Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is an interesting game. It is praised universally for its character writing, acting, interesting setting, lore and story. However, I did not think these points were enough to make up for other issues the game has, like horrible combat, subpar stealth mechanics and overall jank, lack of polish and amount of bugs.

The characters and dialogue are indeed the best part about this game. There are tons of NPCs, all voice acted, and they are all at least interesting. The interactions you have with them also changes depending on your “class”, which can make for unique and funny interactions. The Original Soundtrack slaps.

The story I thought was fine, for the most part. It starts interesting enough, and then gets kinda lame, and finishes very abruptly. The pay-off for the biggest mystery was also kinda of a let-down, at least for me. I never really became invested in the story.

Combat is super rough. It is very clunky and janky, your movement and attacks don’t feel good at all, melee weapons have very bad animations, that cause your attacks to whiff constantly while guns are very underpowered and your accuracy sucks, even with high levels of skill investment. Most enemies do little to no damage and others can kill you like you’re not even a vampire, but all of them are damage sponges. Bosses are particularly horrible to fight, as they have massive HP bars and, contrary to most enemies, can’t be stunlocked by your melee attacks.

Stealth is also super unreliable if you don’t have at least 4 points or more in it. Half the times, enemies can hear you easily when you get within 5 meters or less of them, even if they’re facing another way or through walls and floors, and the other half, enemies are literally blind. The prompt for stealth killing someone is also finicky, easily making you break your stealth because your characters simply attacked the enemy instead of assassinating them.

The “humanity” counter is really arbitrary. What defines humanity? I would guess the game treats it as being empathic, but that question could have a ton of answers. And it has basically no impact on the actual gameplay or story. Noncombat skills are useless for most of the main quest. Persuasion and seduction, specially, are pretty much useless.

Overall, this game doesn’t make me feel like I’m a vampire. While there are some positive aspects, the combat ruined the experience for me, and I think the game has aged very poorly. I have read that playing as the Malkavian class is the way to go, so I might actually revisit the game by doing that and also using the Plus version of the Unofficial Patch, which adds a little more content and supposedly balances some things.

"I just... can't go back to how it was before."

Celeste is an interesting experience. For starters, I’m not a fan of platformers, but I had fun with Celeste. This game falls into the same category that Furi (2016) does for me - it’s a game where the gameplay is not one of my favorite elements.

The story of Celeste is short, but relatable, easily touching the player. Madeline’s journey is one of self discovery, acceptance and self steem, which most people can easily relate to. The graphics are super nice, boasting beautiful pixel art scenarios and characters. Sometimes, though, I felt that some elements from the map were hard to spot due to the amount of detail. There are also drawn panels for some story moments and for characters during dialogues, which are also high quality.

As for the gameplay, I feel that my opinion isn’t worth much, as I generally avoid platformers, but I felt that Celeste has very tight and responsive controls. I rarely felt that a death as due to the game’s controls. The platforming is a mixed bag. There are some sections and levels I actually had fun, and others where I was frustrated. There was one level in particular that was pure pain, and the last level is a huge difficulty spike. The ending level, although thematically fitting, as it is the last step before the summit, requires really precise movement and timing, which was something the game was always lenient about.

I did finish the game without using it, but Celeste has an assist mode that I have heard is pretty good, so anyone can enjoy the story and the graphics. There are also more chapters that go beyond the main story, but I didn’t play them, just watched on YouTube. They seem super insane in terms of gameplay, greatly exceeding the base game’s difficulty.

The DLC, Farewell, in particular, is something else. I (probably) couldn’t finish it myself, as it is on a new level of difficulty compared to the base game, but I did enjoy the additional story and how some elements of the gameplay were tied to the actual context.

Overall, I did enjoy my time with Celeste, but I doubt I will come back to play more in the future. Still, I regret nothing and recommend anyone to accompany Madeline to the summit.

Divinity: Original Sin is a game I think is fun and probably worth a shot, but, unfortunately, it just wasn’t my thing.

Starting with good points, the graphics are nice, the game is stylized, very vibrant, colorful and the art style is pretty cool. The OST is pretty good, with some catchy tracks that got me to look it up. Combat can be fun, as there are some interesting mechanics and ways attacks and status effects can interact (talking about the different elements you can wield). Interacting with the world is pretty fun, as there are some physics based puzzles or areas that become easier or accessible with certain spells (like rain).

Having two protagonists creates funny situations if they regularly disagree, but, I feel it also limits the amount of role play you can have on the game. The voice acted dialogue choices also doesn’t help much. The majority of dialogues have only 2 or 3 options, severely limiting role play potential, as you’re pretty much forced to play a goody two shoes character other than some impactless dialogue options.

The game is kinda goofy. There are many jokes, in item descriptions, quest logs, and, most notably, in character writing and voice lines. Overall, characters are super dramatic and quirky, and the voice acting is very over the top, and you can’t go one second without someone saying a one-liner or making a pun.

I experienced unfun progression. You are thrown into the game super weak, and then it feels like you have to do every single mission possible, even when some missions can be missed forever, before you gain enough ex to level up and tackle higher level missions. In my playthrough, I was constantly having to backtrack and check the wiki to see if I missed anything, or, rather, what I missed, otherwise, I would be underleveled to progress the game.

The combat can be fun, but it is extremely slow, and, many times, even when on the same level, I felt super underleveled in some encounters. It felt like playing on normal was hard and playing on easy was normal, I don’t know, I’m not usually good at these min maxing kind of games. But, at least, when I felt too weak, the easy difficulty made it fair for me. As for the speed, there were some encounters where I would browse my phone because it took so long for my turn.

I had two quests become soft locked because I did something the developers allowed, but I guess it wasn’t intended, like killing a character to get a key to a place I need to be instead of doing a whole quest. I killed him, he dropped the key I needed, but the quest was stuck saying I still needed to complete his quest.

The game doesn’t take itself very seriously, and I can’t really either. Women’s armors are very sexualized and the overall comedic tone the game posses is just not my thing. I might come back later to at least finish the main quest, but, for now, there are other games I want to play more.

"You were my only chance."

This game is special for me because it's that one game where what you would think is the most important part of a game, the gameplay, is not the part I like the most. This game's story, characters, world, soundtrack, art style, all come together to make such a cool experience.

Specially the way the story is told. It's simple and short, but also very impactful, with three different endings.

The gameplay is also great. It is a boss rush game, with bullet hell. Not really my cup of tea, but I was drawn in by the soundtrack, which is phenomenal.

Tyranny is a game I enjoyed a bunch. It has a strong setting, being set in a fantasy early Iron Age based period, and has an interesting premise. The story is also intriguing, and there is much opportunity for role play and immersion. The graphics are good, being stylized, and your adventures will let you explore very interesting and diverse regions and locations.

You’ll get to recruit 6 followers, each with its own quirks and characteristics, but you can only have three of these with you while exploring. Followers have a lot to say and talk about, and, sometimes, they will comment on current missions or decisions you make, which can even shift their Loyalty or Fear meters, both affecting some dialogues, abilities and endings. They don’t talk a ton, though, and there was a time during the game where I rarely heard them talking about what was happening.

I played on normal difficulty, and the combat is more slow paced, which I like; it is also more small scale, where you’ll rarely fight more than 4 or 5 enemies at a time, even when your enemies could easily overwhelm you by sending everyone at once. In some parts of the story, I found it distracting how your enemies would only send enemies in waves. There aren’t many different types of enemies to fight, with most being just humans with different abilities, weapons and armor, but it didn’t really bother me.

The music and sound design were pretty great, generally fitting the more grim atmosphere this game posses, but also sounding pretty mystic or glorious when needed.

The story DLC (Bastard’s Wound) is pretty mediocre. I found it much less interesting than the base game’s regions. And this DLC has harder combat encounters (even harder than the last combat situations before the ending), which is no fun.

The story, although having a strong premise, and, in my opinion, being good, is clearly unfinished. This game could really have a sequel, to expand the world and resolve main conflicts left unfinished. Unfortunately, this game did poorly on sales, the developer is owned by Microsoft and the IP is owned by Paradox, which means a sequel will never come.

Overall, Tyranny is a CRPG that has lots of strong points, and, even with its flaws, is still worth checking out. It is not as long as many other CRPGs, taking around 30 hours to finish, and I would totally recommend it to friends.

Sunset Overdrive is a very silly and funny game that doesn't take itself seriously at all, and you shouldn't either! The game is full, like, non-stop, of jokes. Some are even kinda clever and genuinely funny. Nothing that made me laugh out loud, but still, funny.

The story is just there. It really isn't that interesting, there aren't many characters, and they don't really do much other than give you assignments. The protagonist is also just a goofy psycho. There was actually one moment in the story I was surprised because the protagonist was actually heroic.

The gameplay and the soundtrack are why you would actually play this game. This game has very fun movement. You can jump, slide on rails, edges, wall run and much more. It is a third-person shooter, but with very lenient aim assist, so you can focus on keeping your movement while unloading a diverse cast of silly and wacky guns on your enemies. In my opinion, though, is that the combat is much more fun when you get to slaughter a horde of enemies other than just a couple of more elite ones.

The soundtrack is pretty good. It is formed by mostly punk or garage rock, and then there are some electronic dance musics.

One relatively minor issue I had is the fact that your clothes and costumes textures are kinda low quality. It might be understandable, as this game came out in 2014 and only for the Xbox One, but, it was a little distracting to see how the clothes were blurred.

Overall, Sunset Overdrive is a fun, casual game that you can just play to relax or kill time.

What can I say? This pack, the Legendary Edition, brings together the whole Mass Effect trilogy. Easily 100 hours and more of content.

I think that Mass Effect might be my favorite Sci-Fi setting. I love the lore, the themes and aesthetics. The story told throughout these games is engaging and unique. This world is also filled with interesting characters, most interesting, with stories that many times rival the main quest in terms of engagement.

Your actions can influence the direction all stories take, in which many decisions have their consequences felt only in a later installment. And you can easily get attached to the characters, because they mostly feel like real people, although a bit wacky. Some character’s deaths made me feel sad, something that rarely happens to me.

I’m a big Mass Effect fan. I very much enjoyed my adventure through these games and would strongly recommend others to try and immerse themselves in this world.

I want to start by saying that this review is targeted towards the Mass Effect 3 on the Legendary Edition, which means, with all DLC and other improvements. With that said, I would say I had tons of fun with Mass Effect 3, probably the most of all the three games in this trilogy.

Mass Effect 3’s combat is vastly superior to its predecessors. Biotic power are much easier to use and are stronger, you are no longer limited in which weapons you can bring on missions, although some classes benefit certain weapons more. Movement is much smoother, where you can take cover, vault over cover and dodge at will, and you now have access to a strong melee attack (which was something I really wanted in Mass Effect 2). Weapon choice is now limited by the amount of weight you can carry, and, there is now an interesting trade-off, where you can bring fewer weapons in exchange for faster power/ability recharge rate.

One issue that I also had with Mass Effect 2 is the ammunition. In Mass Effect 2 and 3, weapons have ammunition, which they didn’t in 1. Now, not only do they bother having an explanation for every weapon in the galaxy needing ammunition in a span of 2 years, there makes zero sense for it being better than weapons having effectively infinite ammo. It seems that the developers knew this, as you can find ammo EVERYWHERE, and enemies constantly drop ammo, which defeats ammo existing, it becomes an annoyance or an afterthought.

One issue I noticed in this game is the fact that persuasion options and interrupts were rarer compared to Mass Effect 2. It also seems they were less impactful in missions and character interactions.

But the most glaring issue this game has is managing logistics with side missions. It is a super boring and tedious process. The game does show where the main quests take place, but the side missions are simply a nightmare to manage, and are boring, as there are tons of quests that boil down to going to a system, scanning to find a planet, sending down a probe and having to go all the way back to deliver the item.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with Mass Effect 3. I thought that the main premise and story were interesting, as were the sub-plots. Some things could be improved, but I really like the interaction with new and past companions. As for the endings, I knew already that many thought they were bad, but, honestly, I think they’re fine. There might be some plot holes, but I liked that there is no best or even a (entirely) good ending, all of them have interesting trade-offs and give opportunity for role play, and discussions I have read online about the endings seem to reflect that.

"You must gather your party before venturing forth"

Having heard so much good about this game, I was kinda let down by my expectations. It is a cool game, but, unfortunately, while I had a bit of fun, I was also deeply frustrated and mildly bored while playing.

The worst aspect of this game by far is the exploration. Not only your characters walk at a snail's pace, many maps are terribly big and mostly empty. It got to the point I’d Alt+Tab from the game after giving a walking command because it takes that long for you to reach anywhere. The game also doesn’t let you select a location that is obscured by fog of war, so you’ll have to keep slowly moving the camera and clicking to reveal the fog of war.

The pathfinding is also horrendous. Your characters constantly keep getting stuck on each other or on the map. They'll frequently choose the most illogical paths to where you're commanding them.

The fact that some places are infested with traps and only the Thief class can detect and disarm traps is also a bummer, considering how much it limits your party. It is also super boring, having to slowly walk through a dungeon in hopes that the dice roll lets you detect a trap that might not even be there. Honestly, it was faster to just save every 5 steps and just load once a trap is triggered.

The second-worst aspect is the combat. As of any game like this one - where the most important part isn’t your skill, or your knowledge or even your items and levels - the most important thing is your luck. And this game has lots and lots of enemy encounters that revolve around hoping the enemy doesn’t one-shot you immediately. It becomes a save scum fest.

The best strategy in this game is to use the "Horror" spell and make the enemies flee in terror. This can work both ways, so if the enemy uses it first, too bad, you'll have to reload. This and other types of effects also have insane durations, lasting 1 to 3 minutes, making them extremely powerful when you use them and extremely frustrating when used against you.

This, for a Classic Role Playing Game, doesn’t boast many options for role play and the story isn’t that interesting or engaging. Many options in this game boil down to “Yes, I’m a saint” or “No, I’m rude”. And the NPCs even shame you if you’re rude to them. At least, the game does allow you to kill pretty much anyone.

The companions in this game are nice. There is a wide variety and each one of them have their alignment, so you have to consider which of the most align with your play style and if they’ll get along with each other. Unfortunately, managing companions is a bore or straight up frustrating. There is no easy way of exchanging between companions. If you want to try out a new companion, the other one could either stand still where he was let go or move to a specific location… that is still tedious to come back too if you want that companion back.

Overall, Baldur’s Gate 1 is 100% a classic, and, when it was released, I’m sure it was indeed an exceedingly excellent game. But, It has been more than 20 years and this game has aged quite poorly, especially compared to modern CPRGs. I would give this game 2.5/5, but its saving grace is the Story Difficulty. It straight up allows you to beat the game without having to look for loot or level up. Unfortunately, the story and role play aren’t worth it on their own.

While Mass Effect 1 has, in my opinion, a better and more epic main story, Mass Effect 2 has a wide amount of high quality side content.

This game has an impressive cast of companions to recruit, get to know and complete missions with. Each companion has a unique loyalty mission that is required to get the best ending. But many of these missions are secondary, so you could miss on a lot of good content.

Overall, this game is a worthy sequel, boasting visibly higher production quality (animations are less stiff and cutscenes are much more frequent and cinematic) as well as delivering interesting side content the first game was super lacking in.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a game with a lot of charm, deep lore, interesting gameplay loop, charismatic characters, interesting premise and fun story. But it has some glaring issues that spoiled my fun.

This game can be lots of fun, but can also become a source of frustration if you're unlucky like me. As these types of game are, where most of what you can and will do is determined by a dice roll, if the randomly generated number is too high or too low you'll have a bad time.

Even playing on the "Story" difficulty, I had a lot of trouble on some sections, specially one right before the end of the game. In these encounters, you can have your entire party buffed, with the best items and such, and still be paralyzed for 1 minute or straight up one-shot. There are also many effects that reduce your stats or even level and LAST FOREVER. Very poor game design, as I supposed the "Story" difficulty would allow me to play without having to minmax or keep reloading constantly.

The game is also very long. I took 105 hours to finish it, and, by the time I got to the end, specially the section where I was being one-shot constantly, the game had overstayed its welcome.

Overall, I became very frustrated, but I also had lots of fun, and I'm sure that, in the future, I will mostly remember the fun I had and will even replay this game, choosing different paths and choices.

This game is cool, I liked it. It is all around a very funny and happy game. There is some drama, but it is mostly about having a good time.

The gameplay is a mixture of visual novel, walking simulator and turn based real-time combat. It has interesting characters, good graphics, awesome soundtrack and an intriguing main plot.

Its weakest points are, by far, the dungeons and the combat. As basically any other turn based combat RPG, what is most important in battle is raw stats and luck. You can be over leveled and still get one-shot, if you're unlucky.

There is also the fact that the first few dungeons are a grind. It is really hard to manage your HP and specially your SP, so you'll either have to visit dungeons in more than one day, which means less time to advance social links, or you'll have to face the boss while under leveled. This isn't an issue in the latest dungeons because you gain other ways to replenish SP on the go. Some of these features should be available from the start.

Overall, this game is really lucky its 20 to 30 minutes cutscenes are so entertaining, otherwise it would be pretty boring. If you're not into goofy type of humor, if you don't like to depend on luck or grind, and you don't like anime tropes (like sexual harassment being played off as a joke), I would recommend against this game.

It is still worth a try, as there is a lot of fun to be had in its experience.

This game is good, it has tons of that old game charm. It has interesting mechanics, story, characters and places to explore.

It has, however, aged quite poorly. The gameplay is not the most engaging, it is kinda clunky and such. So I was very glad this game is going to receive a remake, because it actually deserves and needs one.

This is, in my opinion, the best game to make you feel like a witcher. There are chapters, and each chapter has at least one big, tough monster to hunt. To defeat them, you actually have to go out of your way to research about it - which potions to use, which poisons to apply, which signs to cast. It can be the difference between dying or succeeding the hunt.

Mass Effect 1 is a game I enjoyed a lot. It is probably my favorite Sci-Fi setting, and I really like the main story, the lore and the world building.

But, even thought the main quest missions and the combat gameplay are great, the side content is really lacking. There are tons of side quests, but they're all and the same. I can probably count on my fingers the number of side quests that are actually worth doing.

Even with these shortcomings, I still really like the main story missions and the characters. The climax of this game is one of my favorites, just epic.