of 4 Berserkers each. That said, it is NOT a story of player choice, you will not be shaping it and it will not react to your decisions. Because, well, you make practicaly no decisions in it.

And as we are talking about the 'Bard's Tale', let me comment on the music. It can get repetitive if you are staying in one spot for a very long time but that's my only complaint. Music is very cool, bardish, hummable, fitting to the general mood of each area and sometimes it gets stuck in your head.

Wasteland 3 is ridiculous. It takes the strangeness inherent to this setting and cranks it up to 11. The clowns, the psychopaths, the casual goat-lovers, the cursing parrots, the over-the-top, the extravagant, the unorthodox, the strange. The gravitas of some decisions is still there but it feels buried under the "look at how silly I am and be amused" approach. This game does not take itself very seriously; and because of that it does not have the emotional and intellectual impact of its predecessors. I think that will make some fans dissatisfied and it definitely makes it not a game for everybody.

That said, I had a lot of fun with it and will definitely play it again. I realised what the game is early on and chose to just embrace the silliness. The locations are fun to explore and fighting feels satisfying (although I do not particularly like the group initiative system and would prefer the personal initiative order).

Graphics-wise the game is very nice and a pleasure to look at. And the soundtrack is just the bomb! I loved it! Many systems are improved in comparison to W2 and some are just changed. Playing in coop is very enjoyable.

At the time of writing this review, the game is still riddled with bugs. The worst ones have been fixed, but there are still many remaining. For best experience, I would recommend waiting till at least the next patch (which is supposed to be not far off).

It's the last instalment of a great saga and, in my opinion, it's a worthy one. Yes, this part is arguably the weakest of the bunch and the creators made some controversial narrative decisions, but that does not mean that it's a bad game. It still has great Banner Saga storytelling and is filled with decisions you can agonise over (and that, as a result, greatly increases replayability). The combat system is the same as it was in previous parts and thoroughly enjoyable, and the Titles system adds a new way of further customising your heroes.

Overall, I would recommend this game to anybody who likes immersive, story rich experiences.

This game tends to gather adverse reactions from some players and I believe it's because it's misrepresenting itself a bit - hence some people buy it without realising what it is. This is not a "traditional" cRPG, it is not Planescape: Torment, it is not Baldur's Gate, it is not Icewind Dale or Pillars of Eternity. If you expect a more standard mix of story, combat and character customisation, you will definitely be disappointed.
That being said, this game is wonderful, gorgeous and completely singular. It gives you a rich, developed world to immerse yourself in. Lore, story, companions and various characters you meet - all of this is fleshed-out and carefully built. In the course of the game you will mainly read and most challenges you will face will come in a form of dialogue. Combat is sparse (and, with some notable exceptions, you can avoid it all together) and more cerebral interaction with the world around you is encouraged. Even if you chose to play this game with "kill 'em all" attitude, you won't find all that many occasions to do so. If this is not your cup of tea, this game is just not for you.
Tides of Numenera wants to tell you a great story in a great world, give you agency to shape the development of that story, influence fates of your companions and enable you to go on a journey of personal discovery that you will not soon forget. And it succeeds at all that.