Recent reviews by Luigisephy

The characters have a ton of depth, a Noir mage detective, Scout Harding magical dwarf, assassin rogue with a demon inside him, friendly neighborhood necromancer + Manfred, monster hunter grey warden (with griffon companion) and spastic elven artifact engineer.

The whale in the room Taash, non-binary dragon hunter, is written a little poorly and not even because of the non-binary stuff, just comes off as a teenager with identity issues, instead of being a dragon "expert".

If you wanted to right a non-binary character, just make them non-binary don't make me question whether I am an adult romancing a teenager, characters shouldn't grunt as a common response, just comes off as a flat character until the last 20% of the game where none of that matters. However, one character doesn't make a video game good/bad.

Story and Maps:

This will be the hardest bit for me to write without being spoiler. The set-up falls short if you have never played Dragon Age Inquisition as you are unsure of any of the characters are so the tutorial could be very disorienting but it doesn't take long after that to find its own stride with a hub in the Fade. The basis of the story starts as you hunting Solas (Elven god Dread Wolf) whom is trying to tear down the veil (The barrier between the world and the spirit realm which Solas created). You do stop it but something very old, the first blight old escapes.

Each area has bits and pieces of story that come unlocked the further in the game and some of the areas are locked until you finish certain quests (normal rpg things) but there are hidden puzzles through the game some of which without quest markers. Some of the short messages are important to read for this though none of it is required.

The exploration is definitely one of the bigger highlights for me in the game.

Combat:

The shining glory of this game in my opinion. It is just fun, I love it, it is smooth...the variety of enemies with attacks doesn't make it mindless and keeps me engaged and they brought back primer/detonator combos from inquisition but cleaned them up quite a bit and made them more impactful.

Enemies can have barriers and armor depending which they have different attacks handle each type better and switching up attacks mid combo feels really smooth. You can be in the middle of handling one thing, but want to change up what you are attacking/what attacks your using and it feels really responsive with that change.

For Warrior for isntance you don't pick between sword/board or 2 handed weapon you get both and can switch mid combat back and forth. Depending on how it is built you may want your 2 hander to do heavy stagger damage and the sword board to do more health dmg, or visa versa. My warrior feels like captain america.

The skill tree is quite interesting, and closely related to the sphere grid from FFX...in the fact it looks like a sphere grid...not nearly as large.

Overall:

It is a solid game, it hasn't done anything game breaking but runs really well. Feels like a complete game it was a good change to the series. It will be something I will probably play through a few times and be willing to come back over the years. The hate for the game is unwarranted because it is a good rpg overall. There are many good elements to it, and nothing feels grossly repetitive or takes too long.

Honestly one of the best games I have played in the past decade. It made me thoroughly enjoy all the characters I came across, gave me tons of questions of in how I should deal with different situations and I am still finding new things out. If you don't like turn based CRPGs you won't enjoy this, it still has the slow rounds, but if you just love an open ended game with a fleshed out story and want to have hours of fun, this is the one.

Also playing multiplayer where you aren't locked to other people's choices, 1 person can be really good another can be a evil af and that can affect the world depending who gets what choices, makes the game insanely fun with others as well.

Thank you for a wonderful game Larian.

(4 hours in review) My personal feel for New World, positives first...It is a pleasant change of pace for MMOs, in that it is an ARPG, it reminds me a lot of asherons call, simplified and more intuitive (which many probably dont know or remember that game), with a governance system built into it. So the foundation for a strong, interesting world is there, and hopefully it stays strong.
The negatives, it can feel very grindy to work on anything (I will say it feels "immersive" but time consuming). The inventory system leaves me wanting a little bit more from it, just cant put my finger on it.
This one I seperated cause I am still in early game, but, it feels like an MMO hack and slash to win all my fights, even though the turtorial shows there is timings in fighting, I have felt 0 need to use any.

A solid open world experience with a wide variety of interactions. The setting it has just feels right and it feels like a normal world with fantasy elements. Truly a genius idea for a video game.

A fun, Diablo style game, it feels a lot smoother/faster than diablo, however it gives more customization of a character which for me is everything, I recommend everyone that wants a good old fashioned dungeon crawler to give this a go.