Recent reviews by Somilo

Incredible game, bad ending: the Larian special.

First playthrough took me about 100 hours (although ~20 of those hours were lost due to reloads from bugs, feeling out choices and responses, etc.). I will not go into details but the story ends so poorly and the last 10% or so of the game is so clearly unfinished that it is a severe detriment to the game. I really expect the game to get a lot of criticism in the coming weeks as people finish it. I had plenty of bugs throughout my playthrough, which was fairly expected, but I had a couple major bugs and two game-breaking bugs that lost me hours of progress (and one which led to the loss of a character right at the end of the game that no amount of reloading could fix--I spent about 4 hours reloading different saves and going through the game again to try to fix it to no avail).

I love 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons so to be able to play it in CRPG format is great. Most of Larian's changes to the system are good EXCEPT for their changes to some spells. Some of their spell balancing changes are legitimately insane. Invisibility and Greater Invisibility are nerfed so significantly as to be legitimately useless (Greater Invisibility changed to have a DC 15 Stealth save that increases with each action? What insane person thought that was reasonable? It's a 4th level spell!) Despite these frustrating changes, the underlying system is great.

If the game were just Acts 1 and 2, the game would be a 10/10 with no question, but unfortunately the systems, the story, and the game begin to completely collapse in Act 3. Act 3 quests are full of bugs, from broken quests to broken cutscenes to voice lines literally cutting off mid-sentence, gamebreaking bugs like the game not recognizing items in your inventory (16k stack of gold not being recognized, therefore you have no gold anymore! Your camp supplies? Not recognized anymore! Enjoy never being able to long rest again.) There is such a dramatic drop in production quality from Act 2 to Act 3 that it blows my mind that this game was released in this state. There is no doubt in my mind that this game will get the Larian Special Definitive Edition with all of this fixed in 1-2 years, and at that point I will revisit it. Which brings me to my biggest gripe and this game's fatal flaw: the story.

This game's story has great promise. The characters feel real, with great dialogue and AMAZING voice acting. Story cutscenes are great (barring bugs and a few janky animations). Unfortunately, this game suffers from major plot points and reveals being included in optional character side quests which means they cannot and are not ever mentioned outside of those quests. There is quite possibly one of the largest reveals in the Forgotten Realms setting, the answer to a mystery that has been in the setting for more than 30 years in one of these quests and then, and I am not exaggerating, it is NEVER mentioned again for the remainder of the game. At the end of the game, you are forced to make an impossible decision that completely invalidates anything you had been leading into through side quests and gameplay for no real discernible reason other than that the writers wanted you to have no "good" ending. And then you finish the game and... that's it. All of your decisions, every choice you made during quests, everything you did during the game is completely invalidated. There is no resolution for anything that happens during your time playing. Barring one or two voice lines in the ending cutscene, no decisions that you make during the game make any difference during the ending. The only thing that affects what ending you get is the one or two decisions you make at the very end of the game. Those things earlier on that are made out to be major decisions for what happens? They don't actually affect the ending. It is so INCREDIBLY bad that it leaves such a sour taste in my mouth, and speaking to other people that have also finished the game and reading their comments online, I have seen universal negativity at the ending of this game. It is incredible how hard they dropped the ball.

In conclusion, I would still definitely recommend this game if you enjoy 5th edition D&D or enjoy CRPGs. I enjoyed my time with the game other than the last 10%, which again, I fully expect to be completely overhauled like they did with DOS2. If you are only in this for the story and do not enjoy this type of game, just pass on it for now.

Genuinely one of the best games that have come out this year, in an already stacked year for gaming. I'm amazed this game hasn't gotten more attention. I would describe the gameplay as a squad-based real-time X-COM-like and I think this game pulls off this unique style almost perfectly. The story is fairly compelling, but it's not good enough to force yourself through the game if you don't like the gameplay. The game is hard but not too hard, what I would describe as "stressful, but not frustrating". The game is PRETTY buggy, no pun intended, but the devs are patching tons of bugs out consistently. I would recommend this game with my whole chest, if you are even remotely curious about it, buy the game and play it. I hope the devs continue with this game and I will buy any and all content DLC they release for it. Definitely worth the money.

A very short, very tense atmospheric game to make you appreciate the danger that the liquidators faced while they were quite possibly saving human civilization. It's not particularly difficult and contains a few short puzzles but the atmosphere and presentation in the game is top-notch. Definitely give this game a try.