DizavidHZ

This doesn't even deserve a long review: the controls for space flight are so abysmal they made flying in early GTA games feel smooth and elegant. Considering how much of the game is spent flying, this is a *problem*.Could we maybe start holding indie games to higher standards? They're not these teams of two or three people in a garage; they're a business with lots of workers. They should at least have to live up to the standard of, "I don't feel as if I spend more time fighting my controls than I do figuring out what's occurring in the solar system. I began to dread every single time it was time to get back in my ship. The rest of the game seems very intriguing, but it's not my job to fight through their cut corners to access and comment on it less broadly than that. Final verdict: the controls ruin any immersion the intro fought to provide.

This doesn't even deserve a long review: the controls for space flight are so abysmal they made flying in early GTA games feel smooth and elegant. Considering how much of the game is spent flying, this is a *problem*. Could we maybe start holding indie games to higher standards? They're not these teams of two or three people in a garage; they're a business with lots of workers. They should at least have to live up to the standard of, "I don't feel as if I spend more time fighting my controls than I do figuring out what's occurring in the solar system. I began to dread every single time it was time to get back in my ship. The rest of the game seems very intriguing, but it's not my job to fight through their cut corners to access and comment on it less broadly than that. Final verdict: the controls ruin any immersion the intro fought to provide.

A boring, overly tedious, and generally underused battlesystem ruins an otherwise good story. The battle system tries so hard to be "MMO but single player!" and forgot to make the party AI more competent than a bag of kittens taking on a tsunami. Specifically it took the typical "rogue" class and built an entire combat system around it. Where you stand matters, and you'll usually have multiple moves requiring you stand to the side or behind an enemy. They're doing this too, and the AI pathfinding is truly a miracle in incompetence. You could set most longer battles to yakety sax, watching you and the enemies dance around each other. Idk if your party members even try to position correctly; you usually can't tell what's going on in combat bc the screen will become cluttered (esp at the end when you're fighting several tall or large enemies). You can call out dynamic party commands such as "focus on my target" or "walk to me". With that I have exhausted all AI combat customizations. You can't dictate what HP level the healer should use her spells (...well, bullets) and therefore often ends up on cool down sooner than she should. You can choose who to control before battle but are locked in during: if you want to police the heals, expect combat efficiency to drop drastically. Most of the characters are useless in general, since you're usually going to have no choice but to use up two of three slots for a tank and a heal. It's usually easier and better to just let Shulk take up that third slot. There are two tanks but really only one healer for most of the game. There's also a gemcrafting side thing where your weapons and armor have slots for them. Most of the game this is useless and once it's necessary, you're drowning in useless crystals and one or two of the one you actually need. Again, the story IS good. But the combat feels like a dudebro who binges WoW and Mountain Dew created a combat system after a week with no sleep. And amphetamine. There's a silver lining though: I just saved some money in not having to buy either sequel. So there's that!

Lazy programming and extremely talented artists meet ONCE AGAIN in the world of gaming! It's beautiful and it had some good ideas. And with that, I have exhausted every possible good thing I have and plan to say about this frustrating mess of code that masquerades as a finished project. First off, it's difficult. And at first, I liked the idea behind it: Some untested blacksmiths son isn't gonna suddenly be some super godly army of one. You have to truly really use skills awhile before you're any good at anything. However it quickly becomes obvious the developers had no true idea how create *actual* challenge. So they made the protagonist the biggest burden to have ever been birthed. Henry is so inept at literally everything that I can't believe the stray breeze you see blowing the trees doesn't lead to a game over. He's a blacksmiths son, but the miller's daughter, who you play as in the DLC during the same opening as Henry, has VASTLY better stats. She also knows a LITTLE about shooting a bow. Henry meanwhile couldn't kill a fly with an army of frogs; he'd find a way to die to the fly. His strength at minimum should be up to snuff (blacksmiths son) but in reality he strains himself to even lift his middle finger. Even after training, he swings like a 90 year old man holding the Buster Sword. Of course, you could work around that if the controls are decent. The controls are not decent. The controls are so indecent they should be covered with censor bars. Even trying to explain it is gonna be a headache, but let me try: Your enemy will have a gold "star" on them, with one arm being red. This indicates which angle your slice will come in from. The game wants you to flick in the direction you want to come in from. Which in wording sounds right, but in reality it's FAR more natural to want to flick the R-stick (which you use to select body parts on the fly) in the DIRECTION YOU WANT TO SLICE. Which is what I kept trying to do despite knowing otherwise. The controls are pretty much that all the way through, from combat to lockpicking. Let's discuss object collision, something I never thought I'd have to bring into a game review. In an attempt for ultra realism, they made walls essentially bouncy castle reflectors to stop people from using jump to climb things they aren't supposed to (steep hills/mountains and such). The problem comes in with, again, lazy programming. Not only have I had an ankle high rock I tried to bunny hop over repel and send me flying back down the hill (injuring both ankles), I've had STAIRS stop me and render me unable to continue up unless I jumped over the grumpier stair step. I also injured an ankle walking (not even running) down steps. His forward momentum just carried him right out over the remaining steps and *crunch*. This game HAD a good idea and potential; the difficulty in becoming stronger isn't the issue and I'm honestly mad I'm missing that system all bc it had to be in a game whose controls and quality present far more difficulty than any leveling system ever could. It could have been good, but without the extra 12-18 months necessary for polish, it's just a waste of your time and money. If Henry were a children's book, he'd be titled "The Little Idiot Who Couldn't". If this game were a food, it would be pea soup ice cream. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Worst controls ever for a game that gets the fluffer treatment so often. Imagine if you will, an overhead *platformer* where you control Data from the Goonies while wearing his Slick Shoes. It's that bad; character slips and slides everywhere. They make you do trials built around platforming by programmers unable to accept platforming isn't a genre they're especially skilled at. This game tries to do too much, and sadly you can see how it could've come together. Instead, shoddy controls, lazily programmed enemy AI, and a stick shooter you can't adjust your cursor speed on make it more of a chore than entertainment should be. There's good here. Unfortunately it's buried under far too much bad to make it worth digging for.

To say something has the smell of indie on it can be either a compliment or an insult. Still oddly on topic, the compound indole is an interesting thing: in small amounts it makes several flowers smell wonderful (gardenias for example). However, too much indole and it stinks insanely; it's what makes solid waste smell so horrid. Sea of Stars heavily made me consider the nature of indole: sometimes I felt like I was smelling fresh gardenias, then other times pure human toxic waste. I decided the way to break this down is to use the same way the devs endlessly advertised this confusing stink bomb: comparing it to all the many "influences" (pronounced as "just shy of copying"). Some comparisons are my own and not theirs, though clearly the influence was there in such cases. (Though spoilers for the review; they ignored the things that made those games great and instead stole a gimmick or two per) Let's begin with Octopath Traveller, since clearly the combat was influenced by it. OT had battles I absolutely hated bc of how THEY. JUST. DRAGGED. OT had several squares above enemies, noting which weaknesses they had and you'd **** them with anything else. Sea of Stars (SoS) took this idea and changed it: Now the enemy projects the squares when readying special attacks. Clear them and it stops the attack. In theory. In practice? There's no speed stat, so enemies get to take their turn whenever they feel like it; this can mean "charged" attacks in-between each characters INDIVIDUAL turn. I put charged in quotation marks bc they can absolutely set themselves to only one move. Often with 3-6 tiles in need of clearing (for most of the game, only two characters have ready abilities that can wipe more than two tiles per turn). It's almost like they had issues with balancing and just threw a bunch of bandages at the problem; the system is held together with enough bandages to be considered a sequel to The Mummy. Nowhere was this more obvious than the whiplash difficulty: one second I'm boringly overpowered, the next I felt as if I'd missed an area or two for leveling. However Octopath comes out the victor here: They at least let you escape from boring battles. There's absolutely NO escape option in SoS. Max level against level one enemies? You're taking time out of your day to kill each one. Mario RPG is the next comparison, via the timed attacks. Aside from a couple, these are less fun and more "I feel like I'm being forced to do these". A boomerang ability early on showed so much promise just for most timed attacks to be simply, "Press A right now". QTE without the prompt. Chrono Trigger: the combo attacks are pretty neat. Nothing more/less. Breath of Fire: you *sorta* build a town (you just generically unlock the same buildings with only one possible person to run each.Game released in the 90s did town building better, and far more interestingly. Enough said there. Final Fantasy (Story): For the life of me I admit I don't know what the disconnect is here. All the parts are there for an enjoyable but done before story. I'm an EXTREMELY easy cry, even over really happy moments. A few moments of happy and sad moments happened and I felt *nothing*. It wasn't until halfway through the game I began remembering the character names. That... doesn't really happen for me in RPGs. Perhaps it's all the other issues draining the one place I can't find much fault with. A lot of these issues can be changed with "difficulty changing" accessories. I'd like to address that too. Check the early, pre-release reviews. All of them highlight this separate set of items. Meaning the devs wanted that point advertised early. Meaning the devs were *aware* of this problem so they added difficulty sliders instead of balancing... and then you STILL have to buy them in game first. I never tried the blatantly easy ones, but I did turn the extra exp one on. No, it doesn't quad, triple, or even double xp. It adds 20% measly percent. That's not a difficulty slider, that's a normal upgrade you might expect to find in an RPG. Sea of Stars had enormous potential, and you'll glimpse it just often enough you can't call this a bad **** just can't call it any of the things it emulates. Maybe all that potential will be recognized in a sequel one day, but for now I predict this game will go the exact same route Chained Echoes did: tons of exposure at first as a game touting a throwback to the RPGs of yore...only to be forgotten within a month. Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger,etc all stood the test of time. For Sea of Stars however, those stars you're seeing died a long time ago.

To say something has the smell of indie on it can be either a compliment or an insult. Still oddly on topic, the compound indole is an interesting thing: in small amounts it makes several flowers smell wonderful (gardenias for example). However, too much indole and it stinks insanely; it's what makes solid waste smell so horrid. Sea of Stars heavily made me consider the nature of indole: sometimes I felt like I was smelling fresh gardenias, then other times pure human toxic waste. I decided the way to break this down is to use the same way the devs endlessly advertised this confusing stink bomb: comparing it to all the many "influences" (pronounced as "just shy of copying"). Some comparisons are my own and not theirs, though clearly the influence was there in such cases. (Though spoilers for the review; they ignored the things that made those games great and instead stole a gimmick or two per) Let's begin with Octopath Traveller, since clearly the combat was influenced by it. OT had battles I absolutely hated bc of how THEY. JUST. DRAGGED. OT had several squares above enemies, noting which weaknesses they had and you'd **** them with anything else. Sea of Stars (SoS) took this idea and changed it: Now the enemy projects the squares when readying special attacks. Clear them and it stops the attack. In theory. In practice? There's no speed stat, so enemies get to take their turn whenever they feel like it; this can mean "charged" attacks in-between each characters INDIVIDUAL turn. I put charged in quotation marks bc they can absolutely set themselves to only one move. Often with 3-6 tiles in need of clearing (for most of the game, only two characters have ready abilities that can wipe more than two tiles per turn). It's almost like they had issues with balancing and just threw a bunch of bandages at the problem; the system is held together with enough bandages to be considered a sequel to The Mummy. Nowhere was this more obvious than the whiplash difficulty: one second I'm boringly overpowered, the next I felt as if I'd missed an area or two for leveling. However Octopath comes out the victor here: They at least let you escape from boring battles. There's absolutely NO escape option in SoS. Max level against level one enemies? You're taking time out of your day to kill each one. Mario RPG is the next comparison, via the timed attacks. Aside from a couple, these are less fun and more "I feel like I'm being forced to do these". A boomerang ability early on showed so much promise just for most timed attacks to be simply, "Press A right now". QTE without the prompt. Chrono Trigger: the combo attacks are pretty neat. Nothing more/less. Breath of Fire: you *sorta* build a town (you just generically unlock the same buildings with only one possible person to run each.Game released in the 90s did town building better, and far more interestingly. Enough said there. Final Fantasy (Story): For the life of me I admit I don't know what the disconnect is here. All the parts are there for an enjoyable but done before story. I'm an EXTREMELY easy cry, even over really happy moments. A few moments of happy and sad moments happened and I felt *nothing*. It wasn't until halfway through the game I began remembering the character names. That... doesn't really happen for me in RPGs. Perhaps it's all the other issues draining the one place I can't find much fault with. A lot of these issues can be changed with "difficulty changing" accessories. I'd like to address that too. Check the early, pre-release reviews. All of them highlight this separate set of items. Meaning the devs wanted that point advertised early. Meaning the devs were *aware* of this problem so they added difficulty sliders instead of balancing... and then you STILL have to buy them in game first. I never tried the blatantly easy ones, but I did turn the extra exp one on. No, it doesn't quad, triple, or even double xp. It adds 20% measly percent. That's not a difficulty slider, that's a normal upgrade you might expect to find in an RPG. Sea of Stars had enormous potential, and you'll glimpse it just often enough you can't call this a bad **** just can't call it any of the things it emulates. Maybe all that potential will be recognized in a sequel one day, but for now I predict this game will go the exact same route Chained Echoes did: tons of exposure at first as a game touting a throwback to the RPGs of yore...only to be forgotten within a month. Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger,etc all stood the test of time. For Sea of Stars however, those stars you're seeing died a long time ago.

This is the Metroid that marked the end of the fun in the series, and the game trying instead to go for a high difficulty platformer more than a game of exploration. The Japanese symbol for difficulty *must* be the same one they use for "lazy programming reclassified as intentional". Samus' wall jump is abysmal, and her space jump is somehow even worse. The button for jumping and shooting are in the exact opposite order they should be. There's a button to make her aim diagonally up but not down. The SA-X looks more like Samus from Super Metroid, almost identically, meanwhile the real Samus looks like an NES cartridge puked out a Samus shaped pile. The game is *decent*, but for me marks the wrong turn at Albuquerque for me; it eventually led to the remake for Samus Returns, which debuted quick time events as something you do to every enemy. They doubled down on this for Dread, and Fusion is squarely to blame. (What happened to y'all hating QTEs? That's all Returns and Dread are.) I'm writing this due to the rerelease on the Switch GBA emulator (let's call it what it is). They could absolutely allow you to rewrite button mapping (people who say it's harder than it looks are covering their own laziness; emulator creators showed just how easy customisable button mapping can be, ESPECIALLY on an emulator). This is just classic Nintendo: when they're good they're amazing, but when they're bad you feel the need to swab yourself for any unwanted used car salesman DNA.

This game is sad in the same way seeing aging in your dog feels sad: the way Sonic controls, (just look at how metrics for control they give you in the option screen; it's extensive) Sonic controls like an aging refrigerator that has a bad habit of bolting no matter what. The aging thing comes also in just how much Sonic likes to off himself via cliff despite pressing the exact opposite direction. This game is nothing but a frustration, and given the build up the team gave for so long, I really don't see any upper management intelligence in doing anything kinder than dividing them into other groups who actually know what a good game is, vs this entire team that acted almost giddy about their game only to find it's a Christmas stocking Santa vomited all his cookies into. Don't buy. I wouldn't even rent. Borrow it from someone else who made the mistake of thinking the Sonic team finally had their stuff together; clearly they don't. If Pokemon Scarlet/Violet deserved refunds, THIS game deserves refunds for sure. Skip this cellar dweller; a year from now it'll be just another sad joke in the series of sad jokes that is the Sonic profile.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I got this game at 15% off, which ended up saving around three bucksish. By halfway through I was wishing I'd paid the full twenty; I felt the devs *earned* it. I'd pay 25 easy for this experience. Now, it IS a heavily narrative driven game, somewhat of a walking simulator if you're quasi thorough. However, not only do the characters of Beacon Pines take on a life of their own; the town itself does. I truly felt like this is a place I should be able to go to and check in on how everyone's doing. Very well written, and the true star of the game is the narrator: she never fails to sum things up with gentle snark, or maybe toss in a feel or two. This is one place I'll definitely be revisiting again sometime. It's too charming for just one viewing.

In light of the new Metroid 5 being announced, I felt the need to revisit this trainwreck falling off the Hindenburg. I was not disappointed, it was as aggravating as I remember. Now, before the calls of, "git gud", or "this is how old school Metroid used to be!", I'd like to say I was playing Metroid when there was only one game; it had yet to be a franchise. I could avoid going in depth by saying just one thing: the game has a very, very generous continue system for when you die. The programmers knew you'd be dying a lot, and rather than do their jobs and balance, they decided smoking crack was a reasonable substitute. There's a chase scene that has multiple continue points inside it. So, if they were going for old school Metroid feel, they wouldn't have a continue system. It's a catch all for their lazy programming. Speaking of which! Samus apparently attended that crack party with the programmers, bc she now controls and aims like a refrigerator full of Mogwai that just devoured all the food half past midnight. Her aiming is *abysmal*. I actually took a photo of my thumb holding the direction I wished to aim, with her laser pointer in full view. They were not pointing even at an attempt in the same direction. I'd say a ten to fifteen degree difference at minimum. Now, this problem is negligible if you're taking a nice, peaceful interplanetary stroll. The game, however, forces you to utilize aiming, quickly and precisely, several times. Sev. Er. Al. The previously mentioned (instant death) chase scene comes back to mind here, though it's far from the only one. Finally there's the counterattack function. Dear gods somebody had some unearned pride over this, bc they shoehorn it in EVERYWHERE. Gone are the days of running and blasting through filler tunnels. Now you're stopping every five seconds, waiting for the counterattack signal. In closing, anyone who gave Other M crap, but fluffed this **** probably the same people who liked Daikatana; it just feels like the Venn diagram between those two is a giant circle; this game is very lazily programmed, but with just enough fluff and filler to try to distract you from it. Insult to injury? You unlock a hard mode upon completion. No thanks, I have teabagging a hungry crocodile JUST above playing Samus Returns ever again. Once I cross that off the list, we'll see.

How on Earth are people able to rate this game so highly? Not because it's bad, as it's actually quite good; I always felt KoA didn't get its fair shake. No, I'm curious how people are rating the Nintendo Switch version as anything but a zero, let alone 8, 9, and 10s, as the game is hopelessly bugged and broken. First off, a faction quest began dropping more crashes than it was loot. Specifically, certain dialogue breaks the game, as once you find a dialogue option that causes a crash, it always will, at the exact same time, on the exact same syllable spoken at the time. Then the final boss for that faction decided she stood no chance against me, and crashed the game anytime I try initiating the final dialogue she gives before her fight. You can't even skip through it; the crash comes almost immediately. This was highly aggravating, but it was a faction ie side quest. Plenty of more unbugged game to play. Then I decided to give a codex to an elven king. This is FAIRLY early in the main story. An entire cutscenes triggers, and crashes in the first spoken sentence. Again, it will crash at the EXACT same moment. In case you missed the key words MAIN STORY, let me reiterate that. This is the main story. The cutscene has a long, silent beginning so you CAN skip this one, at least. However I consider that even less of a fix than skipping the previous incident: at least that was something option. This is, ONE MORE TIME, main quest, ie they absolutely did not do any form of QA on this as it's kind of impossible to miss and it happens early in the main story. Or, much more likely, QA testers discovered it but were ignored bc quality is fine and dandy but ship dates pay bills. In all seriousness I have to assume other, more positive reviewers are just fans of the game as a whole and were optimistically showing it some love, as I cannot convince myself this is a rare, isolated case. I've found two other dialogue sections the crash happens on. That's just too many and too virulent to be rare. I do love this game and I hope the rereleases help give it the boost I always thought it deserved. However, as of the current date (3/29/2021), do NOT buy the Switch port. Not only is it basically unplayable outside of watching skipped scenes on Youtube as if you're playing off a scratched PS1 disc, but it's VERY obvious quality was either low on the list of goals or missing entirely. Buy another version, or better: Wait if you can. Make them actually bother to fix their mess before you pay them for the clean floors.

If someone offers to pay you to play this game, run as it's still too large of a price tag. When a games PR top bills the music producer, you're probably going to be playing a bad game. Oceanhorn is a Zelda clone in the same way a conjoined twin is a clone: All the DNA is there, but all anyone else can see is an unsightly mess. There's lots of good but absolutely plagiaristic things here; the game not only does nothing original, but it so heavily copies its source that I'm shocked Nintendo's lawyers weren't all over this like an emaciated bull is all over people at a Spanish festival. You travel the world in a sail boat that, minus the personality giving talking head, could be a twin of the one in Windwaker. The entire world is nothing but islands and a lot of ocean. You collect quarter pieced heart containers. You use a bow, bombs, and a special set of boots. You get a shield upgrade that reflects beams (sadly way more on that later, the spoiler part). Your sword (eventually) fires beams of energy when at full health. So why is Oceanhorn so bad for me if it so closely rips off an extremely fun game? Implementation and abysmal controls/design. Whoever programmed this must be a team of savants who are good at art and exactly nothing else (the game *is* beautiful). Your character runs and moves as if his feet are encased in hardening cement at all times. It says something when someone can swing a large, heavy sword three times faster than he can move his legs encumbered only by the cheap cloth he begins the game in. You'd be forgiven for thinking your game is suffering a glitch and is moving in slow-mo based on how he runs, if it weren't for the enemies moving at normal speeds suggesting otherwise. The largest proof of design flaw is in the beam reflection of your mirror shield. They call it something else, but it's a mirror shield. Spoilers here. You use your beam reflection on the final boss. Sometimes the beam would go directly through me, despite having my shield up. The beam would reflect then cut out, almost as if I wasn't reflecting anything else but my hopes to be playing a better game. For the record, you have to reflect the beam at both legs of the boss, then run over to said legs in the *very* short time the enemy is down and destroy power cells on its body. Combine the short time thing with the slow run, crappy reflect mechanics, and you have lazy difficulty: where programmers reclassify their own shortcomings as difficulty. There were a few bosses and set pieces like this. I never felt a sense of accomplishment when I finally passed these things; I felt exactly the way a sane human being should feel after tirelessly fixing someone else's problem that they willingly made. In short, skip this even during one of its many sales. There are SO many good Zelda clones out there; it would be a travesty to throw your money at this aborted dumpster fire instead those titles.

Do not touch this game for fifty dollars. Ten max. There's lots of good here, mistake me not. However, between bugs and bad game design choices, it has breaks of ruination that ruin immersion. First, the bugs. This review is as of 12/2020, so it's after the patches that got rid of the even more egregious bugs other reviews here are showing. Spells: I've had to look up online the definition of several spells, as selecting them from the spell wheel will make them copy the definition of a spell next to it. Pressing the more info button does not help; it brings up a random page of information. It once brought up the stats of a rod a different character was equipped with. Spells, bad game design: In order to create lazy difficulty curves, most spells (except damaging ones) are combat only. Up against enemies that can endlessly spit confusion/domination at you? You cannot cast spells protecting from this beforehand; you must during combat. There's almost no spells that outright dispel, and instead suppress these effects. Of note is the fact casting immunity from spells on someone suffering said effect DO NOT dispel nor suppress the effect. If it's a target only immunity spell, it won't even let you select the effected person as a target. There's no logical out of or in game reason for this. "I can only channel my spells when people attack me or my friends!" ? Lazy difficulty curves: Harping on same issue as above, many enemies can "break" rules your own characters are bound by; see the above: Mushrooms that can rapidly spit domination at you. Banshees can scream paralysis at you endlessly. A defensive perk increases your chances of avoiding by ten, but seems to be a waste of a perk point. This is all earlyish game mind you, where story barriers prevent your access to most gear that might be able to help. So spells are nearly useless against these enemies and gear is nonexistent. This doesn't happen *too* often, but often enough I've nearly put the game down. Selection "Hit detection": This just refers to the game realizing what object or thing you're trying to focus your attention to, most notably "Question Mark Cues" indicating points of interest. I had to laugh because often, if I don't want to hold down a button and try to aim a fan indicating what I'm looking at every single time, I've learned I can make the game know automatically by approaching the said object (can apply to treasure chest/searchable objects) and turning my back and thus gaze AWAY from it. Saving glitch: Just after chapter 2 begins, you cross a gorge and immediately fight some much tougher than usual mushrooms. Up until now they've been challenging enough to not bore, but not aggravatingly so. The above mentioned domination spitters is what I came across. Well, after loading a manual **** game decided I'd actually intended to save during the battle. So now my save loads not a screen above the encounter, but directly in the middle of it. Lowering difficulty isn't possible, as you must change screens for them to take effect. So it's down to loading up the last autosave now. Loading times: Ya know, when I read reviews, I saw this and wondered why reviewers were so impatient; they aren't bad at all. Until roughly midway through chapter 1, and it keeps getting worse. The more you play, the more data it keeps in memory. Even saving takes longer and longer. I'm aware this is a long and large game. So is Outer Worlds, and that's three dimensional. It did not have near this abysmal of an increasingly longer load times both in saving and switching areas. Reloading a save is the worst. I, not hyperbole, had enough time to go let my dog out, pour some milk, and came back to loading screen still up. This game wanted so badly to not just be Baldurs Gate 1 and 2; it obviously wanted to surpass them by copying them. I've beaten the above two on max difficulty before and never had such immersion ruining effects. There IS a lot of good things happening here, so if you find it on a heavy sale, I'd suggest getting it. However, due to how long it has been out yet so many bugs still exist from port to port, I would never recommend paying full price. This is not a $50 experience.