Recent reviews by Eulerian

This was fun! If you always wanted to play a well-made detective/logical deduction style game on Steam, well, here you go - this is a great one. Better than the first Golden Idol as well with lots of quality-of-life improvements.

It's always cool when there's an ongoing narrative too, because you can go back and make sense of details that were intentionally mysterious before.

Without spoiling the plot, it was enjoyable to uncover what the idol actually does, how certain people used it, how they attempted to expand on that idea, and what kinds of mistakes and catastrophes come from not being careful enough with that specific kind of superpower. Very "mind-effy" once you get deep into the plot.

DLC has some solid content as well with more to come.

Wow, what a treat this was.

It isn't just a Riven 3D remake - it's a complete re-imagining of Riven.

This game gaslights you in the best way possible. You go from doubting your own memories, "I know in my heart of hearts that I used to go under this door... right? Right? Maybe I just forgot about this hinge pin?" to "Okay, now I know this is different, this 100% wasn't here before, they definitely changed stuff."

Many puzzles have been altered, some puzzles have been removed, and other puzzles are completely new altogether. Even though the overall forms of Riven are the same -- the same islands, the same objects -- it's like a different meal with the same ingredients, but elevated and modernized.

Pros:

1. It's about as close as you'll get to playing Riven again for the first time even if you already know the original game front to back, which is by far the best part about this remake.

2. Do you miss those old feelings of "What on earth is this for?" or "Where do I go from here?" or "What am I missing?!" Well, you're in luck!

3. The new puzzles exhibit a lot of good judgment overall. To change so much is a bold decision, but it's done really well here. The new puzzles feel right at home.

4. Riven looks amazing, and it's a lot of fun to explore in 3D. There are lots of new details to discover as well. For instance being able to step outside in Gehn's 233rd Age made me audibly gasp. It always bugged me that you couldn't do that in the original. Lots of little improvements like this are scattered throughout the remake.

5. The spinning domes overhaul... WHAT. Was not expecting that at all, but what a great surprise and cool mechanic.

6. Lore accuracy improvements - you'll only notice this if you got into the original story of Riven, but the updated details are now a lot more consistent and make way more sense.

Mixed:

1. Some people may not like the lens item. While the original game did have an inventory system, it sort of evolved naturally with the story and was mainly just books. This time around, there is a lens item you'll need to find in order to progress, as it'll let you see things that are otherwise not visible. I just imagine someone getting stuck, and not realizing they actually don't have all the information available to them from the environment alone, unlike the original game. At the same time... when you're stuck, you explore. And someone who is exploring everything will stumble upon the lens eventually. But in my opinion this is the riskiest change to the game.

2. While I personally enjoyed the addition of a second number system, I wonder if a new player would find it overwhelming. As a little kid, figuring out the existence of just one number system and how it worked (without using any guides) was already a tricky enough task for me back in the day.

Cons:

1. Probably the only serious con on the list, but you can't skip stuff. In the original, you could skip FMV animations you've already seen such as the rotating room animations, or dialogue sequences, etc. You can't skip any of that now. Even the end credits are unskippable and come with each ending of the game - at which point it's faster to just Alt+F4 and re-launch.

2. The CG human models... I mean, I get why they had to go this route, but I think the game does lose a bit of its charm not using real actors.

3. If you're a die-hard Riven purist, you will find this remake to be a letdown if you were expecting exactly the same puzzles from before.

4. At least as of the launch date, there are intermittent stuttering issues with the game, at least on max settings. It's not a serious issue, but it's occasionally noticeable. My hardware is strong and often has no issue maxing out most games, so I don't think it's a performance thing. There seems to be some kind of issue with how assets are loaded in that block the UI thread or something. Considering the kinds of bugs that other people are reporting regarding load-in, I think there is probably room for improvement here.

Overall:

I had a lot of fun with this remake. Both old and new players alike will get a fresh experience. It's quite an awesome and surreal feeling to revisit familiar territory after so many years and still get stuck -- I love it. I hope other studios take note, because this is how you remake a game. My thanks go out to Cyan and the Starry Expanse teams for making this happen!

There's not a whole lot of content in this game, and so to compensate, everything is designed to waste your time.

1. When you reach heat level 5 (which happens often), the cops are ruthless. Which wouldn't be so bad, except they cheat their butts off. Unless you have an extremely fast car (which you won't, in early to mid game), the cops will be able to keep up with you no matter what. Meanwhile, choppers stay on you and keep you in constant alert status. If you try to destroy the cop vehicles (which isn't always the easiest thing), more will show up before you whittle them down to 0. Sometimes cops will pop out of thin air right in front of you - not even kidding - straight up teleporting into existence. If you do manage to escape them and enter cooldown, no matter where you hide they will have a search party that magically knows where you are by sending choppers and vehicles in your direction from all sides. Unless you have an easy exit, they will intercept you and start the whole process over again. Cops will often be on you by default when you exit certain races, so there's no avoiding it. And if you do get caught (or you give up), you lose whatever sum of money you worked up in the current session. So much of this game is running from cops when all you want to do is get to your next race. It's already grindy enough - why add insult to injury?

2. For a game called "Need for Speed: Unbound", you spend so much of the early game messing around in slow vehicles that can barely finish a race. This is also by far the most restrictive NFS title to date - what exactly about it screams "unbound"? I understand not giving players the fastest cars right off the bat, but this really is swinging the pendulum too far the other direction.

3. The AI is cheap. There will be races where someone will do a hard 90 right in front of you even though you're both on a straight path. There's literally no reason why any racer would do this ever other than to sabotage you. If you slam into the AI cars, not much happens. But if they slam into you, you go spiraling like crazy. Rubberbanding is also an issue, where you could be absolutely cruising in 1st place and then suddenly the 2nd place person comes rocketing forth ahead of you at speeds that shouldn't be possible. Sometimes the 1st place racer will be a superhuman driver you can never catch up to even on Relaxed mode. Then you restart the race a few times and suddenly it's way easier even though you're driving no differently. Winning races doesn't feel like you're doing anything skillful - it just feels like the AI decided to ease off the BS pedal.

4. Fast travel was present in the other NFS titles for the most part. But here, it's been removed completely. No good reason for this other than inflating play time.

5. There are only a couple racetracks in the entire game, and so you'll be running the same stuff again and again and again.

6. The story is poorly written. Your "manager" Tess is not a very likable or trustworthy character, and nobody in-game likes her either. I'm unsure why the devs intentionally put someone in such a prominent role that they knowingly proclaim as insufferable and self-absorbed. Our protagonist even asks her at one point, "Do you even care about my wellbeing? Like, at all?" Also, the big incident in the prologue could have been resolved by a simple conversation. Instead, characters run off without explanation, leading to years of misunderstandings instead. The whole thing falls flat for me.

7. The car handling in this game is among the worst. I'm no racing game expert, but I was still able to beat NFS 2015's Prestige Mode with all golds, so it's not like I outright suck -- and yet I had trouble driving in this game. Things are either super resistant to turning or they slide off the road like butter. While you can upgrade your parts and mess with the tuning, it takes a lot of money and effort to make your driving experience even remotely enjoyable.

8. The visual style is a lot more "cartoony" and quite different compared to the other NFS titles. Some like it, some hate it. Personally I'm not a fan, but I stopped noticing it eventually.

9. The whole game is shoehorned into an awkward 4-week system where you need to keep cars confined to specific tiers in order to progress. It's odd and confusing. In the end, it feels like just another way to force you to spend more time grinding for cars and upgrades, which means more time spent racing, which means more time running away from cops...

10. Game crashes for no good reason from time to time.

I really struggle to find the positive in this game. It feels rushed, lazy, and stretched out to compensate for a lack of real content. To charge $70 for this is offensive. IMO, this is deep sale material.

Absolutely awful. I think this is possibly one of the worst games I've played in recent times.

Random game crashes, unbalanced gameplay, clipping bugs, animation issues, lack of quality-of-life updates, buggy achievements, glitchy servers, forced control decisions such as inverted y-axis for flight with no option to remap, odd movement behavior, options that get reset, sound volume decisions that get ignored, keybinds that randomly stop working, etc.

The whole thing is unpolished, lazy, untested, and broken. There are so many problems that are so obvious and apparent on a casual first playthrough that it blows my mind that Aspyr decided to release this game in its current state. Especially for a $35 price tag, it's a bit brazen. This game feels like a beta build. Save your money.

I used to play this game quite a bit when I was a kid, hungry for more FPS games back in the early 90's when they were all still referred to as "Doom clones." And even by that metric, Dark Forces was pretty unique -- it's not merely a Doom clone with a Star Wars skin.

Plenty of shooters at the time had you running and gunning against a 1-2 sentence backdrop of a story, but Dark Forces was one of the first to have an ongoing story throughout the game - with voiced dialogue, character development, in-game conversations, cutscenes, and mission objectives. On a technological level, this game's "Jedi" engine could also do things that the Doom engine could not, such as having multiple floors overlapping the same sectors, and with dynamic elements to boot. This opened up the level design to do a lot of interesting things with verticality and in-game puzzles that was simply unprecedented. Dark Troopers also made their debut here, for those of you who may only be familiar with them from The Mandalorian.

The remaster itself is very well done - it remains faithful to the original game while providing some nice quality-of-life improvements such as free-roam mouse aiming - a staple of every modern FPS that didn't exist back then. The graphics and cutscenes look great while still maintaining their 90's feel. For some reason though the well-known slow-ice bug in Level 8 is still present in this remaster, which is very strange (it has to do with how the game ties ice mechanics to processor speed). This bug really should have been removed.

Dark Forces will of course feel dated by today's standards, as the genre has since evolved multiple times over. It's definitely rough around the edges in many ways. The maze-like levels are a staple of early FPS games, but that also means it can be easy to get lost. The puzzles are neat, but they can sometimes bring the gameplay loop to a halt if the player gets stumped to where they can't progress without looking up a guide.

All in all, however, I think this is a solid remaster of a game that has an important place in video game history, and it's worth experiencing whether you are an FPS veteran returning to this game with nostalgia goggles, or a newbie who just wants to see what it's all about.

My main complaint about this game is of course the price. I get it, but still -- $30 is painful for a game that you can finish in under 5 hours. On the other hand, I'm happy to support the studio if it means we get a remaster of Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 someday...

An awesome game unfortunately blighted by microtransactions, currencies, paywalls, season passes, and predatory pricing.

The tournament system also makes no effort to do any sort of serious matchmaking. People smurf all the time and it really ruins the experience for people who are new to the series, which is a huge downside considering that this game is trying to be more accessible to newcomers otherwise.

It's a single DLC course at roughly 60% the price of the base game. I was expecting something absolutely amazing for the price, but instead it's... just a regular course. There's nothing interesting or compelling about it at all.

It's over in a flash and meanwhile you're still out $9 + tax. Incredibly greedy pricing.

If you liked the original Myst, I think you'll probably like this remake, too.

Enjoyed the various Ages and coming back to those old puzzles again. I liked the extra Steam achievements this time around for the little easter eggs such as the skeleton through the telescope, lol.

I do wish the main island had a little more vibrant green to it, since that sort of dreamlike landscape was what stood out to me so many years ago. This one looks more brown-hued, in contrast. Still looks great - just loses a little bit of that magic.

Only a few hours of content at most, so if you're new to Myst, be prepared for a quick one. IMO this game will probably appeal more to fans who played the original and want the nostalgia trip.

Let's hope for a Riven remake!

This is a very grindy game. However, it's a fun grind (most of the time). I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

If you're going to buy MHW, definitely get Iceborne too. The High Resolution Texture Pack (free) is also worth getting if your system can handle it.

There are a few pros and cons I'd like to highlight. I'll start off with the cons and end with the pros:

Cons:

-There are arguably too many systems and menus. Assigned missions, arena quests, optional quests, investigations, event quests, special assignments, expeditions, SOS flares, deliveries, bounties, special events, item gathering and general management, abilities + decorations, set bonuses, charms, pendants, the various forms of crafting and melding, sieges, meals, ingredients, weapons, loadouts, radial menus, defense armors, layered armors, sphere upgrades, Palico management, augmentations, enlightening, steamworks, mantles, crowns, fishing, buff handling, capturing, cultivation, safaris, tribal friendships, treasure hunting, photo hunts, camp establishments, the Guiding Lands and its leveling system, crowns, room decor... it just goes on and on and on and on and on. You get hit with tutorial after tutorial throughout the game, and it never lets up. There's a lot to learn and take in. Maybe I'm just slow, but I felt like by the time I finally had a strong grasp on everything, I was several hundred hours in and the game was (mostly) over already. I can't help but feel that the game could have been simplified in several places.

-Solo play is disproportionately brutal. Which is not to imply it's always too hard necessarily, but rather it's lopsided. This often incentivizes "getting carried" - where if you get stuck, you can just pop an SOS flare (or arrange a game with friends) until you get stronger players on-board, and then finish the quest + move on with all the rewards. Even though the monster's HP scales/increases as more people join, the splitting of the monster's focus makes it way easier to heal and easier to find openings for attacks. When you have multiple people hammering away at a monster with overpowered gear, the end result is often fewer player faints (and thus more rewards) and a much quicker fight. Meanwhile, if you go it alone, the fights will be way harder, you'll faint more often and get fewer rewards, it'll be harder to heal, and the fights take forever... it's a largely thankless endeavor.

-I wish the fights were faster-paced. Swinging your weapon often feels sluggish, which is very frustrating when you're up against a monster that is jumping around all over the place. I'd rather have faster attacks in exchange for slightly tougher monsters.

Pros:

-This is a fun game, which is really the best thing I can say about it. The monster designs are really cool and I often enjoyed just looking at them. It's neat that different monsters have different weak spots, and the progressions of certain fights are a blast. The fight against Raging Brachydios, for example - he starts off as a foreboding juggernaut of a beast... but by the end of things, you're underground in an active volcano area and the monster now looks like a beat-up overgrown piece of burnt pot roast that is fighting tooth and nail for its survival. The ground is blowing up and lava is raining down upon you, all while this huge monster is charging in your direction -- ♥♥♥♥ gets wild. Intense moments like that are fantastic, and those fights always end with a huge sigh of relief and satisfaction.

-There is still challenge to be had even with the best gear. Whether you're going up against Alatreon, Fatalis, or Arch-Tempered Velkhana, these fights will require you to have mastered the game mechanics, lest you become deadweight and fail the battle for yourself or the entire team. This helps keep the game interesting, as you'll always have a reason to go back and replay a tough fight.

Compared to the 3D Remake, this game is quite a bit easier and faster, mostly due to snappier animations, quicker battles, and no awkward job transitions -- on top of the fact that there is also slightly less content (no Ultima Weapon sidequest, no Iron Giant, etc).

In the Pixel Remaster, there are also helpful maps and treasure counters (so you can verify you didn't miss anything before leaving a dungeon), and the bestiary is accessible from the main menu instead of hidden in-game like in the 3D version. No super-grindy achievements either (cough cough Jack of all Trades).

Overall I had a lot more fun with this version. The 3D one looks nice and all, but I think the PR's art style works better here, and I preferred the OST as well.