Recent reviews by Orange

Out of every Anno game I have played, 1503 is by far my favourite and the one I still revisit 20 years later. It offers the most rewarding experience of any game in the series by quite a significant margin, in my opinion.

I have played 1602, 1503, 1701, 1404, and 2070 (and watched videos of the rest), and I can say with confidence that this one is the only addition that offers a genuine challenge. It is hard to turn a profit for most of the game, pirates will force you to arm your ships, and the AI will not fold up so easily. That being said though, the combat can be janky and frustrating. I would not recommend playing with too many AI players just because it's very frustrating to try and capture their towns. They also cheat, so whatever plan you've devised to try and starve them on their island probably won't eventuate as random crates of goods manifest into thin air in their warehouses. As such, combat is best enjoyed in moderation, or within scenario missions. I still love the graphics and music as well, I really cannot describe how happy they make me. The sprites were all hand-drawn, I believe, which is why they look as charming as they do, just passion and love. One of life's simple pleasures is sitting back in your chair, having a nice stretch, and looking at the gorgeous city you have made. 1602 and 1404 were also pretty good, but the others just can't live up to the standards that 1503 set. Where's the challenge? Why doesn't it feel rewarding? Why are there big skyscrapers on tiny, barely-developed islands? What's with the awful colour palates and art styles? Where's the innovation, why are they still just 1602 with graphics enhancements?

And before buying, as others have said, check that Ubisoft Connect works properly on your PC. Will Ubisoft even exist in five years?? Weigh up whether it's worth the risk to buy.

But, despite its flaws and age, 1503 stands head and shoulders above every other Anno game. Just play this one and skip the rest.

8.5/10.

Regarding the remaster, despite the justified criticism about the price, I think it is very well done. There are minimal changes made apart from accessibility and a handful of other features that's we all disliked anyway, let's be honest. The biggest issues with playing the original Dark Forces these days is the fact that it runs like arse, the resolutions are terrible, and it felt like it could crash at any moment. These have all been fixed, and now instead you can simply press play and it works perfectly. This remaster is the new definitive Dark Forces, in my eyes, and anyone wanting to play it for the first time should absolutely go with this one rather than the 1995 original.

Concerning the game Dark Forces itself, it does admittedly show its age now in terms of design. A lot of explosives have crazy huge hit boxes and plenty of enemies pull a Han Solo and shoot first before you can react. I'm also not of the opinion that the lives system is good. I get that it encourages you to play carefully and not fight unnecessary battles, but it's easily gamed by just reloading the level, although you will have to fight through the enemies over again, essentially it's forcing you to choose between convenience and time, which is not a good ethos to bring to any game. The jumping and grenade throwing is also very primitive, and it can be very irritating to try and work with now, especially considering the massive improvements that we've grown accustomed to. Nevertheless, the core of the game is incredibly fun. The gunplay feels exciting, enemies die when they should, and there's interesting puzzles that will test the average fps player to their absolute limits and I imagine plenty of playthroughs in 1995 died on the first few levels in a haze of frustration. The story is honestly better than it needed to be, especially considering no other games in this genre even made an attempt. It really is just the best of its kind, if you play no other shooter from the 2.5 era, it should be this. Keep in mind that my perspective is that of someone who came to Dark Forces much later, having first played it in 2013. So those who played the original at the time may be more permissive of these flaws, and those who still haven't played it maybe even less.

One of the first video games I ever played as a kid in 2005 was Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy, both later additions to the Dark Forces series, so personally, I feel a debt of thanks to this game for introducing me to my first online gaming communities. It laid the groundwork for the best melee combat games ever made to date, unbeaten 20 years later. Hopefully they remaster the sequel, then we will have the holy... quadfecta? all available on steam and accessible on modern computers.

Remaster: 8.5/10.
Dark Forces: 6.5/10.

UPDATE: This game will not live up to its potential, as it's already starting with the predatory DLC. I'm very disappointed, and thus can no longer recommend this game. It's a shame, but this game is probably going to be another Imperator. It's rather frustrating that Paradox keeps fumbling games that are set in time periods I personally find interesting and I suspect I won't be buying any more Pdox games from now on, after the dumpster fire that was HOI4 (despite its popularity), modern Stellaris, and Imperator.

Original review below, but I have revised my rating to a 3/10 and a not recommended.
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Victoria 3 is a solid case for a neutral recommendation button on Steam, but I will give it a yes rating because I feel like it has the potential to soar much higher than Victoria 2 ever did, although whether it actually ends up doing so remains to be seen.

To start, Victoria 3 has one point that helps its case: industry. This game is far superior in that regard compared to its predecessor, it makes Victoria 2's industry management look primitive. It feels much more engaging, personalised, in-depth, and satisfying. Creating a complex market economy is what Victoria is all about, providing an incentive to colonise, attack other countries, and involve yourself in the class-based politics of your nation. The reworking of the quality of life and investment pool mechanics were also sorely needed, as you could safely ignore those mechanics in Vic 2 and still achieve GP status without much fuss. In Vic 3, you feel like you're building a house of cards that becomes increasingly ornate, yet could still collapse at any moment, decimating your society in a way that could take decades to recover, whilst in its predecessor this never really happened. As someone who has hundreds of hours in Vic 2, I cannot stress enough how much of an improvement it is. This point alone is enough for the game to earn sufficient goodwill that I may ignore its numerous, glaring faults.

To put it simply, the optimisation and combat system are terrible. I have a potato PC these days and Vic 3 has given me my fair share of crashes and blue screens, particularly in the late game (which I'm told is a common problem) - it also takes almost ten whole minutes for the game to load! Most of this is on my end, I get it, but still, I feel like it shouldn't be running this bad, no other modern pdox game does, so I feel it can be fixed with time (emphasis on CAN, it might not necessarily end up being addressed). The combat system is also rather lacklustre. It has the same problem HOI4 has in that pdox don't seem confident that they can design an engaging combat system. This isn't really a problem for me tbh, especially not in Vic 3 where I feel like war is really not a pressing issue, I mean, it's necessary but still. Considering that sometimes the other guy has some type of resource that you want, and you may have a bigger stick, it's going to come up, but if you play Victoria for the combat then I've got bad news, it was always crap, even in Victoria 2. You probably didn't notice because you couldn't autopilot it as much, but this was just smoke and mirrors for what was essentially a predetermined outcome most of the time. It was almost impossible to win as the underdog in Victoria 2 no matter how skilled you were, which took away from the game's replay value and limited the skill ceiling in this regard. Vic 3 is a step up (debatably), but whatever they gained in replayability was lost in making it boring to play.

Whilst this second complaint itself is minor, in my view, the technical issues are insurmountable, and must be addressed if this game is to live up to its potential. It needs fixes, NOT PREDATORY DLC (think EU4, CK2/3, Stellaris, and HOI4). I really want to see it succeed, Victoria is my favourite pdox franchise.

If technical issues are resolved in future patches, it could even be 9 or 10/10. But as of now, it is sadly a 5/10.

I had to wipe the sweat off my keyboard and mouse

Pay a dollar and get a copy of the Dao de jing annotated by Seiga, pretty good deal I reckon

I played this game with friends, and I think overall, none of us were particularly enthralled by it. I appreciate that it's an art game, and thus it must be judged on what it is rather than what it's not, even then, I find it hard to recommend it to anyone. Out of the four games on offer, I only enjoyed one (the shamanistic one, that was cool!), the others just made me too unnerved to really decode any meaning from them. Maybe that's the point, I don't know. If this game were a dollar, I would be more willing to recommend it, but as it stands now, it's almost $5 AUD, which for a game that has less than an hour's worth of content is a bit steep. That being said, bringing something new to the table is always commendable, so if you happen to see this game when it's cheaper at Christmas or something, then maybe go for it, otherwise, nah.

3/10.

Hypnagogia BD is amazing both as a surreal and as an exploration game. It is enjoyable to play and not constrained by technical problems (unlike LSD DE), has cool trippy dialogue, a befitting visual style, and worlds interesting enough to warrant scouring through them. It perfectly captures the experience of dreaming as best the video game medium possibly can, from the good dreams to the nightmares, which is a big W because that's the whole premise! There is a rather bare bones plot tying it all together, a feature that demonstrates a commitment by the dev to both learning from LSD DE's example by taking its strengths on board as well as adding to it to create a new standard for surreal exploration games for the 2020s. Only two complaints stand out: the movement can at times feel slippery, and I found myself falling down holes way more I should've (yes I suck at games but I'm not that bad, sometimes it felt like walking in an ice rink!), and there were too many levels hidden behind secret entrances, which isn't a big deal, but it does mean that a casual player may miss almost all but a few of them in casual play, although finding these secrets is usually a fairly straightforward process if you know where to look, so it's not like you're going to be spending hours backtracking to find them again. Ultimately, this game is amazing and I would love to see more like it, I would heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys exploration games!

EDIT: The dev has actually promised more free content in future, which is cool! I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone interested in this genre to buy this game and support them.

9/10.

I always appreciate stories of psychedelic experiences, and whilst I do to here, to a degree, as well, I can't really recommend this game to anyone. It's not fun to play (which is fine, not every game necessarily /has/ to be, but it fails to deliver a worthwhile ending to justify this), and its narrative seems like a mixed hodgepodge that darts between pointlessly confusing to actually quite engaging, although usually the former. I left the game thinking "oh, so that's what that statue is", and that's it, really. If the game was going for a trip report with a disturbing twist at the end, then I think that's a good idea on the drafting paper, but the game does not stick around long enough for me to care about any of these unmet characters. An important takeaway is to always practice set and setting, friends, or you could end up like our protagonist - merely a (metaphorical) blood splatter on the walls of Erowid to serve as a warning for those who come after.

4/10.

This is yet another positive review by a 20something y/o woman who feels represented by this game! 🙏 BLESS, KANGEL-CHAN 🙏

8/10.

To keep it brief (since you've probably already heard all the praise for this series before), Steins Gate is a VN that excels at almost everything, and ten years after I first played it and watched the anime, I still found myself gripped in the tendrils of its story. The art and voice acting really raise the game up from a six or seven to a ten, especially Okabe's VA, he's amazing. There are dozens upon dozens of memorable scenes, in contrast to most games in this genre which usually only have a couple, and thankfully some of them have been uploaded to youtube so you can enjoy them over and over! But Ruka's characterisation remains the elephant in the room, and even though it was rather archaic even at the time, I wouldn't call it problematic per se, just don't engage with the internet discourse surrounding it if you value your sanity. Apart from that, I can't think of any substantive complaints. So if you have even a passing interest in sci-fi or anime VNs, buy it, even at full price!

10/10.