"Back already?"

After spending around 20 hours with Hades resulting in feelings of highs and lows I've come to the only conclusion these emotions could finally ascertain. I love everything about Hades, except actually playing it. This is both the best roguelike game and worst I've ever played and it's impressive how much that swings backwards and forwards.

The interesting thing to me mulling this over in my head, and to use a Greek mythological term of phrase, is that Hades greatest strength is it's Achilles heel. This game wants you to die, yes it's how Roguelikes function, but I have never felt that more in others than in Hades. Each time you die you get a bit more character interaction, a bit more dialogue between characters by design. These interactions are eked between the protagonist, Zagreus the son of Hades the Greek God of the underworld and it's occupants. Each attempted escape from the underworld Zagreus gets a little more development from the mythical residents of the house of Hades such as Cerberus, Nyx, Hypnos, Thanatos etc. They will slowly grow and reveal more about themselves and the situation Zagreus is in and it's great. The characters are well written and the amount of content and spoken dialogue is absurdly impressive. Dying is how you progress this, dying isn't failure, dying is a reward for the setting, for the theme of Hades. Death is Hades business and Supergiant games was extremely clever in how it's implemented that as not only the known Roguelike mechanic but as a fundamental mechanic to the story of Hades.

I really like the cast. Getting snippets of conversations with the gods of Olympus and lesser known Greek mythological characters is a real treat each time. I also love their art design, it's pretty clear who each character is without stereotyping them too much. The voice acting equally puts in work to match the excellent writing. My favourite being Dionysus the god of wine who comes across as such an extremely laid back almost surfer like attitude but there is a tone of strength behind it all in his voice as well as art with his chiselled physique. Hades presentation really is excellent.

So where is the weakness here you ask? It's the actual dungeon runs in which the game wants you to die in to get these slow roll story sequences that hurt it sounds badly. This game is 40 minutes of gameplay dragged out into hours and I despise it for that. Each run has so little variety that it gets stale to actually play each time. Finishing a run didn't make me want to go again, it made me sigh that I would have to fight the same 3 bosses over again on the same levels in the same order. It's extremely linear and stale and the more I played the game, the less I wanted to.

I stuck with it for the excellent setting, art and characters. The thing is it actually plays really well. The animations are smooth, the combat is fun, there are 6 weapons to choose between that all have great moves and the boons from the gods of Olympus you collect can add some good variety to how the combat plays out. In the end though it's all the same, you will fight the same limited enemies, bosses and room types in the same order. I expected a variety of bosses that would be random on each run, corridors, challenges, just something? It's 40 minutes of game you play repeatedly. It felt like groundhog day.

Later in the game you can add modifiers to make it harder which can change things slightly and there are some prophecies to aim for in trying to get certain boons but it doesn't change those 40 minutes enough in any way to not feel like this is just a short experience painfully dragged out. To get the full credits you need to complete 10 playthroughs once you are strong enough or get lucky enough runs. It took me 25 runs just to beat it once. There is some permanent progress you can unlock with skills in a mirror and construction requests but equally they feel like padding to make it take you time to unlock all the story rather than rewards. This is felt more than anything with the god mode option. In the settings you can switch it on "To make it easier or if you just want to see the story". The issue is that the game wants you to die to progress the story and character interactions so god mode gives you some base damage resistance then 2% each time you die. Even trying to speed through the game after I had beaten it the first time it's still doled out at a trickle as it counters what the game wants you to do. It wants you to die, thematically and narratively, this is clever, this is great, it lacks the variety to keep that interesting in practice though.

It's a real shame too because a greater pool of bosses, levels and enemies to make each run feel fresh would have made this a truly great game. After a certain point though I died to Hades with a pretty sub optimal boon run and just felt, exasperation. I would have to do the same levels and bosses again and decided to put the game down. I watched the true ending on youtube and it was cute, I just didn't want hours of repetition to get there. I didn't feel I'd missed much by watching the ending and skipping the faff. Maybe it's me? I mean I played Vampire Survivors, this game designed for addiction. I did three runs for 30 mins each and put it down feeling like I'd seen everything. I guess that "one more run" mentality for games like this just don't have that effect.

I happily play 500+ hours in each Monster Hunter game though so what do I know?

+ Setting as a Roguelike is excellent thematically.
+ Characters, voice acting and artwork are great.
+ Combat is smooth and fun.

- Dungeon runs lack variety, same bosses and enemies makes things feel dragged out.
- Gets boring fast.

Baldurs Gate 3 Review: A Love Letter

I went through two playthroughs of Baldurs Gate 3. My first run, was “Let’s be the charismatic hero and do every quest” I went ahead and did everything I possibly could. I tried my best to see every little detail I could and I honestly thought I had.
However, during my dark urge (very murderous character) playthrough, I realised how wrong I was in every way and my realisation of just how big this game was really came into light. The amount of “I didn’t know you could do that!” was beyond anything I have ever experienced before.
So with that being said, what are my thoughts on the game as a whole?

Baldurs Gate 3 shines at it’s highest when we talk about gameplay as well as it’s freedom of gameplay. An RPG that grabs its series roots and turns the turn based gameplay of Dungeons and Dragons to a visual height. My first playthrough was as a multiclassed Paladin/Warlock Elf. Naturally, charisma in all RPG games is exactly what I am after. I talked my way through so many combat encounters as the D20 rolled across my screen to almost always successful persuasion checks.
However when it all went soured and that glorious natural 1 hit my dice, I knew I had to prepare for a fight.
My knowledge in Dungeons and Dragons helped immeasurably in this game (I mean, it is the same rules). I knew what a Tarsha’s Hideous Laughter was, I knew why Guiding Bolt slapped and I could not believe how Speak with Dead worked in this game.
Much like the game and rules it is all based on, the game itself can be tackled in so many ways as discussed. You move your character and 3 party members around great landscapes, running into numerous NPC’s good or bad, finding wells you can dive into, doors you can lockpick or smash open, trolls you can persuade or kill, goblins in castles, druids in groves. There is an infinite amount of possibilities and the game really does allow for all infinite options.
An alcoholic barrel in the distance, light it on fire to explode, telekinesis to pick it up and drop it, throw it to coat your enemies in alcohol, have your rouge hide behind it, pick it up in your inventory and use it destroy a boss.
I found myself at first being very simple with my logic. Fire barrel? Throw fire at it, boom. As you go through the game, you realise exactly what is possible as the game spreads across its 3 acts.
If you have played a game of Dungeons and Dragons or Dragon Age, you will feel right at home with how much variety there is in the game play and this isn’t even getting into the fact there are 12 classes, which you can multiclass and you can reset your levels to try out new classes……

So, the gameplay is vast, you can be different classes, you can kill or persuade, you can have sex with like everyone.
How are the characters, how is the narrative? What about side quests?
My friends, it has been hard for a game to defeat the Dragon Age companions for me. The OG Dragon Age companions are some of the best party members you will find in a video game and Baldurs Gate 3 has damn well topped it. All of them are missable and do not even need to join you by the way. Obviously, I would not recommend skipping past them but that is just how much option you are given in this narrative. I could probably spend a whole bible length going through each companion, why they are important and why I love them but I will just say that my party in both playthroughs consisted of Astarion, Shadowheart (My wife) and Karlach. Not having Gale in my party is still one of the hardest pains of my life but I just needed to know how they all reacted when I was being a bit of a murderous bastard in my second playthrough.

What the hell is a Shadowheart, I hear you ask. It is a question, that I just can’t answer. Uncovering these characters is what made Baldurs Gate 3 so fun for me. Seeing how they only trusted me to get what they wanted, to then becoming best friends, lovers, sometimes tense enemies. Watching their interactions in major cutscenes, seeing how your party had travelling dialogue unique to their locations and who they were with. Digging up their backstories, finding items that triggered scenes you wouldn’t expect.
This game does one thing perfect above all else, it RESPECTS what you have done even if the sequence doesn’t line up. Killed a character because you knew from your first run who it was? The game will not lock you out. The game will update and now run with your punches.
It will always keep up with you. Which leads into the narrative.

Each character has their own substory, including your own. As you go through the game, you discover more and more about yourself, the world and your companions quests. The game is littered with side quests as any RPG is and they ALL are amazing. I would never skip over any single one. I was so compelled in my second run to do them all again, seeing them in different lights or seeing them the same way. As I played on the hardest difficulty on the my second run, there were some fights I had to do differently or couldn’t cheese my way through.
There is one enemy south of the first act in a little hut. There is a lot of ways you can deal with this boss. My first run, I killed it before it could escape from me and the entire dungeon respected that. NPC’s wouldn’t attack me because the boss didn’t get the chance to make them.
My second run, however, she did escape and it became a whole different dungeon.
That is a side quest! Multiply that by hundreds and you have side quests that really don’t even feel like side quests. They affect so many main parts of the story.
One of the hardest bosses in the game is tied to an optional area of the game that requires you to not only distrust multiple important characters but also opens up a whole new damn ending for you.

The main narrative, you will hear a lot of people say loses its charm in the final act. I disagree heavily and think it is the most D&D type of finale you can get. I won’t go into spoilers but there is a lot of people out there who respectfully do not enjoy act 3. A lot of heart is found in act 1, as it is new, there is a lot to discover but I fully believe act 3 closes out every characters story perfectly and the final boss makes sense and honestly, can go so many ways due to your choices, no matter how small.
The ending I got made me so happy and it wasn’t even the ending I would have wanted but it made sense for my character.
What you need to bring to Baldurs Gate 3 is head cannon. It is easy to look at your companions and think the main character is empty compared but not if you play it like a session of D&D.
I made this choice, so WHY would my character make that choice. This game more than anything is about creating your own fun, your own enjoyment from every angle. Some characters will not get the wrap up you want them to but they do in other runs, so take the ending you got and work that in your head cannon.

Moving onto the music and voice acting because I am a sucker for both in any given media especially video games. I fully commend BG3 for having some of the best voice acting you will ever find in a video game with a cast that have mostly their first roles dedicated to this game. Shoutouts to Jennifer English as Shadowheart and Neil Newborn for Astarion being some of my favourite voice works of the year. I cannot express enough how every single actor in this game makes every character feel alive with raw emotion at that. Some lines are delivered with such intensity that I lose all words to begin how I felt (Looking at you Karlach when you confront you know who in Act 3)

The music OH MY GOD. Just give it in my veins. From bard songs to epic boss music to an opening theme that slaps to songs that make me cry. The composer Borislav Slavov of Divinity strikes again with this score and it needs it’s own special mention.

All of this barely scratches the surface. This doesn’t even go into my feelings on spoiler topics like bosses, character stories in depth and gods there are probably 50 things I haven’t even mentioned at all writing this.
I do want to give Larian Studios the biggest shoutout for making patches to this game the size of this review/discussion/ramble/love letter and then some. They have updated the game visually, fixed numerous bugs and provided much need quality of life changes all within months of it being released and still continue to patch it. The amount of dedication to the community they and the actors have shown, has been inspiring.

I love Baldurs Gate 3. I think it is one of the best video games of all time and it blends a strong narrative with a huge creative freedom that almost seems limitless.
It isn’t for everyone, a lot of people don’t get into CRPG’s or tactical games but I personally believe this is the best of its genre and the technical accomplishment of this game makes it a beautiful playground of role playing goodness.

Baldurs Gate 3 is my official 4th favourite game of all time and stands above so many that I have experienced.


Please play one of my my favourite video games.

My journey across The Planes has taken me to places that most men believe exist only in the realm of thought. These places I travelled to, the people I met, and the conversations I had fundamentally changed me as a person. I don’t fully know how, but regardless, I know some sort of change occurred. Perhaps writing about my experience with Planescape will help me better understand these changes and the person I am today.

When I was 14, I discovered Planescape: Torment, and while I thought the game was awesome, I could never really engage with the questions the game posed to me. I mean, how could I? What would the question “What can change the nature of a man?” mean to a 14-year-old who was only beginning to grapple with the concept of its own being? Looking back, it meant nothing to me. Now that I am an adult, however, the question means much more to me. Part of me is ashamed to admit I haven’t always been a ‘good’ person. Learning to be kind, understanding, mature, and responsible took me many years of struggling and hardship to achieve. Even today, I still struggle with this, but through that struggle, I came to learn more about myself and my nature. I can’t fully codify into words what my “nature” or “self” are because they are concepts that exist beyond language. Language can at times be limiting, so I look to art to help me look inward and better conceptualise these thoughts and feelings. I feel as though Planescape stirred the part of my soul that sought these answers, and despite it not giving me concrete answers, I feel satisfied with the new questions it posed to me. To me, good art never seeks to speak for the reader but instead provides them with the tools necessary to create subjective meaning from the experience they have with it. I believe Planescape does this quite well; I’d even go so far as to argue that it fully agrees with me here. When The Nameless One is posed the question, “What can change the nature of a man?” the game does not have him provide a concrete answer to the player. Instead, we are left with the game giving us the tools necessary to begin constructing our own answer to that question as the credits roll. Currently, I don't have an answer to that question, and I'm not sure if I will even have one a decade from now, but I'm okay with that. Part of growing up meant that I had to learn to be content with not always having an answer for everything; perhaps not every question needed an answer.

There’s more I could write, but perhaps it’s best that some things remain unwritten. I would love to endlessly navel-gaze, but that wouldn’t do me or you, the reader, any good. I apologise to anyone here who expected a formal review and was met instead by my self-indulgent introspection. There's really not much I can say about Planescape that hasn't already been said; it's an awesome ass game, and it deserves the reputation it has made for itself, enough said.

Anyways, I’d like to end this short write-up by saying that if you haven’t already played Planescape: Torment, you owe it to yourself to take that journey across The Planes. Sigil is known as the ‘City of Doors’, after all, so why don’t you look inside and see where one of them takes you?

Faust meets Witcher in one of the most deeply tragic and moving love stories of all time. Hearts of Stone is more than just a love story; it is also an interrogation of love, seeking to both affirm love and understand its proclivity for destruction when left unchecked. It retells an age-old story, but it does so in a way that excellently demonstrates The Witcher's almost supernatural ability to transform simple story concepts into some of the most intricate and riveting studies of the human condition ever seen. 

There are few games I've finished and just sat back and stared at the screen processing what I'd just experienced. Soma however, at the time of writing this is the first game that comes to mind that simply left that kind of incredible impact on me. It's been six years since I played this and I still occasionally think about it.

Equally though thanks to that, Soma is also an incredibly hard game to write about as it's honestly a game best going into blind. It plays like a walking simulator in a science fiction story is the barest of descriptions I am willing to give. The premise to this game as well as the cast of characters you run into are absolutely brilliant and I would say it's implementation is near perfect. The atmosphere of the locales you explore using elements of forms of horror and science fiction intermixed are incredibly detailed and just add to the feeling of dread the game imposes in ways more chilling than a simple jump scare some horror games rely on a little too liberally.

Gameplay wise Soma has your character Simon exploring different areas in a fairly linear fashion solving the odd very basic puzzle as it progresses. Where Soma's downfall that stops it being perfect is the enemy encounters. Whilst some are genuinely scary or tense in a lot of ways, some are more annoying to progress through their design and simply feel like an impediment of what makes Soma such a fantastic experience. This is only amplified by the developers themselves who released a no enemy mode as a free patch after the games release.

These encounters are not why you play Soma though, they aren't what makes the game scary, it's not what makes the game great. The story, characters and atmosphere together are what make Soma such an unforgettable experience and I urge anyone who likes science fiction or horror to give this game a try, preferably knowing as little before hand before going in.

+ Amazing story premise.
+ Fantastic atmosphere.
+ Detailed environments.
+ Great characters and voice acting.

- Enemy encounters are...not great at times.