ZogarSag

Asterigos: Curse of the Stars To my own surprise this is another game I finished! I could call it action adventure, where you play as young girl Hilda in kinda ancient Greek looking world. Many reviews say Asterigos is Soulslike game, but I don't think so. Yes, there are some features copied from Dark Souls, like bonfire system, respawning enemies if you die, weapon upgrades, big boss fights. But really emphasis here is on the story. And the story is quite good, at least it kept me finish the game. It starts very traditional, when you are to track your father, but soon it slowly opens up and takes you into this new strange city, its politics, history and actual problems. From typical errand runner you become a local hero. Of course nothing extraordinary, but nevertheless the presentation of story is good. It has the right pace - there was a point when I thought the big surprise is awaiting me ahead, but unfortunately in the end story took safe traditional route. Too bad they didn't went that way. On the negative side there is too mach of unnecessary text and lore, NPCs talk and talk even after you got what they want from you - I bet many players start skipping all unvoiced dialogs and avoid reading lore texts at half of the game. It is understandable that authors wanted to make everything clear and comprehensible, it is obvious they put a great effort in the world and story they created, but really it is a bit overdone here, it would be no harm if they cut half of it out. Combat, which is most of what you do in game, besides talking with NPCs, reminded me more of Kingdoms of Amalur than Dark Souls. You have given set of weapons, which you can upgrade for better damage, and you can choose to use two of them at same time, like daggers and spear. Some weapons are more OP than others, especially staff, which turns into sniper gun. They all have their own special attacks and skills, which you can learn along the game. Some of those skills are also OP to the point when you become immune to damage while continue beating enemies. This turns boss fights into easy cheese, so no Dark Souls here. I liked main character and especially her voice actress - must say voice acting in Asterigos are top notch! While Hilda is obviously a powerful girl, who can beat almost everyone and everything and there are other main characters women of power, I didn't felt like it was some of that modern diversity crap forced on players, it really felt right in place without any hidden "message" lurking behind every corner. Another bad thing for me was that there wasn't enough armor or dress for such a game, especially when main character is a girl. As any other man I have soft spot for those bad ass sexy looking women, too bad you can get best looking armor only after you beat the game :-( In conclusion I give Asterigos 9/10, being one of rare games I ever finished! It took me 56 hours to complete it, playing mostly few hours at evening for 3 weeks. I was afraid, as with many other games, there will be a point where I had no more will to load it up, but somehow story and combat kept me going. So if you like action adventure it is worth a try!

Bard's Tale 4 I remember when the first screenshots appeared, I really disliked that blue grid and 2D characters looking back at you, like if they sat in a cinema. I watched some let's plays later, but still thought it was a meh game. Don't know why I picked it up in the end, I guess it was that old school feeling, which appealed to me. And man, glad I did! At the beginning I was worried that I would abandon the game pretty soon due to ugly characters and outdated graphics, but after a few hours I forgot about such miniscule things! The atmosphere and gameplay just **** me in! Playing BT4 was like eating dessert! I longed to get back home sooner, turn on the comp and do another game session. BT4 reminded me a lot of Wizardry 8 and Arx Fatalis - it really has that old school feeling about it, to the point , when you don't see ugly outdated graphics anymore. Voice acting was simply great, with all weird british accents and Wizardry 8 kind of party banter, even enemies drop some funny comments in battles. And I'm not even talking about music - it is just fantastic and made 50% up of the game rating! Irish or Scotish folk songs in a manner which reminded me a lot of Clannad. Apart from storytelling the game is half battles, half puzzles. As soon as I started to feel tired of constant enemy engagement there came a puzzle. I found puzzles quite good and enjoyable compared to some other games, they felt logic and I solved them all myself. Even combat felt like a little puzzle too, though I became quite powerful soon enough and many battles started to feel really easy in the second part of the game. Then I went to Harenhold (DLC area), before the last boss, and combat became challenging again. I played on hard difficulty without using any op skill combinations, except on Harenhold's last boss. All in all I think balance was fine, it was great fun to discover and try out new skills, though I uncovered them all before the last chapter. So I was afraid that as with many RPGs of late it will become boring if the game will drag on and I will give up, but to my surprise it wasn't too long till the last boss appeared and the game ended. So the length was fine for me - neither too long nor too short, I didn't feel burnt out. Witch unfortunately happens to me a lot with the bunch of latest modern RPGs, like D:OS2, Kingmaker, Wasteland 2, Kingdom Come and some other - they simply are too long, the story starts to drag on, gameplay is filled with necessary trashmob fights (well except KCD) and usually I lost my urge to continue, there is always new game around the corner to try it out. As I understood many disliked BT4 because it was not like the first games of the series, I didn't play them back then, so I had no special expectations. I'm glad I picked up Bard's Tale 4 despite my concerns, I give it 9/10 (would never have thought so !), a great game, and would like to see more of it in the future. ( though I doubt it will ever happen). Great: Characters, voice acting, music, combat and game mechanics, puzzles, fun skills, oldschool feeling and atmosphere. Good: Story, but nothing new here, same old "evil wizard about to destroy the world". Maybe not so good: Outdated graphics, ugly character models, somewhat easy and repetitive combat after half of the game, some op skills, ingame currency quickly becomes worthless same as elven weapons.