Recent reviews by Ramuné

tl;dr: Wait for a 75% sale.

As with all DLC releases, the 1.12 patch also came with a free patch. This patch was accompanied with (among other things) the introduction of a new legitimacy mechanic, which gives you maluses if its value is too low and positive buffs if you increase it past a certain threshold.

This paid DLC adds / unlocks:

• Ways to specifically increase your legitimacy via three already existing activities ("Espouse Legitimacy" intent unlocked via a tier three dynasty legacy -> feasts, grand tours, grand weddings). This feels kind of backhanded, since legitimacy itself was part of the free update.
  
• Funerals: An activity which makes you lose like 600 stress and takes months upon months to complete? You may also use the "Espouse Legitimacy" here to increase your legitimacy immediately after your previous ruler has died.
  
• The Black Death – I’ve got to be honest, I’ve actually never experienced it in any of my games, because I’ve left it at the historical game rule setting and all of my games end way before reaching that year.
  
• Two more dynasty legacies. One further boosts the legends mechanic; the other one is tied to legitimacy, making it easier to amass the latter. The former subjectively did not feel impactful at all.
  
• Legends, the namesake addition of this DLC. Mechanically, it works similar to diseases on the actual game map, just in reverse: Legends spread within the baronies of (mostly) your own realm, providing steep bonuses to each of those provinces. They come in three tiers and may be “completed” during any of those tiers. Completing a legend stops its spread on the map and may provide you with a special building slot or a new one-time mechanic such as a migration casus belli or the ability to diverge your current culture into one of an ancient heritage, such as Hunnic, Hellenic or Gothic, though those new cultures don’t provide any new mechanics and may otherwise be accessed via the ruler designer prior to starting the game, even if you don’t own Legends of the Dead.
  
  They are a much needed late game gold sink, but they are sadly entirely detached from the rest of the game. Unless you intentionally enter their specific menu and manually start a legend, you will never feel their impact in your game. Nothing ever triggers anything relating to legends organically, unless I am forgetting something.
  
  To make it worse, their related event pool seems to consist of the same ten meaningless events which are thrown at your face over and over and over again. Would you like to increase the per barony spread chance of 0,25% by a multiplicative increase of 2% or decrease its upgrade cost by 50 gold? Would you like to convince this baron to spread your legend even though they can’t even realistically each and thus actually spread your legend on the map?
  
  This issue is compounded by the fact that the rest of the game does not acknowledge past legends. You are only reminded of past legends if you specifically enter their designated map mode and notice the colored baronies. There are no mentions of it anywhere else.
  
  Legends are initialized by using a legend seed. There are generic seeds which you can access by for example holding a holy site of your faith. Some legend seeds are given to you via decisions, mostly those who create a new de jure title on the map. At game start, there are several unique legend seeds which may only be used once to access some of the aforementioned one-time features (e.g. a migration casus belli, ancient cultures). This is not limited to players only, meaning you are effectively encouraged to quick start your economy to claim a special legend seed before some random AI character picks the legend seed before you click its button.
  
  Legend inheritance is currently a frustrating mess: Once the holder of a legend dies, their dynasty members may claim said legend instantly for free until they themselves die. If you happen to forget to instantly pause the game and take over your current legend with your new ruler, some insignificant member of your dynasty is likely to take over your legend, realize they can’t possibly afford its maintenance and end it immediately – which is utterly frustrating if you lose access to an unique once per game legend seed this way.
  
  
• Two of your courtiers, your chronicler and musician, may also provide negligible bonuses to you while you are spreading a legend.

Verdict:
I received this DLC as part of the chapter three DLC bundle. I know it’s on me, but I never actually checked the supposed “tier” of this expansion as it would be unlocked for me anyway. After playing with it for a while, I considered this DLC to be a small cute 5 € addition to the game similar to Friends and Foes. Unless you go out of your way, you will never feel this DLC’s impact in any of your games. And if you do, it’s only in the way of numbers and modifiers, similar to a court artifact which cost obscene amounts of gold that you can also not repair.

It’s something small you can click later into the game if you plan to upgrade the legend to its final tier due to their high maintenance costs, but it doesn’t otherwise interact with the game nor change the way you play the game in any capacity.

Well that was until I actually clicked on CK3’s store page weeks after playing with this DLC. Apparently it’s full price is 20 €, not at all within the 5 € price range I had expected after playing around with it for a while. In hindsight, if I had not purchased the chapter three bundle, I would have at most paid 10 € for this. But as it stands, I feel disappointed with this DLC as it sadly takes up an entire “big” DLC slot of this DLC pass.

Very interesting systems for warfare and tech. Fantastic game.

In essence, CK3 is a medieval, text based The Sims game set on a giant map. The content that's available to you is comparable to Game of Thrones in terms of court intrigue and claim wars.
You could label it as a medieval religion simulator as well.

Spread your dynasty and faith across the mediterranean and have them stand the test of time.

In-depth, more or less text based role playing game set in the medieval times on top of a giant map. It basically has endless content and doesn't hold your hands while you are playing at all.

Surprisingly bland even with all DLCs unlocked.

Every nation plays the same, the only differences are the passive perks a nation gets and its geographical surroundings.

You're either at war and move stacks of units around or you're not at war and sit around waititng because there is literally nothing to do during peace time except for skipping truces and watching numbers grow.

Institutions are a great idea, but they are mostly just there to nerf everyone outside of Europe until it eventually spreads there. They don't actually change how a game is played.

Technology is a mere race against time.

Ideas are a very interesting concept until you realize that there is always a best early set of ideas for your nation.

The AI actively cheats by ignoring zone of control and ruining their entire country in terms of stability and economy just to keep the player down.

In essence, this is a fun continuation of AC II and AC:B with more minor improvements. Again, there are some technical issues, which can easily be fixed.

In essence, I do recommend playing this game, it was much more enjoyable than AC:B and it took me around 14 hours to finish the main quest line.

Gameplay - Improvements

The story of AC II continues mostly in Lygos / Byzantium / Constantinople / Kostantiniyye / Istanbul, which is currently under control of the Ottoman Empire.

Thankfully, you no longer have to remember to synchronize a captured view point before lighting it, as Ezio will now perform both actions simultaneously.

You still mostly recruit assassins to your cause by beating up four guards, but about half of your recruits will have a small quest attached to them.

The new tool - the hookblade - is incredibly fun to use. It makes traversing the city much more enjoyable. You can now either use suspended pots to swing as always or use your hookblade to lunge yourself forward.

Speaking of enjoying the city: Traveling on the various roof tops feels much much more smooth than in AC:B. The terrain fits together and the various obstacles flow into each other. The hookblade infinitely enhances this by giving you more options.

Notoriousness has been reworked; it now ties into the the renovation of shops and land marks. Instead of focusing on the city guards, it is now linked entirely to the templar guild and will increase the more "suspicious" and "unusual" events are caused by Ezio.
Finally, the silly posters of Ezio that were hung in the most unthinkable places are no longer in the game, but the other two methods of decreasing notoriousness are still in the game and have been made much rarer.

Gameplay - Neutral

Another new addition to the game are bombs: You can choose between three kinds of bombs: Lethal, tactical and diversion. You can choose from various kinds of shells (which define how and when it will explode), three strengths of black powder and a handful of effects (shapel, poison, smoke, noise, ...).
You can either aim to throw the bomb by holding down E or throw a bomb at the ground behind you while running and tapping E.

Personally, I haven't really made much use of them to form an opinion.

Gameplay - Flaws

Combat is neither interesting or challenging and it is frustrating in three aspects:
* Choosing a particular target for your actions is difficult, as the game actively screws you over by changing your target every few seconds to the now closest valid target. Assassinating someone who stands or walks next to a guard is nigh impossible, not to mention that the game will sometimes cancel your pistol shots after you release the appropriate button. This is particularly frustrating if you are trying to assassinate a cowardly templar captain for the fourth time.
* Target selection is way too "magnetic": If you attempt to disengage, you will not only be fighting guards but also the camera which will try its hardest to not unlock.
* Fighting ranged enemies is kind of awkward, as they will obviously try to keep their distance by repeadedly disengaging. However, the buttons to run and to block are the same and blocking takes priority while you are in a fight. Though you may be able to change this in the game settings, but I never bothered to check.

Technical Issues - Shaky / Flickering Screen

You may think that the continuous screen tearing and shaking is a feature of the broken animus.

This is not the case though. To permanently fix this, locate the installation folder of AC:R and rename systemdetection.dll to systemdetection_0.dll - do not delete the file, as there have been reports that outright removing the file will cause certain problems as well.

Technical Issues - Laggy FPS

You may notice a lot of FPS stuttering while in game. This is because AC:R will mostly occupy your first CPU core.

To fix this, open the task manager, click on details and right click on ACRSP.exe. Choose affinity, uncheck all CPU cores but one and click ok. After that, right click again to access the affinity settings and select every core again.

This will fix the FPS issues for your current session.

In essence, this is a fun continuation of AC II with minor improvements. There are some technical FPS issues that can be easily fixed as described at the bottom.

I do recommend playing this game, but I am going to focus on some of its flaws for this review:

Gameplay

The story of AC II continues mostly in Rome, a large scale city that does feel somewhat empty compared to what it has to offer in terms of quests. I guess that is historically accurate, but it leads to a slow mid-game.

You have to remember to synchronize first before burning down a view point, as Ezio will perform an automatic leap of faith and you will have to climb the whole thing again.

Combat is neither interesting or challenging and it is frustrating in three aspects:
* Choosing a particular target for your actions is difficult, as the game actively screws you over by changing your target every few seconds to the now closest valid target. Assassinating someone who stands or walks next to a guard is nigh impossible, not to mention that the game will sometimes cancel your pistol shots after you release the appropriate button.
* Target selection is way too "magnetic": If you attempt to disengage, you will not only be fighting guards but also the camera which will try its hardest to not unlock.
* Fighting ranged enemies is kind of awkward, as they will obviously try to keep their distance by repeadedly disengaging. However, the buttons to run and to block are the same and blocking takes priority while you are in a fight. Though you may be able to change this in the game settings, but I never bothered to check.

Overall, I did enjoy playing this game. The events you encounter are quite varied and can be solved in several ways.

In the end, it took me around 25 hours to complete the main story line. Saves are stored locally and I lost mine half way through.

Technical Issues

You may notice a lot of FPS stuttering while in game. This is because AC:B will mostly occupy your first CPU core.

To fix this, open the task manager, click on details and right click on ACBSP.exe. Choose affinity, uncheck all CPU cores but one and click ok. After that, right click again to access the affinity settings and select every core again.

This will fix the FPS issues for your current session.

(Comments are enabled)

tl;dr: A good open-world game from late 2008, just not by today's standards. The sequels are probably better.

You travel though a diversive land with many villages and castles, look for willing men to join your group and slowly gain more money by either acting as a white knight, a trader or you go though the lands and pillage everything in sight. You can also participate in gladiator-like arena fights.
Open-world literally means open world, you start with basically nothing on your person and the game doesn't set any goals for you to archive; it is all up to you.
The world around you is constantly moving and changing. Kingdoms attack each other and sometimes you just happen to walk by a large battlefield. Looters and bandits roam the woods, mountains and plains; if you defeat them, you may take prisoners and steal all of their belongings. Different kingdoms value items differently: You either hold onto stuff to sell it for more money down the road or you sell it as quick as possible if you are in need of a quick buck (say, if you are about to pay wages to your men).

Earning money as a white knight feels kinda bad. You hunt bandits and looters or accept fatch quests from cities. The pay is mostly laughably low compared to the effort you put into them. Sometimes they pay you in goods, which you can keep and sell in different kingdoms.
Pillaging a caravan will probably be more profitable, but I haven't walked across a weak one yet.

The melee combat is direction based, as well as blocks. Feels good to play.
Fights start off low scale (e.g. 4v6), but quickly climb in size. You can improve the AI men following you by giving them ranks, but that will also increase the weekly pay you have to give them.
If you lose a fight, you are captured and taken prisoner. You'll lose your whole party and have to almost start from scratch again after you randomly escape after a few days. If I recall correctly, you get to keep all of your items, including your horse, but I am not sure whether you get to keep all of your monry.

Overall, the world seems complex in a good way and I can see people having fun with memorizing the different characteristics of the five factions to either become a good trader or a pillager.


However, I can't see myself having fun with fetch quests or establishing a real-time trade route. The fighting however is lots of fun and fights can be quite close.
There are lots and lots of villages, filled with people, but they honestly feel kind of empty and dead, nobody but one person has something useful to say.
There is probably lots to do, but I think you're better off trying out one of its sequels for (hopefully) more diverse content.

Overall a very fun game made by from software. It definitely is very different from Dark Souls.

The combat feels very fluent and is based around relentless attacks and lots of timed parries. You won't really dodge around too much.

The world is very open and exciting to explore. There is a lot of hidden loot and areas, taking your time to properly explore each area isn't a waste of time.

It took me around 40 hours to complete my first playthrough and to defeat every boss that I currently know of. Though I am sure that there is still some content hidden from me.

Overall a great looking 2D game that is often compared to Dark Souls.

The game consits of a large, open world that you may explore in almost any order you would like. Some areas are blocked and require you to learn certain skills in order to advance.
The story is told subtly though the game itself - you won't find any large, long lore books.


However, a few things about this game are really annoying:

Fast travel
In an open world as large as this one, good fast travel is a neccissity. There is fast travel in this game, but it is distributed so extremely sparsly and disconnected from each other, that traveling from A to B can often waste a lot of your time.
Shortcuts exist, but they are often times very difficult to actually use that you might as well just walk the long way instead of dying a bunch of times trying to save time.

Backtracking
You can traverse previously impassable parts of the game after learning certain skills. The game however does not make it very clear, what type of barrier you can pass now, which leads to a lot of backtracking to dead ends, only to find out that you're still staring at a dead end.
Do I need to jump higher? Do I need to propell myself sideways? Sadly, the only way is to go there and look. This would not be a big deal if the fast travel system was decent.. but it is not and you end up walking back to that same dead end multiple times, only to find out that you are still staring at a dead end.
You can only wander across the entire map so many times before you want to scream.

Empty world
The world is large and open, but mostly empty.
Exploring is very fun at the beginning until you realize that "unique" findings are either so out of place and sparse that making use of certain mechanics feels like a huge time waste in comparison to the miniscule, tiny advantage you gain from them.
Beautiful places are just that: Open, empty rooms with a pretty background image, that may not even lead to something worthwhile.

Map markers
The best way to navigate around this game is by making external notes of locations of interst.
There are a limited amount of overly expensive map pins available, but you gain access to them so late, that you might as well start your fight couple of hours with pen and paper.

Broken hitboxes
I can't count how many times my characer has stood over the edge of a plattform without falling off. Other times, you glance vaguely in the direction of a cliff and get sucked towards it only to fall off.
Weapon ranges are odd as well, becuase the animations do not really make it clear where exactly their danger zone ends. It becomes sort of a guessing game.

Useless nail arts
The game unlocks certain special attacks that you can perforn in combat. They take so long in order to charge up and deal such a tiny amount of damage, that basic attacks are flat out superior.
Not to mention that other damage sources will take up a few accessory slots before they even begin to slightly feel impactful.

X is your best friend
As said above, your basic attack will outperform any other source of damage. Improving their damage does not waste precious accessory slots.

Clunky controls
Sometimes, the game decides to just ignore your inputs only to do nothing insead. Fun times.

Clustered fights
Did some bosses really have to look almost exactly like you do? Once those fights become chaotic, it is rather easy to lose your own character.


Neutral:

No health bars
I am not too bothered by it, but I can see people getting discouraged after they have been hitting the same normal enemy for over a minute.

Unnatural / inconsitent trajectories
Some projectiles continue to fly in a straight like, while others clearly track you.
However, there is a mix between both types: The projectile flies "organically" / normal looking in one direction, only to heavily change its trajectory half way through.
Other projectiles randomly accelerate andf deacceletate mid-flight, some make your dash useless because they'll just do a 180° turn and follow you anyway.

Most boss fight feel unsatisfying
Entirely subjective, but projectile based bosses are very unsatisfying to beat. Between random hits from tracking projectiles and total chaos on the screen, the fight just feels like a fight against RNG. Winning feels like you won a dice roll instead of earrning the win.



Overall, I can not really recommend this game. I'll definitely keep playing myself for a while, but I've already taken two pretty long breaks betaween playing this game.
If you are not too bothered by the above points, by all means pick this game up. It seems to have loads of content and free DLC.