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The concept is solid, the combat loops are enjoyable (even if on the basic side a little too much) and it doesn't outstay it's welcome. I was flabbergasted at first that the combat on the story mode was a little bit too difficult, but I guess this means that I would have preferred a third difficulty mode that streamlined the damage the player's character took. NOT a dealbreaker though... Interesting take/spin in terms of itemizations and customs and leveling up, but as with most RPGs I wish I had more control over the look/style of my character as to not have to choose between stats and aesthetics. A transmog system would have addressed this and it's a shame they don't have one because they obviously invested a little more time into the outfits in the game. Just like this, there are many other features that could have been better or offered as a choice to veterans of RPGs, but overall the packaging is of high quality and they focused on some things they delivered well enough which is a breath fresh air in the genre.

Had a decent time with it and as a casual of the genre I found the combat generally enjoyable. Playing this version of the game made a better impression to me than what I expected from videos and reviews of previous titles in the series and it didn't do the anime series a disservice (which was my impressions of the first game that was released after the series). In terms of mechanics and leveling up I rank it lower than most modern RPGs, but it didn't make a dent in the experience.

It's a very low effort sequel that doesn't seem to have tried improving any critical area of the first game.This means that I cannot see why anyone sound of mind would prefer the game with less features and I cannot in good conscious recommend this or any other similar projects in a similar state. For example, in the previous game I had one double lane street with minimal vegetation which makes that type of road more appealing in actuality and in the game. No options whatsoever of this type so far in their release. Now, ideally, I would have preferred these streets features to be pushed to the edge and have them fully customizable by the user to expand the pedestrian and vegetation (even street parking which is still very common) given that space was sufficient or to have more diverse options than the previous game. Expecting modders to fix this kind of stuff is just not acceptable. Why should you purchase something that literally just ported assets from the previous iteration which has more features and had a really poorly optimized first release too???

It's just not an impressive sequel. What they have improved it was done half heartedly (and they even removed some useful features in the previous game) and the limitations of the previous game that they haven't addressed are utterly disappointing since they made the previous game feel outdated even for the 2010s, let alone for the 2020s if the sequel still has those issues. For example there's no way to customize ship formations and thus you get situations where escorts don't occupy positions that would enhance their effectiveness in combat... repair ships for example cluster in just an area of the fleet not making their service available to all of the ships taking damage. Can be micromanaged but then the automatic formation will mess your repositioning efforts so it's not really a workaround, just an annoyance. The same can be said about the importance of distributing certain capital ships with certain key abilities, if they clump together they cannot serve their role properly. The UI has been revamped but it has numerous flaws. I really like some of the new features that they have added but they weren't properly introduced.

With every feature, the designers choose to remove player agency when it comes to your choices. Can't appreciate that in a strategy game and it rarely works well in other genres. It's also very similar in many ways to GC3, just with less features, more barebone and with fewer mods. It might not be that big of an issue had they delivered some more content since release, but it's not the case.

Offers a unique combo of features, economy sim and grand strategy elements mashed together with the flavour of the less explored 19th century (when it comes to video games, at least). But it's also buggy and certain features are difficult to grasp at first, even though not very complex per se - because of the UI and usability.

It's absolutely a game most people should try, it's a fantastic space sim, a mediocre MMO and a wonderful addition to the sci-fi gaming scene. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a large enough pool of cash, as other games that haven't delivered, so it's not evolving as fast as fans wish it to. 700, 1000 hours in, people get bored. Oopsy... but that doesn't mean new players shouldn't try it, even if they only intend to put in just 50-100h into it. It has a great concept, decent visuals, amazing audio and it can be played solo (as I played most of it) and/or cooperatively or in PvPvE mode (with MMO features if you so choose). I had the most amazing experience a few years back, I explored the Milky Way as it is recreated in the game (they hired experts in the field to make sure that the galaxy is recreated according to data we have, the nearest 150k systems that were mapped by astronomers are present in the game, while everything else that we don't have data for had to be guessed so that the number and types of bodies match what scientists would expect with our current understanding of things - how cool is that?). The journey took 6 months IRL (playing several times a week 2-3h each play session). In game I jumped over 60k light years and visited 3000 star systems across half the galaxy, looking to chart at least one star of each class and size, at all stages of development recreated in the game (made up my own challenge, because this is that kind ****). Not going to lie, it's a boring experience, it's about the journey not the instant gratification. While playing I watched all the TV series, YT content that I never made time for and re-watched some sci-fi shows too. The difficulty comes from the fact that if you die, you loose all the data you collect and the boredom makes it easy to make mistakes and get burned by jumping into a dangerous system because tens of previous jumps were safe. If it were any other way, you'd lose interest really fast. But in of itself, this approach is a very realistic portrayal of how such a journey would be 99% of the time. It's just that in that other 1% you find something that is so amazing or breathtaking that it makes it all worth while. And this is just one of the things I've tried. It's also why I confidently tell you to ignore the reviews and the negativity, dive into a sci-fi experience that is unamtched.

It has a good idea, the execution is not stellar but neither is it too bad. The worse thing I can say about it is that it outstays its welcome, but can't fault the devs for trying to give the players more content. It also loses points for having unskipable cutscenes at the end of each turn that can be a waste of time, it's really unfortunate. Also loses points for the insane amount of resources used, it's just not justified for what is delivered. Other than that, they delivered what the people expected and the trend of reviews shows that it's a non-controversial point. Whatever shortcommings it has, it's not enough to spoil the experience. But we can't really ignore it with the final score either.

To this date, still the best XCOM. Have reinstalled it (don't have Chimera Sq) and it is still relevant today despite XCOM2 being released. Now to be fair, I got the most out of this game because of the Longwar mod, but that was back in the day. Vanilla play will be good enough for most people even today. It loses points because it has obvious problems, little bugs, QoL is not as good as it could be, etc. There are a lot of small problems that will get in the way and upset you a bit, but no showstopper or anything like that.

What was released? A remake, so my review and score has to weigh in on that effort (rather than how good the original games were) and if it's worth getting the new version rather than replay the one you already own. It's definitely worth playing the Legendary version over the old ones and it will be mostly an enjoyable experience (but due to how good the first 2 games were more than anything else). The "remake" effort was very minimal, the improvement in graphics for the first installment would be something that I would consider a must have, so they don't get a lot of points for that. Other than that, they chose not to change much, which is something that I can't really fault, but then again I would expect some work be put into fixing old bugs and widely known issues. We get none of that. The issues that you ready about on older fan forums and wikis are present in Legendary just like they were in the old version. I would have welcomed some QoL improvements over the past versions (as opt in choices for advanced users, so your experience wouldn't be tainted unless you really wanted to). The only thing we get is level up scaling choice between the classic approach and a newer one. Since they don't fix much apart from deprecated graphics and they don't do anything to improve upon the old formula - my conclusion is that this is a very, very low effort. What worked for the games originally still stands up to scrutiny and there aren't many viable alternatives. So having a slightly modernised version is unfortunately good enough. I also didn't get a chance to play with many of the DLC originally, so replaying directly in the legendary improved my impression from a 7 to an 8, final verdict. ME 1 & 2 stand the test of time, unlike 3 and Andromeda.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Not worth bothering with it if you're a returning player. It's more of the same in terms of features, a slightly different spin, but mostly more of the same in different time period. Can't reward that, but that would give it in my books a higher score if the formula worked better or if they improved other things like the engine, performance/optimization, combat mechanics or AI. Game balance in single player is also kind of weird. Most importantly from a personal perspective, it wasn't fun to play or interesting in any other way, there's no way I could recommend a game like that. All in all, it's not worth the asking price.

Don't know what expectations were at the time, but it's worth playing today if you haven't already. Especially if you're interested in those types of vehicle combats. I don't really like casual games, brawlers, action RPGs that much, but I completed the main campaign, the side thingies and collected most of the stuff available. Not much extra I can say. On the negative side, the fighting gets repetitive really fast, so I kind of get how non-casuals might not like this as much. The world might be open but the story progression was designed to be completed in a specific order otherwise things might not make sense here and there. There were other smaller issues, but none of this really matter because the experience was otherwise very enjoyable, this was needed just to explain why it doesn't deserve an actual 10.

It's an anambitious project and a mediocre score is more than it deserves. I was a fan of the TW series since I was a kid and, because RTW offered me so much replayability, I wanted to support the company, but they're taking advantage of their fanbase and the series is becoming like the Assassin Creed franchise instead of staying true to their roots. When they started out, they added something revolutionary to the mix of strategy games available. But that was a long time ago, many releases ago. The combat system has pretty much remained the same since the era of Rome2 Emperor Edition. Not a bad starting point, not without obvious flaws and limitations that I hoped they'd try to iterate on (way too many to list than their effort deserves the effort). But this is how a mediocre score is more justified than a higher one. It would be 2 points higher if this system wasn't as repetitive within the game itself and if the AI was at least slightly better. Every other component has a similar faith. The campaign map playmode is barebones in terms of diversity and content. This is soemthing that I avoided criticising in the past because other historically inspired strategy games get away with it (Civ fans, I'm looking at you with nothing but contempt). However, when you're releasing the same thing every couple of years and then sell so many cosmetic expansions, it's something that could have easily been taken care of. The main reason it's shallow remains the extremely shallow diplomacy system (it's so stupid to see people praising it when there actual games doing a good job in this regard) and almost inexistent political or actual governance system. They have espionage now, but it's also barebones... it's legwork, not interesting, doesn't really add much to your playthrough. This aspect, the SP campaign mode, is mediocre for its own reasons. Why not go lower with the score then? Because it's fairly well polished. When I jumped in (some time after release) it was well optimized and this permited me to do a few speedruns alongside my usual playstyle. Also, the flavour art is good. We've seen it done beofre, but this is genuine content. All in all, unlike multiple Creative Assembly releases, this one was ok, doesn't deserve a truly bad mark, tbh.

It's a mediocre game and if you don't have a lot of spare time for gaming you should at least wait for the first 3 major and actual expansions before jumping in (as usual with Paradox games). But you wouldn't get that from the actual reviews. The higher scoring ones don't provide much justification, they even list problems that should prevent the reviews from giving near flawless or even flawless marks. In response, there are many 0-3 reviews which are just as low effort. ---- There are two angles we could consider to justify a score in the middle: 1) what they achieved relative to what they attempted and 2) how this actually plays relative to the expectations that people might have about titles in this series and genre. And the game is mediocre, at the moment, in most regards. Every aspect of the game that I could think of has both obvious pros and cons. I would have scored it a 6 had it not been the kind of game that I was looking forward, but also I rated higher because ultimately, they haven't botched my experience at launch as they did with other recent releases. Examples now. Value at release is obviously a con from the perspective of expectations. CK2 had more content at release (more history and starting options) than CK3 while it has different but relatively more gameplay features. CK3 also has more optional features that enhance things like modding. It's also more stable in terms of bugs (I've been looking through negative reviews at examples of bugs and they don't make a lot of sense, my personal playthroughs were quite clean even though I played in debug_mode which is inherently less stable). People also suggest a lack of diversity of events at release - it's to be expected, but it impacts those that play it as role playing experience. From my perspective, seeking a more strategy oriented experience - the game is good enough for a casual experience, but it's also kind of repetitive. Just because they intended this and achieved it, do I rate it high? No!! I have no idea if and how many expansions will it take to fix these. HoI4 and Stellaris are still not fixed many years after release, while games like EU4 have been polished sufficiently but also ask way too much money for what it offers. Gameplay, from the perspective of content available at the moment, has big cons as well as some nice pros. Other misc examples to emphasize this. The UI is both a hit and a miss. Looks good, love the idea. But in CK2 (which wasn't user friendly to new players) I could accomplish what I needed easier in respect to the stuff that is also present in CK3. If newbies found that difficult, in CK3, they might not even realize that the game has more strategic depth than it really has. There are big cons even though the pros are things I emphatically approve of and would keep even with the cons. But I can't rate it high because of these facts. They've changed how you raise armies in the game to simplify it. For newbies, this would seem like a good idea, but it means that they might raise stacks that incur high attrition rates. For every other player, this means that the micromanagement has been changed from raising the armies to splitting the unmanageable stacks. Also, it's a strategy game, but the current system can be exploited to teleport troops between wars. There are other factors that would make sense in a strategy game but weren't considered. Hit and miss at the same time. The list could go on and on (and on and on and on....) I utterly reject the notion that we should expect less of it because it hasn't had time to develop all the content like CK2 did. We've already paid for the development of said content (history hasn't changed and that game offered a great starting point in terms of content). We're paying for a technical refresh of the series and the notion that they can piecemeal the game is something that I tax on purpose. ----- It's not a compelling strategy game, it's a better casual game. It's the one aspect where it is too similar to CK2. That game could have used a more complex combat system (in the sense of involving the player more). The roleplaying elements are not that great at this point. It's the one aspect that I could see making this game shine in the future, but they need a lot more content and context. The UI is also getting a little in the way of this. *edit reason: grammar/typos.

It's a genuinely bad game and that in itself is worth writing about. The only thing it has going for it is the looks, but other than that the gameplay feature set is shallow & poorly thought through, the AI is bad, for a strategy game it lacks any depth (it's a clciker more than about thinking, pondering decisions). I rarely regret purchases as I usually am more selective with what I buy, but there was a sci-fi dryspell at the time it was released, so I got it anyway. The problem is that it's not worth the time even if you get it at discount, frankly.

This review is in anticipation of CK3, if it comes out barebones in terms of the feature set, you might want to try out CK2 instead. Here's why. It's one of those games that is great to play but technically still flawed after many years of patching. It's also hard to define, this depends how you personally play it, what's your style. You can play it like a strategy game (which is how I approach it - ignore the fluff), but you can also play it as a role playing game. And this later part is why so many people define it as a murder/incest simulator. The game offers a window into the intricacies of medieval court life and how it impacted the course of history and I do appreciate games that tackle heavy topics in some way, that manage to enhance our understanding of that thing (in this case, that period in human history). Vanilla is great to play as is since the LoR expansion, but there are truly great mods. I've played the enhanced experience mods, the one set in ancient Rome period, the Elder Scrolls and GoT mods. The mechanics truly fit these time periods and lores. Plus each playthrough gave me an additional 100-120h of playtime. I can't say the same about many other Paradox games. The DLCs are a mess, but it doesn't constitute a con. You need about 120 euros worth of content in order to properly get all out of it. Most of them don't expand the game and they're truly optional. There are some great mods too, for example Charlemagne expands the timeline a lot which in itself adds depth to the history and background simulation of games that are started from previously available starting dates. But it's also great to play to also experience that part of European history too. They did hide some features in later DLCs, but most of them are in the base game and you don't need the accompanying DLCs, unlike with EU4. Ultimately, CK2 was so good for me that I bought all the non-cosmetic ones as they're needed to enjoy the mods properly. But this was to encourage further development and it's not something I recommend to my friends that play it more casually. It truly has replayability value. I've replayed scenarios like the salvation of the Byzantine empire or the formation of the Roman empire and they offer a different experience each time. Of course, the main reason to replay this would be to experience the mechanics from the perspective of rulers in various corners of the map.

It's a nostalgia trip. To me, it was 1999 game made with the technology of the 2010s. The hacking is trivial, the stealth is not that good, FPS mechanics are meh, the RPG elements have too little of an impact on the overall experience, the graphics and artstyle are interesting but not that good, the story is just average and the level design is liniar. That was mostly what they were going for, but it also make it an average game for me. I did enjoy it, unlike Mankind Divided that I can't even be bothered finishing. So that's why I rate it averagely, however it's the kind of game I'd play when they have at least some interesting aspects and this one does, it's how the story unfolds (and generially, I'm a sci-fi geek). I would like to experience the same kind of gameplay/story with more modern game mechanics and decent hacking minigame.

Not sure if the high marks help it for people that jump on board late because it's marks are based on the fact that people like that it tried to do something differently, rather than having achieved great features with all of the things they tried. So, if you go in with high expectations and find features that are a little dumb, clumsy it might create a disconnect. However, I really liked it, overall. I like the ideas much more than what they accomplished with them. To me, this game vindicates those childhood platformers that made no sense (can't explain how without spoilers). Basically, those older games had features that were logically inconsistent with how physics work in our world. This game has a way of making them believable in 3d and it does that through game mechanics, not lore or cinematography... this part is very important to me. We play video games, we shouldn't be "spectators" in our own playthroughs, so it's important to me that games tell a story or make a point through mechanics (remember Antichamber) or have them work well in conjunction with the art style, music and story telling. Nier Automata is important to me because it makes platformers' logic work seamlessly, you start playing and those things make sense in 3d before you realize it. The art, the music is also appropriate with the action on screen. This helped with the imersion factor. The combat mechanics aren't that difficult, it's approachable - and that's a good thing. It's not that easy though. Because it tried so much being authentic, it also has some features that are simply annoying for no good reason. If this approach was used more often, I'd probabily rate this game as a 7 or an 8 because of these issues, but because this game's ideas are quite unique, I can ignore the fact that they tried stuff that doesn't make sense.

Was looking for a fun, lightweight shooter to enjoy occasionally, without any constraints. That's what Warframe does well for me with the PvE component. Great content for value, I've gotten some cosmetics for the warframes I've played with and I'm going to continue leveling them up and acquiring more, but what I like most is that I can play at my own pace, whenever there isn't anything worth trying out and the game's economy doesn't punish me for wanting to play this casual. Good stuff. It has great mechanics too. Fights are enjoyable, boss fights are mostly ok for the single player, though they get more difficult than I would have wished for. And the RPG elements are well done, they make me wish for more upgrades and customization options which kind of shows that they achieved what they are intended for. It's not perfect, but offers a lot more value than games from other publishers that were released after it.

It's a mediocre game that doesn't accomplish what it set out to do. On top of that, the PC port is not very good. It was stable so far in my case, just a bit choppy - however, it also comes with some nasty console port problems. And the graphics is unimpressive for 2020 - too bad for the artstyle, though. There's not much else to say, at this point, I don't intend to complete the game and was about to abandon before I got too far. It's repetitive, just not that interesting.