Gramps

When I heard about this game I was very excited because it seemed to be similar to Gothic 1 & 2, however, I was ultimately disappointed because for the following reasons: - World feels too big, and a bit empty - No fast travel - No mount or some ability to move around fast - No manual save - Too small inventory limit - Janky combat - Starting area/home is on the upper left corner of the map instead of the center of the map - Story and characters are boring / almost no quests at starting area - Graphics are outdated On their own these issues wouldn't be big deal, but combined together they create this situation where it makes me want to NOT explore: - going too far is annoying because then you need to walk all the way back to the vendor on foot (since no mount or fast travel) - usually for 5-10+ minutes because it's on the edge of the map instead of center - engaging in combat is off-putting because combat is bad, meaning I can die easily because of unfair reasons, and I have no manual save to save and just try out to fight some enemy, and even if I win it just feels like a high-risk low reward, because I can't loot weapon + armor due to inventory limit - In case my backpack is almost full then I kind of don't want to explore dungeons either because why would I if I cannot loot anything? - Trying out different weapons/builds is not that much viable because even with just one extra weapon you are already over the inventory limit... So what is the appeal of this game? Is it a walking/hunting simulator where you just go out to nature and enjoy the beautiful view? Well no because the graphics are kind of ugly/outdated too, so... I guess it's more like a survival game? As a survival game, it's fine, there is a nice crafting system, you go hungry, and thirsty, have to wear adequate outfits for different weather, etc. so in that aspect, I think they did a good job with this game. All in all, I feel like I would enjoy this game much more if they made the following changes: 1. Fast travel to places we have already visited - maybe give us some teleporting stone or something like in Gothic for an immersive way to fast travel 2. Double the inventory size of all backpacks - 50 is too little for starting where you wanna try out different weapons and are unsure about build 3. Either add a mount (ex. horse or something) that we can ride, or add some easy-to-craft movement speed potion that would double our movement speed 4. Add a main chest that is "shared" between areas - ex. if I store something in the main chest in City A, I should be able to retrieve it from the main chest in City B But as of now, I can't recommend this game unless you want to play CO-OP because it really feels like this game doesn't respect your time at all. The fact that we don't have what would be the very simple quality of life changes that I mentioned above, leads me to believe this was an intentional decision by the developer because they want to target a specific audience, and I seem to not be part fo this audience. Disclaimer: This review is purely based on my single-player experience.

TL;DR - In lot of ways this game reminds me of Witcher 2, and Mass Effect 1, both in style of game, but also in sense that it feels like it would join the all time greats such as Witcher 3, and Mass Effect 2 if the team behind it had the bigger budget and capacity Things I disliked most: Lack of environment variety - cities and open-world kind of feel the same. Unique quests do set them apart, but it is definitely something noticable after 10-15 hours of gameplay Lack of enemy variety - what I mean by this is mostly aimed at those brown bear-like creatures, there are soo many of them, and it becomes very annoying to see them for 100th time. What makes it noticable is that all of them have this dark/brown color, so even if there is different enemy, because it has same color it feels like it's same enemy. (small nitpick) Not being able to fast travel from anywhere - this is very small thing, but after ~15 hours it was bit annoying that I couldn't just teleport to other areas, but had to walk to the campfire and then teleport, it's not big issue but something that annoyed me Things I liked most: ️Ability to solve quests in multiple ways - Here is some example - you can convince guards to let you in, you can disquise yourself as sailor and walk around like in Hitman games, you can craft bomb and blow up wall, you can make sleeping pills and poison drink so guards fall a sleep, or you can just fight through. In my opinion this is essence of great RPG and this game has it! :) ️RPG mechanics - charisma, science, crafting, vigor, lockpicking etc. they aren't all feel like they have place and are useful, while at same time not feeling like they are too much ️Story, characters and quality of quests - absolute highlight of game, quests are on par with some of the best RPGs out there, very fun. ️Being able to pause time in fight and plan out next move - YES, more games need to add this, it reminds me of Dragon Age Origins ️Companions - All are unique, interesting, have well written lines, great quests associated with them, and you can romance them. They have been great addition to the journey, and they don't make game too easy, so no reason to not bring them with you. ️Boss fights are cool + combat is fun - it's not Sekiro/Elden Ring, but it's pretty good, it doesn't feel too hard, and it doesn't feel too easy, I have played as technician and combat felt balanced on Hard difficulty ️Arena - I love when RPG has arena, and this one is fun + has nice quests associated with it. All in all, I have enjoyed this game very much, and am excited to see what devs do for the future! I will recommend this game to anybody who enjoyed more "talk" oriented RPGs (like Witcher and Mass Effect)

Not fully sure how this game is getting so much praise. From the pure RPG aspect, it's not really good, especially compared to something like Witcher 3, Gothic 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, etc. Dialogue, characters, world design, colors, quests - all pretty bland, boring and forgettable. Thing that carries this game is the soundtrack and combat, and I would argue that even combat is not that good because most of enemies are just bullet sponges, especially in "post-game" where it's not hard but just time consuming / boring where you hit enemy for 15+ minutes (at times it feels like I am playing offline MMORPG..) All in all, the game is OK, nothing special and I believe it's overrated.

I wrote a depth review but Metacritic gave me a 404 error... TL;DR It's a good game that fixed a lot of the frustrations that I had with Odyssey, brought back some things I liked from Origins, and expanded on the systems introduced in both games. However, it does feel like it's way too big for its own good. Especially the Asgard part feels like such an unnecessary arc, and completely breaks the game's flow. I honestly can't help but feel like mystical stuff should be left outside of the AC game, and if they really want to make a game with mystical things, gods and powers, it should be a completely separate game, otherwise, it just breaks the flow, plot immersion, etc.