Recent reviews by Wally

Simple description: short and sweet

It doesn't overstay its welcome and so the combat feels smooth all the way through.
Game is about 4-6 hours long depending on how obsessive you are about the collectables.

Overall, the presentation is quite good and all elements of the game come together to make a pretty good title, albeit with low staying power.
If you are wary of the price for the length this is a pretty "get it on sale" candidate. You won't regret it at anything less than 25% off. But I would still recommend trying it at the base price.

The trouble with reviewing early access titles is that not every developer uses early access in the same way. Some are very rough stages with a lot more content to be added and some are mostly feature complete concepts with some content missing.

For BG3 it is more of the former and any review, and thus review reader, has to keep this in mind. This isn't your traditional "beta" that's just a marketing promo disguised as wanting feedback. Nope, this is a [cutscene not implemented] mostly functional but not bug-free, not remotely feature complete, slice of the game.

The simple question becomes "Does the current game seem on the right track?"
Of which I say: Yes it is.

It is not hard to see the obvious hallmarks of Divinity Original Sin 2 on BG3. I am bias to this as I love D:OS2. I enjoy the terrain usage and jankery of their earlier titles and thus love how they expand on it. Pushing enemies off cliffs, throwing exploding barrels, healing an ally by literally throwing a potion into their face.

I like where the story is going, although I think it needs some pacing clarifications earlier on. Hard to talk about storytelling as a whole given the sheer amount of unfinished cutscenes, some dialogue, etc.
My main concern is "per long rest" balance in regards to camping constantly not having any obvious, at least currently, costs to it. We don't have food supplies or time pressure to make constant camping a bad thing.
This camp abuse causes issues with the story. As the game does explain our tadpoles are dormant, for some reason...but also constantly pressures getting them out ASAP.
This is, obviously, something subject to change. So until more dev time has passed I am tenuous , but not doom and gloom either.

Overall? I recommend this if you want to get a preview of the game and, especially, if you want to give feedback as well.
If you have little patience for bugs, or don't want to spoil yourself to much, you can wait. But I also question why you buy an early access title if you have little patience for bugs. :P

The prologue is, essentially, an alpha. So from a concept basis I think this game looks very promising. The reality so far? Janky mess.
But this is the problem with such an early look at a game. Almost all of my complaints can be summed up as "its an alpha." But without proper direction I am unsure how fixed these will be in a full release, nevertheless early access.

The UI elements feel rather unresponsive and often I click a button only to have to find it much quicker to just use the keyboard shortcut instead.
Attack animations, although they are static images themselves, need some work. They don't feel very like they have 'impact' to them and their static nature makes them rather unsatisfying.
The movement system looks quite bland. I don't dislike the mechanics, but just a giant empty field with little diamonds you move between is quite bleak in appearance.

Overall? I can see what I could like about this. It's a lot to take in at the start with tons of tutorials, stats, jobs, etc. But I don't see myself buying the early access release unless it is a fairly improved state over the current prologue. That and a release target of sometime in 2021 puts, at best, an early access time of ~6months. Which I expect will be more like ~12 months.
So, I would probably watch this title for now more than buy immediately on the 22nd.

I want to like this game, but it makes it quite hard to do so. It sure presents itself as a game with tons of options and strategies but those, quickly, dwindle as one goes up in difficulties.
So in the end it feels quite shallow. One playthrough and you've, essentially, seen 100% of the games core content. Higher difficulties do not make enemies more interesting or diverse...just numerically higher versions of ones before. Which also increases the extremely reliable odds of having things die before they can even react.

So by the time you finish your first run you may not have used every single minion available...but most are not ones you need to play with to see why you should, or—more generally—shouldn't, use them.

It's artwork itself is nice, but the animations leave a lot to be desired. Things look like they are animated like marionettes QWOPing their way around.
It repeats dialogue ad-nauseam to the point where I would enjoy the game more completely muted than with its actual audio. Which seems like a complete failure on the games part.

The most obvious game this compares to is Darkest Dungeon...of which it is a poor comparison on almost all ends.
If you wanted to play more of Darkest Dungeon, I would suggest just replaying Darkest Dungeon.

Relatively shallow game game. Starts off interesting, but the quirk runs out quickly. Random events get extremely repetitive and it's not uncommon to see the same style events on a single map.
Only 5 core missions, but they do get longer as go through them.
Lots of characters, but the differences between them aren't dramatic other than weapon choice.

Overall? Meh. Get it on sale, but full price was a bad purchase for me.

Every single level, usually, runs like this:

1/ try to figure it out
2/ eventually manage to do so
3/ call myself an idiot for not realizing it sooner
4/ repeat at the next level

I love it.
The "rule" system is quite innovative and interesting to tinker with. Levels progress in difficulty and build on previously established concepts. If you can't solve a puzzle, try looking at previous levels for hints on concepts you haven't considered.

Baba Is GoodGame

I found this game late at night whilst browsing the steam store. Not many games have accomplished the feat of making me so sucked into the game I had to force myself to go to sleep or I'd be playing it until dawn.
Very interestsin visual style and, so far, the mystery of the fate of the crew has me very engrossed.

After just completing one playthrough I am pleased with The Banner Saga. Visually unique by its drawn artwork and backed by an amazing soundtrack makes most scenes quite interesting. While it might seem boring to watch a caravan slowly churn to the next location or waiting for the next event. I mostly just found myself drawn in. My biggest complaint, which isn't even a big one to me, is I wished more dialogue was voiced. 99% of all dialogue is text, which is fine for me to read but I'd certainly be down for Ubin (the narrator) talking more. The voice work that is there is very well done, just used sparingly.

The gameplay itself is mostly broken down into two segments, the combat itself and moving around the world. Traveling has very little options on "where to go", but some events allow for options. The system works by having renown (currency used to upgrade heroes and buy items/supplies) balanced between having enough food to not starve, but still upgrade units. Combat can stress this because having people get injured requires rest, which takes a day of supplies to do.
Ultimately it works fairly well but any nags I would have end up being drowned out by me enjoying the overall experience. It does become fairly difficult, and that was just on normal. But I bet if I replayed it I would have less issues, but I'm willing to bet hard difficulty would be a challenege.

I would definetly reccomend anyone to play this game if you enjoy turn based combat games (kings bounty, might/magic, etc) or someone who just enjoys a good world to sink yourself into.

For whats basically a 3 man made game for ~700k. I am quite content with what was released from my original backing. I am definetly looking forward to seeing chapter 2/3

Its quite a good game overall. Fairly fun "diablo clone" but lacks to much diversity because there are only two classes (with the DLC). But specializing between melee/ranged gives varying play styles and even those can be broken down more due to more spell/physical damage style you can do. I'm only in act 2, but I've seen enough to say I am enjoying the level design and music a lot.
Certainly 8/10 and if more classes were to be added or more skills in general it could easily be 8+

For 15 dollar,s you'll get your moneys worth, at least.

Fairly fun game if you like turn based games.