Shenobi
2011
Amazing soundtrack, ridiculously stupid ending(s).
As far as the games in the series go, kinda enjoyed this one a lot more than I thought I would. Felt like a story dealing with military characters wasn't going to resonate well with me (especially given how very pointedly they try and make your initial interactions between characters awkward for one-another), but it kinda drew me in as the game progressed.
I still hate QTEs to death, House of Ashes at least made me feel like stealth and action moments were important, even if you could feel out the pattern of when the QTEs were coming (especially in the final stand-off of the game).
It doesn't win any awards for me and sometimes characters had a bit of that creepy uncanny valley look to them (Rebecca more than anyone else), but it was fun and probably the best DPA game in the series (if you don't count Until Dawn, which the series doesn't seem to do, either).
Get it on sale, as it's about six to seven hours if you are being careful and trying to find collectables (I collected all frames and 43/50 secrets). There is replayability as always because of different storyline potentials and achievements/trophies, so it's worth it simply on the principle of treating it like going to the movies -- this is largely just an interactive movie that runs about 3-4 times as long as your typical movie, priced at about 2-3 times the cost of a movie, with extra reasons to go back and "watch" it again. If nothing else, get a friend to come over and watch them play through it and see how much their choices differ.
I'd say it's a reasonable deal at 30% off, a steal at 50%.
I still hate QTEs to death, House of Ashes at least made me feel like stealth and action moments were important, even if you could feel out the pattern of when the QTEs were coming (especially in the final stand-off of the game).
It doesn't win any awards for me and sometimes characters had a bit of that creepy uncanny valley look to them (Rebecca more than anyone else), but it was fun and probably the best DPA game in the series (if you don't count Until Dawn, which the series doesn't seem to do, either).
Get it on sale, as it's about six to seven hours if you are being careful and trying to find collectables (I collected all frames and 43/50 secrets). There is replayability as always because of different storyline potentials and achievements/trophies, so it's worth it simply on the principle of treating it like going to the movies -- this is largely just an interactive movie that runs about 3-4 times as long as your typical movie, priced at about 2-3 times the cost of a movie, with extra reasons to go back and "watch" it again. If nothing else, get a friend to come over and watch them play through it and see how much their choices differ.
I'd say it's a reasonable deal at 30% off, a steal at 50%.
This review contains spoilers
Short, short answer: When it's fun, it's really fun. When it's obnoxious, it's really obnoxious.
Longer answer: Well, let's break it down piece-by-piece.
Visually, the game is a mixed bag. Occasionally solid visuals get marred by horrible jagging and outlines (especially with characters), textures popping in and out that can sometimes happen so fast and repeatedly that it looks like a clinical in how to induce an inadvertent seizure, and the oft-mentioned draw distance problem coming into play, usually in the form of mons or other things you're specifically looking for not showing up until you're right on them. Not a deal-breaker by any means, but it's always a fun time when you're crouching in a cave and can see white light pouring through the seams of textures that don't quite touch the ground properly (or worse in some cases).
The game is fine as audio goes. Cues for alpha mons, some fun area music, subdued music when crouching in tall grass -- it's all pretty nice. If I had one concern, it's a question of why music sometimes just isn't present in an area at all. My wife and I have both had points where we'd be moving around for long periods of time with no area music playing, only to have it start up all of the sudden out of nowhere.
Technical issues, I only ran into a few.
At one point, the game started lagging a lot, so I saved, only to have it crash about ten seconds later. Nothing intensive, was just walking out of Galaxy Hall and heading over to the item box.
Another issue is that turn order in combat sometimes doesn't care about said order anymore when you're facing multiple pokemon at once. I can't speak to any specifics, but I definitely had a fairly fast mon that was significantly higher in level than the three mons it was up against sit there through five actions after using an Agile attack that -- at least according to the turn counter -- suggested it should only have to wait through three actions. Had a few situations like this, but I can only speculate on some aspects of it and it largely doesn't make sense to me in the case of the example I cited.
USEFUL TECHNICAL ISSUE FOR PLAYERS WANTING TO GAME THE SYSTEM -- Was doing some trading with my wife to test the usual mons to see if they'd evolve on trades with or without items, and noticed something very peculiar. Essentially, mons that you traded to someone and had traded back to you counted as another new mon in your research list for the purposes of catching mons.
Having trouble with Request 17 wanting you to fill out a Cherrim entry completely? Get someone to evolve a Cherubi and trade it back and forth until you're done. Especially useful since they're (at least for us) a pain to find and Petal Dance -- the move it asks to see for research purposes -- isn't learned until near level 50.
Basically, if you have a friend and are willing to commit to back-and-forths for trades, you can knock out some of the more frustrating mons pretty easily to get your Research Level 10 quotas.
Regarding gameplay, the game really manages to feel both fun and irritating for me depending on any given moment. I actually enjoyed the sneaking around to catch mons far more than I thought I would, and battling is mostly fine.
Battles feel really binary, as it seems like mons are built in a stacked manner against a player who might bring mons that should be strong against them to the battle. A lot of strategy is out the window because certain things just aren't relevant anymore -- status effects are temporary (and gone after battle), setups (both field-based and stat-based) are temporary during the battle, and you will occasionally be forced into battles against multiple mons at once with no ability to hit all mons present (as far as I know).
I'm not sure to the full extent of which AI behaves in this manner, but some mons specifically formulate their turn AFTER you've dealt damage -- in the case of one particular legendary in the postgame, it would heal itself right after a hit would reduce it to red bar levels WITHOUT FAIL. Trying to balance your attacks to get it into the red so you can catch it? Better stack yourself up with a second free turn because you're going to need it (or in my case, just get tired of it and throw a ball while it was in the yellow and get lucky).
Wasn't fond of the bosses for the most part. My wife said that they're there to test your understanding of the mechanics of the game, but I feel like it's just another "thing" that they wanted to try out, as per the standard in Pokemon games. You never sneak around or try and catch the bosses, nor do you even really actively engage them with your own mons -- instead, you're required to play an arena dodging game for a bit until the mon either does something that stuns it and allows you to engage it with a mon, or it gets tired of going through its cycle of moves and lets you throw a mon then. Yeah, you're throwing stuff at it to weaken it the whole time, but that's not something you do in the wild with normal mons, either. And the reward for beating a given boss with a mon is to have a few extra seconds to throw more stuff at the boss.
Some of the patterns do result in a fun time (second boss for me, specifically), but it mostly just feels like a chore. I died to the third boss once because dodging out of the way resulted in me clipping against invisible walls because of the way the terrain is set up for the fight, so that's an added bonus!
If you are having trouble with them, you are given the option to restart the fight or even restart the fight with your current progress against that boss counted in the restart. Nice option to have for people having trouble, I guess.
Having an invisible stamina bar for your dash/sprint/run move seems weird, but since there isn't any stamina required for dodging, you can always dodge roll forward whenever your sprint runs out because it's slightly faster than your normal movement and a few seconds will recharge your invisible stamina bar.
There's some weird design decisions, like giving the player the option to drown after they've acquired the water mount -- if you're using a mount and hit the water, you automatically call the water mount...but if you just jump into the water, you have to choose to call the water mount or drown and get sent back to shore. This also applies to the flying mount allowing you to switch to a non-flier in mid-air and drop (potentially to your death) if you want to. Kind of weird that they allow it, but in a way, it did allow me to realize that you could use the climbing mount to move up a wall, let go, fly to rise higher, then cling to the wall and switch again to move up the wall slightly faster. Beyond that, still seems like some weird decisions.
I don't mind there not being any breeding or (as far as I know) player battling in the game, but it does kinda put a damper on my desire to push beyond just collecting all the mons up and through postgame.
I did like some of the design decisions for alternate forms for some mons (which I will not mention here, regardless of the spoiler warning). I did end up using a couple of them through the end and postgame sections because I kinda grew attached to them. STILL WAITING ON SOME NEW EEVEELUTIONS, CAN'T WAIT FOR 2037 WHEN THEY FINALLY GIVE US A NEW ONE.
So yeah, essentially...when I'm not fighting bosses (outside of the second one) or just occasionally getting ganked in a goofy way in combat, it's a pretty alright time. I think I died three times in total? Once to the third boss, once to the endgame boss, and once to trying to be a good Samaritan by trying to get someone's bag they dropped and falling off an invisible-walled cliff because they dropped their bag in an area I wasn't normally able to access because of incorrect mounts, but it didn't stop me from walking/sprinting/jumping up awkward textures until I was too high to save myself from falling. Whoops!
Can't imagine getting this on sale unless you get lucky with one of those rare 30% sales that happen like twice a year, so I'd say it's worth getting full price if Pokemon is your bag, but if you think you can hold off, keep an eye out for one of those rare sales and just wishlist it. It's fun enough, the lore they try to throw out there is interesting (at times), and you get some new forms of several mons that make for some more interesting team chemistry if that's your bag.
Longer answer: Well, let's break it down piece-by-piece.
Visually, the game is a mixed bag. Occasionally solid visuals get marred by horrible jagging and outlines (especially with characters), textures popping in and out that can sometimes happen so fast and repeatedly that it looks like a clinical in how to induce an inadvertent seizure, and the oft-mentioned draw distance problem coming into play, usually in the form of mons or other things you're specifically looking for not showing up until you're right on them. Not a deal-breaker by any means, but it's always a fun time when you're crouching in a cave and can see white light pouring through the seams of textures that don't quite touch the ground properly (or worse in some cases).
The game is fine as audio goes. Cues for alpha mons, some fun area music, subdued music when crouching in tall grass -- it's all pretty nice. If I had one concern, it's a question of why music sometimes just isn't present in an area at all. My wife and I have both had points where we'd be moving around for long periods of time with no area music playing, only to have it start up all of the sudden out of nowhere.
Technical issues, I only ran into a few.
At one point, the game started lagging a lot, so I saved, only to have it crash about ten seconds later. Nothing intensive, was just walking out of Galaxy Hall and heading over to the item box.
Another issue is that turn order in combat sometimes doesn't care about said order anymore when you're facing multiple pokemon at once. I can't speak to any specifics, but I definitely had a fairly fast mon that was significantly higher in level than the three mons it was up against sit there through five actions after using an Agile attack that -- at least according to the turn counter -- suggested it should only have to wait through three actions. Had a few situations like this, but I can only speculate on some aspects of it and it largely doesn't make sense to me in the case of the example I cited.
USEFUL TECHNICAL ISSUE FOR PLAYERS WANTING TO GAME THE SYSTEM -- Was doing some trading with my wife to test the usual mons to see if they'd evolve on trades with or without items, and noticed something very peculiar. Essentially, mons that you traded to someone and had traded back to you counted as another new mon in your research list for the purposes of catching mons.
Having trouble with Request 17 wanting you to fill out a Cherrim entry completely? Get someone to evolve a Cherubi and trade it back and forth until you're done. Especially useful since they're (at least for us) a pain to find and Petal Dance -- the move it asks to see for research purposes -- isn't learned until near level 50.
Basically, if you have a friend and are willing to commit to back-and-forths for trades, you can knock out some of the more frustrating mons pretty easily to get your Research Level 10 quotas.
Regarding gameplay, the game really manages to feel both fun and irritating for me depending on any given moment. I actually enjoyed the sneaking around to catch mons far more than I thought I would, and battling is mostly fine.
Battles feel really binary, as it seems like mons are built in a stacked manner against a player who might bring mons that should be strong against them to the battle. A lot of strategy is out the window because certain things just aren't relevant anymore -- status effects are temporary (and gone after battle), setups (both field-based and stat-based) are temporary during the battle, and you will occasionally be forced into battles against multiple mons at once with no ability to hit all mons present (as far as I know).
I'm not sure to the full extent of which AI behaves in this manner, but some mons specifically formulate their turn AFTER you've dealt damage -- in the case of one particular legendary in the postgame, it would heal itself right after a hit would reduce it to red bar levels WITHOUT FAIL. Trying to balance your attacks to get it into the red so you can catch it? Better stack yourself up with a second free turn because you're going to need it (or in my case, just get tired of it and throw a ball while it was in the yellow and get lucky).
Wasn't fond of the bosses for the most part. My wife said that they're there to test your understanding of the mechanics of the game, but I feel like it's just another "thing" that they wanted to try out, as per the standard in Pokemon games. You never sneak around or try and catch the bosses, nor do you even really actively engage them with your own mons -- instead, you're required to play an arena dodging game for a bit until the mon either does something that stuns it and allows you to engage it with a mon, or it gets tired of going through its cycle of moves and lets you throw a mon then. Yeah, you're throwing stuff at it to weaken it the whole time, but that's not something you do in the wild with normal mons, either. And the reward for beating a given boss with a mon is to have a few extra seconds to throw more stuff at the boss.
Some of the patterns do result in a fun time (second boss for me, specifically), but it mostly just feels like a chore. I died to the third boss once because dodging out of the way resulted in me clipping against invisible walls because of the way the terrain is set up for the fight, so that's an added bonus!
If you are having trouble with them, you are given the option to restart the fight or even restart the fight with your current progress against that boss counted in the restart. Nice option to have for people having trouble, I guess.
Having an invisible stamina bar for your dash/sprint/run move seems weird, but since there isn't any stamina required for dodging, you can always dodge roll forward whenever your sprint runs out because it's slightly faster than your normal movement and a few seconds will recharge your invisible stamina bar.
There's some weird design decisions, like giving the player the option to drown after they've acquired the water mount -- if you're using a mount and hit the water, you automatically call the water mount...but if you just jump into the water, you have to choose to call the water mount or drown and get sent back to shore. This also applies to the flying mount allowing you to switch to a non-flier in mid-air and drop (potentially to your death) if you want to. Kind of weird that they allow it, but in a way, it did allow me to realize that you could use the climbing mount to move up a wall, let go, fly to rise higher, then cling to the wall and switch again to move up the wall slightly faster. Beyond that, still seems like some weird decisions.
I don't mind there not being any breeding or (as far as I know) player battling in the game, but it does kinda put a damper on my desire to push beyond just collecting all the mons up and through postgame.
I did like some of the design decisions for alternate forms for some mons (which I will not mention here, regardless of the spoiler warning). I did end up using a couple of them through the end and postgame sections because I kinda grew attached to them. STILL WAITING ON SOME NEW EEVEELUTIONS, CAN'T WAIT FOR 2037 WHEN THEY FINALLY GIVE US A NEW ONE.
So yeah, essentially...when I'm not fighting bosses (outside of the second one) or just occasionally getting ganked in a goofy way in combat, it's a pretty alright time. I think I died three times in total? Once to the third boss, once to the endgame boss, and once to trying to be a good Samaritan by trying to get someone's bag they dropped and falling off an invisible-walled cliff because they dropped their bag in an area I wasn't normally able to access because of incorrect mounts, but it didn't stop me from walking/sprinting/jumping up awkward textures until I was too high to save myself from falling. Whoops!
Can't imagine getting this on sale unless you get lucky with one of those rare 30% sales that happen like twice a year, so I'd say it's worth getting full price if Pokemon is your bag, but if you think you can hold off, keep an eye out for one of those rare sales and just wishlist it. It's fun enough, the lore they try to throw out there is interesting (at times), and you get some new forms of several mons that make for some more interesting team chemistry if that's your bag.
2020
Finally got around to finishing it and just want to congratulate RE3make on winning my award for 2020's Average Game of the Year. You did it, RE3 -- you were the most okay corridor shooter of all the things that had corridors and shooting.
I'll take PSX RE3 any day of the week over this.
I'll take PSX RE3 any day of the week over this.
1990
One of my favorite FF games in terms of job systems. The last dungeon is ludicrous in terms of difficulty spikes, though. Put me off of finishing the game the first time around and I had to come back sometime later and give it a real go, but it was worth it.
This review contains spoilers
Replayed this again since it's been a fair amount of time and I'd also never bothered to play the Steam copy I owned (had played the PS3 and PS4 iterations in the past).
I get the gripes about too many humanoid-type creatures and I think there are some awkward design decisions (mainly in the DLC, which is -- for me, at least -- a largely mixed bag of mostly misses), but when this game shines, it really shines.
I still think the Looking Glass Knight is one of the more fun bosses I've fought in any game and some optional methods for tackling some of the bosses in this game really encourage diversity in builds and paying attention to your arena.
Most people will light the areas on the sides of the Lost Sinner to make the fight more manageable for targeting, but maybe you want to play a mostly-archer build (I like to do this a lot in games), and DS2 has you covered. Covetous Demon? Shoot down the pots above it and get free shots while the demon eats undead meals courtesy of you. Executioner's Chariot? Kill the Necromancers and run all the way down to the other end of the arena where the ledge to the pit dips slightly on the inside (this puts you out of range of the wheel spikes) and shoot an arrow each time the chariot makes a circuit. Once it gets low enough, the chariot breaks and the horses cling to the pit's ledge. One shot and they're toast.
It's neat little flourishes like those that really make me appreciate a lot of design decisions going on in this game -- for instance, even if I don't use the 12-kill system to make progress, I think it's smart. I'm not sure which of the main three Dark Souls games is my favorite and it's probably not this one, but there's just so much to love with the experimentation that went on with this game in terms of design.
I get the gripes about too many humanoid-type creatures and I think there are some awkward design decisions (mainly in the DLC, which is -- for me, at least -- a largely mixed bag of mostly misses), but when this game shines, it really shines.
I still think the Looking Glass Knight is one of the more fun bosses I've fought in any game and some optional methods for tackling some of the bosses in this game really encourage diversity in builds and paying attention to your arena.
Most people will light the areas on the sides of the Lost Sinner to make the fight more manageable for targeting, but maybe you want to play a mostly-archer build (I like to do this a lot in games), and DS2 has you covered. Covetous Demon? Shoot down the pots above it and get free shots while the demon eats undead meals courtesy of you. Executioner's Chariot? Kill the Necromancers and run all the way down to the other end of the arena where the ledge to the pit dips slightly on the inside (this puts you out of range of the wheel spikes) and shoot an arrow each time the chariot makes a circuit. Once it gets low enough, the chariot breaks and the horses cling to the pit's ledge. One shot and they're toast.
It's neat little flourishes like those that really make me appreciate a lot of design decisions going on in this game -- for instance, even if I don't use the 12-kill system to make progress, I think it's smart. I'm not sure which of the main three Dark Souls games is my favorite and it's probably not this one, but there's just so much to love with the experimentation that went on with this game in terms of design.
2021
It's a step up from FF2J, but it's not without some design issues, which make sense if you look at the direction the games went in -- it's a bit of a feeling out and adjustments that were to try and craft a new experience, even if said adjustments may not have had the best end result.
A lot of jobs are largely pointless, equipment can be a pain to acquire if you are trying for certain jobs, and some early jobs just get outclassed by later iterations (not counting the two secret jobs if you do the optional dungeon -- one of those jobs is simply broken in terms of power).
I appreciate the attempt to really bring a story into the mix this time around, but this game really ends up being a story of grinding more than anything else. Even with the easing of difficulty, you're going to have to put in a little more work than usual to get some smooth sailing in this game.
It's on the fringe of being good for me, but doesn't quite get there. The soundtrack is solid in a few spots, if nothing else. Also, thank all the gods for this being the only game with airships that don't understand how height works. Mountain jumping might have been one of the dumbest things in FF-history, especially when you consider how the world in this game works.
A lot of jobs are largely pointless, equipment can be a pain to acquire if you are trying for certain jobs, and some early jobs just get outclassed by later iterations (not counting the two secret jobs if you do the optional dungeon -- one of those jobs is simply broken in terms of power).
I appreciate the attempt to really bring a story into the mix this time around, but this game really ends up being a story of grinding more than anything else. Even with the easing of difficulty, you're going to have to put in a little more work than usual to get some smooth sailing in this game.
It's on the fringe of being good for me, but doesn't quite get there. The soundtrack is solid in a few spots, if nothing else. Also, thank all the gods for this being the only game with airships that don't understand how height works. Mountain jumping might have been one of the dumbest things in FF-history, especially when you consider how the world in this game works.
2002
There's something really enjoyable about calling to people five feet away from you and then spraying them in the face with a ton of water. Also, there were earthquakes and seedy people. Everything that makes a good game good.
2008
Surprisingly good horror DS game. I didn't think those would be a thing (Nanashi no Geemu and Geemu: Me didn't really do it for me), but here we are with something showing you can do a lot in a little space with horror in a good way.
This gets three stars just for having the best plot ever: you've got to get Alex-Kidd to the arcade before it closes for the day.
Also, apparently Alex Kidd lives in the most prohibitively punishing house and world ever that definitely would prefer he doesn't spend his days playing arcade games.
Also, apparently Alex Kidd lives in the most prohibitively punishing house and world ever that definitely would prefer he doesn't spend his days playing arcade games.
2011
Tried this game out ages ago and thought it might be a fun dungeon crawler and threw it into the backlog for the backlog monster to feast on for awhile. Recently came up again, so I decided to give it a more substantial go.
The story is pretty much a nothingburger, although the explanation of why the protagonist is a Level 1 weakling is amusing enough.
The game feels largely like your basic dungeon crawler, but with a few varied mechanics thrown in to try and spice things up. None of the mechanics feel particularly unwelcome, though harvest points are obnoxious when they require you to buy or synthesize items with which to harvest them -- the latter being ironic, since you must harvest some materials in order to synthesize some items in the first place.
Leveling seems to be a slog, though the reward of skill points to distribute across a skill map as you see fit feels nice enough.
Equipment (whether purchased, synthesized, or found via rewards or combat or dungeon searching) feels mostly negligible early on in the benefits they provide. Equipping a new helmet and pants that give me an additional +3 defense to one of my characters just means that they're taking about 30 damage instead of 33 per hit, it seems like.
Not much else to say at the moment, as I'm only probably around four hours in and am navigating the first of several "Titan dungeons". It's not particularly inspiring as games go, but not a bad experience, either. Will come back to it at some point and continue the journey and see if the experience gets better, but for now, it's going back into the jaws of the backlog monster.
Edit: Since I forgot to mention it, the chaining system for acquiring monsters sounded neat at first, but it feels like the benefits from the monsters are largely random. You don't control them, they sometimes take hits for you or deflect hits entirely, and although you're supposed to be able to influence their moods to get benefits, I found I had no more luck/success in trying to guess what response a monster might want from a comment than I would just mashing X and picking the first response available. Not a deal breaker, just not something making me go, "I really enjoy this feature," either.
The story is pretty much a nothingburger, although the explanation of why the protagonist is a Level 1 weakling is amusing enough.
The game feels largely like your basic dungeon crawler, but with a few varied mechanics thrown in to try and spice things up. None of the mechanics feel particularly unwelcome, though harvest points are obnoxious when they require you to buy or synthesize items with which to harvest them -- the latter being ironic, since you must harvest some materials in order to synthesize some items in the first place.
Leveling seems to be a slog, though the reward of skill points to distribute across a skill map as you see fit feels nice enough.
Equipment (whether purchased, synthesized, or found via rewards or combat or dungeon searching) feels mostly negligible early on in the benefits they provide. Equipping a new helmet and pants that give me an additional +3 defense to one of my characters just means that they're taking about 30 damage instead of 33 per hit, it seems like.
Not much else to say at the moment, as I'm only probably around four hours in and am navigating the first of several "Titan dungeons". It's not particularly inspiring as games go, but not a bad experience, either. Will come back to it at some point and continue the journey and see if the experience gets better, but for now, it's going back into the jaws of the backlog monster.
Edit: Since I forgot to mention it, the chaining system for acquiring monsters sounded neat at first, but it feels like the benefits from the monsters are largely random. You don't control them, they sometimes take hits for you or deflect hits entirely, and although you're supposed to be able to influence their moods to get benefits, I found I had no more luck/success in trying to guess what response a monster might want from a comment than I would just mashing X and picking the first response available. Not a deal breaker, just not something making me go, "I really enjoy this feature," either.
2021
Although I appreciate the different approach this game took to almost everything (from exploration to acquisition of items to lack of mandatory bosses until the end for the most part), this game just didn't gel with me like the first one did.
I really liked the first one a lot and I think the overall direction this took just wasn't quite what I'm looking for in a Metroidvania. It's...fine? I'd elaborate more on design choice thoughts, but I just don't want to spend more time on a game that left me feeling underwhelmed. It does its job, there's enough content to warrant its price point, and that's about all I'm going to say.
If you're on the fence about it, get it on sale. You could do worse, you could do better.
I really liked the first one a lot and I think the overall direction this took just wasn't quite what I'm looking for in a Metroidvania. It's...fine? I'd elaborate more on design choice thoughts, but I just don't want to spend more time on a game that left me feeling underwhelmed. It does its job, there's enough content to warrant its price point, and that's about all I'm going to say.
If you're on the fence about it, get it on sale. You could do worse, you could do better.
This game was terrible about giving logical guidance and there was an exorbitant amount of grinding required to progress reasonably. That being said, the dungeons were a good time (although unfairly difficult in some respects, especially with the fake walls) and the soundtrack was one hell of a jam. Prossession of pieces of Dracula never felt so good.
My second favorite Wizardry game (the third being the PS3 one and the first being Wizardry 8). I wish more dungeon crawlers were like this.
2019
It's the later Fallout games, with less interesting customization. Exploration was fun and the story was solid, but this wasn't the return to form everyone was hailing from their saviors that gave them New Vegas.