Recent reviews by Kosmozuikis

Beyond Blue is a chill and relaxing diving game with some story.
Gameplay is very basic but the game delivers a very satisfying experience and some interesting story.

You dive into the ocean and explore the area. There are few areas to explore. Each one has story objectives which usually require you to scan the sea life around and some objects. Once you're done with that you can go back to your sub/ship where you can listen to music and watch video logs. It's also the place where you talk to other characters using a phone.

There are two stories going on. One is related to the ocean life and its safety, pollution of the ocean. A lot of stuff is explained through real videos which you unlock by doing activities underwater. Those are real life videos presented as documentary. It's a pretty educational game.
Another part of the story is personal family story which is fine but nothing special.
The game is very relaxing, no hard gameplay sections or time limits or anything. Also after completing the story you can dive into each area and just explore. It's a good time to go for missing achievements then.

Controls can be a bit annoying sometimes but nothing too bad since there's no rush. Collectibles also are marked on the map but it's very subtle so look closely.

Graphically the game looks very good. Underwater areas are pretty small but look amazing. Just sit back, relax and enjoy. Sea life also looks great and highly detailed for an indie game.
There's a photo mode which allows you to take some awesome screenshots.

Sound design is good too. Voice acting is alright and being underwater feels immersive.

It's a good game for those who likes relaxing games and cherish nature. It delivers a message and provides entertainment while being educating.

Pros

• Immersive
  
• Looks great
  
• Relaxing
  
• Educational

Cons

• -

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Dordogne (i can't pronounce that) is a beautiful story driven game which takes you back, accompanied by beautiful art and story it delivers a wonderful experience.

You play as Mimi – a woman who goes back to a town in France from USA after her grandma died. While she's there she starts remembering her childhood she spent with grandma there. That's when gameplay shifts to when Mimi was a child. Piece by piece you uncover the past which is mysterious and you finally make peace in your mind.

The game is done amazingly well. Great atmosphere which makes you feel nostalgic, the way you uncover the story and write the story yourself is very simple yet it delivers an emotional impact.

The gameplay is extremely simple – you just walk around while looking for collectibles and doing the main tasks to advance the story. It has some simple mini-games but mostly it's story driven and everything is in the text and images presented by the game.
It's a very short game but it's diverse and not for a second you think it's boring. You just want to proceed with the story and relive the memories.

This game has only one downside and it's not having a chapter select. It's filled with collectibles and some challenges. If you miss one you must replay the game. That's just bad design. Either add chapter select or stop with collectible related achievements. It's too annoying.

Graphically the game is wonderful. Artistic style is beautiful and each scene is true art. Usually those artistic graphics in other games look very similar to each other due to using same tools and technique but not here. Every scene is painted beautifully.

Sound design is very good. While the game is only partially voiced, the voice acting is good and music accompanies the story well and takes you down the memory lane.

It's a wonderful game which could definitely be called a piece of art. It's a short one so people may think twice before paying full price. But at least wishlist it or if you can afford to pay, buy it.

Pros

• Beautiful art
  
• Great story
  
• Nostalgic
  
• Good sound design

Cons

• No chapter select

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Road 96 is a narrative game set in a fictional country of Patria which is ran by a fascist president Tyrak and you play as one of the random teenagers who tries to escape the country. This game leaves amazing first impression but a bit of a bitter taste after you finish it.

The story is good, it's really fun to play through one time but it has zero replayability value. Some story segments also make no sense. Especially all the campground at the border where police is patrolling and looking for teens. But just 100 meters away teens camp and plan their escape. The fun part is that each run consists of random scenes so for everyone the playthrough will be different.

The game supposed to be about making choices on your journey. But none of the choices matter. Not even a bit. You have zero freedom and zero choice. Every chapter is predetermined. Even though you're given choices, no matter of your answer the characters will reply the same thing and chapter outcome will be exactly the same. It's so disappointing. This is a linear story driven game with no choices or branching paths! Someone asks you something you can replay yes or no, then you'll be asked again and you can answer yes or ok and finally you'll be told that you're gonna do this and you can replay “maybe” or “ok”.
Also i'm not sure what eating rotting food does, ate it from the beginning and noticed zero negative impact.

Skipping any sections also isn't possible, you're forced to play through the same chapters again and again if you decide to replay the game to see scenes you've missed. So if you're replaying for achievements prepare to be bored. No chapter select either. Chapters also are randomized.

Gameplay is simple, you walk around and talk with strangers. They force you do something like work or play mini-games. All the mini-games are fun though. Every mini-game is unique and nostalgic (those whoa re a bit older will feel that) and that's amazing. Talking with other characters (which is forced) reveals their stories and soon you start realizing how everyone is connected to each other. Really neat idea. All the maian characters are done amazingly well and you just want to know what's next.

Graphically the game is bad. Low quality textures and all the objects all around. Characters look like vanilla assets from somewhere. A lot of characters look identical. Only main characters look different. Animations are terrible and lip sync is not existent. On the flip side the artstyle compensates for that, which is beautiful.

Sound design is good and bad. While the soundtrack is great and each track is a joy for your ears which again summons those nostalgic feelings, the voice acting ranges from very bad to mediocre. Feels like it was voiced by people who have no idea how to do that. Only some characters sound good.

A game with good story, some interesting gameplay and mechanics. But fake choices makes it a mediocre game worth buying on sale only just for the story and soundtrack.

Pros

• Good story
  
• Interesting characters
  
• Excellent soundtrack
  
• Neat gameplay idea
  
• Fun mini-games

Cons

• Bad graphics
  
• No chapter select
  
• Choices don't matter

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Hogwarts Legacy is an open world action adventure game set in Harry Potter universe. I never was a fan of Harry Potter, i've seen some movies but that's it. But I always loved fantasy and of course I had to play it. So is it good? Yes of course.

The game begins with character creation which is very good and more games should follow in its steps. You can modify the looks, hair style etc. but the best part is that nothing is tied to gender so you're free to use any set of clothing and appearance on your character. And another great thing is that there are garments which give stats and copsmetics. Each piece of clothing you collect can be applied as cosmetic only which means you can have highest stats and look how you prefer.

You are new in school and arrive to Hogwarts to study. After some time you start making friends and meet Ranrok – the evil goblin and that's what the main story revolves around.
You also have side stories and side quests. Not a lot of them but they offer you pretty good stories which continue throughout the game. Few characters have long quest chains, some dialogues and heartwarming or sad outcomes. I really enjoyed the side quests, they were well designed and didn't feel cheap. They also let me connect with side characters and care for them.

Hogwarts castle is a piece of art. It's huge and you can explore it all. It hides some secrets and is full of tiny details. Sometimes the attention to detail in this game is stunning. Something you don't usually expect from AAA games. For the fans of HP it will leave even a bigger impression, various easter eggs, lore, small details everywhere you go.
Then there's Hogsmead – a small town where you usually go to shop. It's highly detailed with things scattered all around the town.
And there's world map which isn't very big but it's filled with lots of stuff to do.

Gameplay is pretty simple yet extremely fun and satifying. Don't expect it to be hard though, it's family friendly game and is pretty relaxing. Nevertheless the combat is extremely fun. You learn spells on the way and add them to your quick spell action slots to use them in combat. It makes combat diverse and you need to combine different spells together and often use specific spell to break the shields of the enemies. Combat never gets old, it feels good, it looks awesome.

Oh wait almost forgot. You have your own room where you can make potions, grow plants and take care of the beasts you catch. Yes you can catch beasts in the wilds. You can even make them have sex so they could make cute baby beasts. You can feed them, brush them and they drop materials for you which you can use to upgrade your gear.
Everything is customizable, you can put cosmetics in your room and beast gardens, pick the style of your room, put rugs, paintings, tables, there are a lot of options.
Oh and the game also has seasons. And it just keeps giving, even after 30-40h the game will offer you something new and exciting.

The map has a lot of points of interest. Caves usually hold a chest and sometimes you need to solve a simple puzzle to get it. Merlin trials are usually simple puzzles. Hedge maze is what it sounds. Astronomy tables is where you must align the stars. Locked doors is where you must use Alohomora spell. There's also enemy camps, infamous foes, beast spots and baloons to pop. While it seems repetitive and too much, somehow it doesn't feel like it. Probably because it's not just “go there and click x”.
Oh yeah there also are mini-games like broom racing and that other one I forgot the name.
No quidditch sadly, but even that is incorporated into the story and explained why it's not there. (of course real reason is different but it's a nice touch).

You have some choices in dialogues but they have no consequences. Well it's not an rpg game but it could've been a decent rpg game if choices would matter. Some relationship point system would've nice too. But it seems it never supposed to be an rpg.

Graphics are good, the game is very pretty and extremely detailed. Everything looks very pleasant to the eye. While Hogwarts and Hogsmead have their own details the world itself also looks great. Characters look very good too along with pretty well made animations. I(n general graphics are very good.

Performance on the other hand. Well it's unreal engine 4 open world game, you know what that means. Poor optimisation and stutters. No matter the hardware you have it will stutter and you'll experience framerate drops, especially in Hogsmead and some in Hogwarts when traversing from one room to another.
Ray-tracing absolutely cripples performance but is playable. Although it doesn't affect graphics that much.
Played on 5800x, rtx 4080, 32gb @3440x1440. Even with dlss on and rt on fps dropped to 50's in Hogsmead. Without rt it's all good except for unavoidable stutters. But what matters is that combat is always smooth. Stutter only happen when you move around.
Frame generation of course helps and with it on I was hitting my 100fps cap anywhere in the game.
No native ultrawide support in cut-scenes but there's an easy fix which works perfectly.

Sound design is marvelous. It feels like like a holywood movie. Voice acting is amazing, every single character sounds great and soundtrack is what you'd expect from HP movie.

Hogwarts Legacy is en excellent open world adventure game everyone who enjoys the genre should play. After finishing it it leaves you with a feelling of wanting more. It's great looking game which offers fun gameplay, good story, interesting characters and fun to get collectibles. The downsides being only mediocre performance and no quidditch. Worth full price.

Pros

• Good story
  
• Great sound design
  
• Constantly gives you something new
  
• Filled with small details everywhere
  
• Good side quests
  
• Most collectibles are fun
  
• Good graphics
  
• Good customization options
  
• Diverse combat

Cons

• Performance issues related to ue4
  
• No quidditch
  
• Choices do not matter
  
• No native ultrawide support in cut-scenes

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Here we go Persona 5 Royal is on PC and it didn't disappoint, one of the best rpg's released in the past few years.
So what is this game? It's a unique jRPG with high emphasis on story. It has no relation to other games but shares similar lore (what you see in Final Fantasy games) so it's a great starting point for new players.

This is royal version which comes with additional content which adds more hours of gameplay after finishing the main story. It incorporates additional content into the game and story very well so it doesn't feel out of place by any means. It feels like the additional content was there from the beginning.
While I prefer the story of Persona 4 Golden (which was more serious in my opinion and even philosophical), I prefer the dungeons or palaces of this game, it's like day and night. Although Royal story makes up for it.

You play as Joker, a teenage boy who arrives into a new town and goes to a new school where he meets new friends and discovers the metaverse. Soon Joker meets a talking cat, witnesses some shocking events at the school and the journey begins.

Game consists of two different worlds – real world set in Shibuya and metaverse. In the real world you have to go to school, you increase your stats, build relationaships with friends and do other stuff which includes growing plants, fishing, playing games, watching movies, reading books, studying, making coffee and more. Every action cost time, basically you can do two thing per day.

Metaverse is where you steal hearts. After you identify the person you can go to their palace to steal their heart which changes that person in real world. Each palace is entirely different both in visuals and gameplay. Exploring palaces takes time, each one of them has its quirks, some have puzzles or additional requirements and each main boss offers a unique experience and forces you to use different tactics.
There are several playable characters although you can only take three of them with you into combat besides Joker. You can switch them mid-combat or at the entrance so if you see that you need to change the composition of the party, it's easy to do.
Each character has their persona in metaverse and have their own costumes. While Joker can use multiple personas.
Velvet room is the place where you can fuse personas to make new ones, rearrange your personas, buy new ones etc. In general it's a place where you manage your personas.
While in combat, if you critically injure the monster (except bosses and tough enemies) they speak to you and you can demand three things – joining you which means that monster becomes one of your personas with its own skills, ask for money or ask for an item. You can of course just kill them.

There's also mementos, it's like a common palace of all the aociety instead of one person. Mementos has many floors but in general it's just a generic dungeon and place where you go to do side requests and farm.

Real world time management can be tricky when you don't know what to do. Increasing social stats is important but also increasing friendship rank with your friends opens up their side-stories and gives you abilities in metaverse. You can meet and interact with non-playable characters so you'll need to manage who to dedicate your time to well.
Eventually if you rank up a girl to max rank you can become a couple or decide to friendzone her. You can go into relatioship with multiple girls both your age and older, like your teacher.

You get to buy your gear (you can find some), buy/make items which heals of buffs you or debuff/damages the enemies.
Combat is turn based and often requires some planning and knowledge of the game to exploit all the weaknesses of the enemies. I played on easy because i wanted story and still managed to die few times. You take turns and you have few choices each turn. Physical attack, guns, persona or item. Each enemy has its weakness to certain attack or element (some have no weakness) and it's up to you to discover them.
So in short gameplay consists of real life activities and dialogues and metaverse. Don't forget that you can spend as much time in metaverse once you're there as you like and it will count as one activity.

Graphically the game is quite unique. It's Atlus game, the only other similar looking game is Catherine made by the same developers. The graphics look great, amazing art-style which stands out of any other game. Palaces especially look great and it's a great leap from Persona 4 Golden where you only had mazes with identical textures everywhere.

Performance isn't the greatest, especially if you turn up rendering scale. But this game is fine even at 30fps.
Played on 5800x, rtx 3080/4080, 32gb @3440x1440. I had render scale on 150%, game looked amazing and very crisp although I was getting some fps drops which was weird since the game isn't a technical marvel. There's lack of graphics options.

No ultrawide support obviously because there's lots of 2D images. Partially works with flawless widescreen. 2D images are stretched and you can see the void where 2D background boundaries end. Anime cut-scenes are stretched, use reshade and bind a button to quickly change the aspect ratio when cut-scenes play.

Sound design is absolutely outstanding. This game deserves the best soundtrack of the year. Really it has one of the best soundtracks in the industry. After playing this you'll either go to youtube or spotify to listen to those songs.
Voice acting was good too, each character sounded nice even though it's not always the case with niche japanese games.

It's a wonderful game filled with 100+ hours of pure content, worth any price and is close to being a masterpiece. The story could be better and it has some weird minor performance issues but it's a must have for any rpg fan.

Pros

• Unique experience
  
• Good character design
  
• Fun combat
  
• Palaces are well designed
  
• Real content instead of content filler
  
• Outstanding soundtrack
  
• Royal additional story is really good
  
• Talking cat

Cons

• Minor performance issues
  
• Majority of the main story could be better

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Well not much to write about, it's a nice hidden object game. Pretty short and the art is diverse and everything is nicely drawn. You just click on hidden bunnies and carrots until you get them.

One more PS exclusive on PC, so glad they keep coming and hopefully they will continue to come to Steam in the future.
This is a good game which feels like a movie sometimes. You obviously play as Spider-Man and do the police work in New York.
The story is engaging but nothing special, you know the usual – bad guys appear and you must defeat them. There's some story for Miles to build the hype for Miles Morales game (which in my opinion should be a dlc). The story is good just don't expect any deep meaning or heartbreaking moments.

Gameplay is simple yet fun. Most of the times. So lets separate main story and side content. Main story gameplay is wonderful. You're being introduced to controls and how everything works in the first few hours of the game. Mission variety is great and it requires some stealth, investigation, swinging aorund the city, using your gadgets and so on. It feels diverse and extremely fun. Although story is pretty short, I replayed the game on ng+ ultimate difficulty and finished it in ~7h. I skipped the cut-scenes of course which would add few more hours.
Main story also has sections where you play as MJ and Miles. Both of their playstyles are stealth focused which could be annoying but is a nice change from all the action.
There are also puzzles which require some thingking. But if you don't like to be distracted too much you can skip them (an option in accessibility settings). Speaking of – there are other settings for players who may not be very good at games or are handicapped to make it playable. Something every single game should have.

Now side content. Don't know how to put it. It's ubisoft level of content. The map is full of icons you need to clear. Climb towers to reveal the map (i'm not joking), clear countless amount of camps and then there are never ending crimes you can clear which happen randomly near you. Then there are challenges like stealth, drone chasing or combat. It just feels too much.

The combat is very good – it's fast, it's fluid, it's fun. But it becomes tedious if you start clearing all the activities. The combat doesn't evolve. While it's extremely fun and makes you feel like a super hero, eventually it becomes monotonous because there's too much pointless side content.
Swinging around the city is fun but challenges are not. While swinging works well when you're not in a rush, it just doesn't work well when you're chasing something. You constantly either jump onto wrong object or hit a wall and stick to it. It's just frustrating to swing through the city doing a challenge and do it accurately.

All the dlc's are included in the game and they are...mediocre. All dlc's should've been the part of the main game and Miles Morales sold as dlc. Cash grab much. They basically continue the story of the main game. I was especially mad about the Black Cat dlc because in the main game there are collectibles related to her and I expected to play her story when I get them all but guess what? It's locked behind a dlc. I feel bad for console players.
Other than that dlc's include more challenges, pointless camp clearings, etc. Shallow, low effort content.

Graphically the game looks wonderful. Character design is outstanding, cut-scenes look phenomenal, facial animations are perfect.
It's one of those rare games where city looks good. Usually you get a fog in the near distance but not here. The city looks wonderful and highly detailed. City feels alive with cars driving,. People walking around and buildings looking good.

Performance is also good. Without ray-tracing I had my fps locked to 100 and it stayed there for the most part despite what was happening on the screen. With ray-tracing on it wasn't playable and ran at 40-50fps with dlss. Well ray-tracing doesn't make a difference in visuals anyway.
Played on 5800x, rtx 3080, 32GB @3440x1440.
The game has native ultrawide support. Other developer should learn from this.

Sound is what you expect from a quality AAA game or movie. It's good. Voice acting is wonderful and makes you feel immersed and soundtrack combined with all the sound effect strengthens that feeling.

Overall a good game for action fans. Definitely not a masterpiece, it won't go into history but a good and fun game nonetheless. Recommended to buy on sale.

Pros

• Looks great
  
• Engaging story
  
• Fun gameplay
  
• A bunch of accessibility options
  
• Stunnign graphics
  
• Good sound
  
• Good eprformance
  
• Ultrawide support

Cons

• Story is too short
  
• Dlc's belong to the core game
  
• Combat doesn't evolve and becomes boring
  
• Swinging challenges are tedious
  
• Overridden by pointless, boring, shallow ubi style side content

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This game was a such a sweet surprise. When it was announced I thought it will be more like a meme/joke game and I didn't pay much attention. But after seeing final trailers and little bit of gameplay I knew I need this in my life. And I wasn't disappointed – this is one of the best games of 2022 which beats majority of AAA games.

Stray is a game about a cat. But it's so much more. It's a beautiful world presented with fun to explore areas and the story is revealed slowly through exploring and progressing the story path.
You explore the city where only traces of human life is left but not a single human left. You wonder what happened and you find various clues, read the descriptions of items, etc. You meet robots and also can talk to them to learn about the world and what's going on.

Gameplay is very simple yet fun. You control the cat yay! You can meow, scratch the surfaces, run and jump. While mostly you'll be exploring, there are running sections where you need to escape certain enemies and there are puzzle sections. Don't worry puzzles are not hard and don't break the flow of the game. Other than that there are collectibles to find which are not just collectibles but actually fun to discover.

Graphically the game is gorgeous. The areas you explore are not too big but there are several of them and they are beautifully crafted with amazing attention to detail. Every corner of the area hides something, some little thing somewhere, a hint, etc.
Obviously the cat itself looks stunning since it's the main character so it received the most attention.
Performance is wonderful, max settings smooth as butter. Played on 5800x, rtx3080, 32GB @3440x1440.
The game also has ultrawide support. Except for pre-rendered cut-scenes obviously.

While the game has no voice overs the sound design is absolutely marvelous. The ambient sounds, soundtrck, sound effects – everything is just perfect. And you can also meow, meow a lot.

This is a wonderful game even though it's short it provides the best value and entertainment. Buy it if you want a unique experience.

Pros

• Great story
  [*[Fun gameplay
  
• Amazing graphics
  
• Excellent sound design
  
• Ultrawide support
  
• Meow

Cons

• -

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Who would've thought Uncharted will come to PC one day? I always was an optimist regarding that, I said a decade ago that Persona will come to PC, Yakuza and some other PS exclusives but even I didn't think we will ever see games like Uncharted, but here we are – one of the best third person action series is on PC.

These probably were inspired by Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider (funny how later Tomb Raider seem to be inspired by Uncharted) and they offer highest quality entertainment value. Don't expect anything to make sense, don't expect logic, all you're gonna get is a holywood style blockbuster experience where you feel like you're in the movie.
This includes two separate games.

In the first one you play as Nathan Drake and like always you go to search for ancient treasures while trying to save your skin from the bad guys who are after the treasure too. Of course the story isn't anything deep and special but it's pretty good and casts some interesting characters. Drake reunites with his brother and the brother drags Drake into treasure hunting. On the way there will be some plot twists and interesting events to keep your attention so you would never let go.

Gameplay hasn't changed much, it basically boils down to shooting, platforming and puzzles. Although this time the game tries to incorporate open world mechanics which in my opinion is pointless. Uncharted always was linear and I want it to stay that way. Of course open areas look lovely but they're pointless and empty. These games always were pinnacle of high graphical fidelity and showing those beautiful open areas in that kind fidelity is nice but it's only that – pretty.

Mission variety is great. From sneaking around and climbing with no enemy encounters to jungles and mountains, to prison and sea – Uncharted never disappoints in level variety. You'll see everything.

The pacing is done pretty well although I think it could be better. Open areas kinda break the flow of the game and the lack of puzzles is a bit disappointing. But nothing too bad.
So besides jumping, climbing, sliding and puzzle solving you shoot people. This time there's stealth mechanic which is quite interesting and works pretty well. But most of the time it becomes a cover third person shooter. It's not your usual cover shooter. Covers break easily, you can't hide behind one forever. Enemy AI also tries to lure you out from cover or surround you, so you need to be accurate and quick with your guns.
Gameplay is just amazing. It's fun, challenging, fast and entertaining.
Game offers many difficulty levels so everyone can enjoy it and after finishing the game once you unlock infinite weapons.
Chapter select lets you to jump straight into specific gunfight instead of replaying the slow parts of the game.

Now the second game in my opinion is better. It feels more like Uncharted 2&3 when it comes to pacing, story and gampelay. It's much shorter but it provides such a good value.
This time you explore a bit of India and its secrets. Lots of action, falling down, explosions, jumping and puzzles. Everything you wish for is here.

Graphically the games are stunning. It boggles the mind how games which are pretty old and were made for PS4 look better than most games on PC. The visuals are just jaw dropping. Animations are the best of the best, it's like watching a movie, every bit of character's face is animated, you can notice smallest expression, the attention to detail is insane.
And then graphics in general. It's just amazing. So many vastly different environments modeled to the highest standards. The only downside i've noticed was that sometimes distant objects (mountains for example) look ugly.

Performance is good, not perfect though. The game supports dlss so if you have weaker gpu the game will run great anyway. I personally played with dlss on because i wanted to play on max settings. Without dlss fps dropped to 40-50, with dlss to quality it stayed at 75+. The performance is really good.
Played on 5800x, rtx3080, 32GB @3440x1440.

Unfortunately there's no ultrawide support, unlike with other Sony games. But there's an easy fix with Flawless Widescreen and it works perfectly fine. You sometimes may see black bars in cut-scenes but they last for a few seconds and it's because they're pre-rendered. But there's a good reason for that.
The game has no loading screens, you get the initial loading screen when you start the game session and then nothing. The assets load during cut-scenes so some cut-scenes are pre-rendered to get some load off the hardware. Smart decision, little cost to visuals while getting rid of loading.

Sound? What to say here. It's perfect. Acting is something you would see from best holywood actors, soundtrack is from a blockbuster movie. Nothing much to add here, sound design just like everything else is perfect or nearly perfect.

Overall an excellent collection. Two games which are one of the best in their category. Worth for anyone who loves nonsensical, non-stop action and explosions.
Now bring the first three games please.

Pros

• Keeps your attention
  
• Great diverse gameplay
  
• Diverse locations
  
• Fun story
  
• Great characters
  
• Stunning graphics
  
• Sound design
  
• Good performance

Cons

• No native ultrawide support

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Plague Tale Innocence was a very good game and huge surprise because it was a new IP and wasn't a very high budget game. So obviously it needed a sequel. So is it good? Is it better than the first game? Oh yeah, it's one of the best games released this year.
So the story revolves around Amicia and Hugo again. They are a bit older now but for some reason Hugo looks same age or even a bit younger and Amicia looks extremely young too. Probably due to different engine they were redesigned. Nevermind, that's not important.

So the rats are back and it's time to embark on another wonderful story. Like always talking about the story in a story driven game is quite difficult. All i'm gonna say is that this is one of the best game stories this year and it's an emotional rollercoaster. Definitely better than the first game. Asobo nailed the characters, emotions and everything else. The events just go south really quickly and hit you hard.

Gameplay has changed a lot. First game suffered from being a bit too linear. You basically had only one right path, so by trial and error you discovered those paths. But you had had zero freedom in choosing how to approach the enemies.
In this game you have that freedom. You can play aggressively, you can play stealthy, you can take one route or another route through the area. You can kill everyone or leave most of the enemies alive. It's up to you.
This time the game is much much bigger and very open, with huge areas filled with enemies. Speaking of enemies – their ai is greatly improved and this time enemies are extremely persistent and cautious which means they spot you easier and they don't give up searching for you easily. They will walk around looking for you forever so you need to be extremely careful.
Since Amicia isn't some super human it's extremely easy to die. While you can kill everyone, you can't simply take enemies head on. You need to kill them stealthy. You need to pick your approach carefully, plan your actions and execute them perfectly.
You can unlock and upgrade skills which can help you a lot. You can also pick certain skills first depending on your playstyle. The skill bar is increasing depending on how you play the game. Crafting, being stealthy or being aggressive will lead to different skills. The game gives you freedom. You can avoid most encounters by being sneaky and taking one of many paths or you can be aggressive and kill everyone on the map.
Rats obviously are back and while they are similar to the previous game it feels fresh and makes gameplay even more diverse.
The pacing is also great. There will be tense moments, fighting, being helpless where you're forced to be stealthy, calm moments of just walking around admiring the scenery and smiling, dark moments and puzzles which is a nice change of pace. They're not very challenging and are perfectly balanced.

Graphically the game is stunning. Huge beautifully crafted open locations which vary in scenery with each chapter. Environemnts look absolutely stunning, from vegetation to buildings and lighting, everything looks gorgeous. Character models too are very high quality and since the game has some cut-scenes it's quite important. You get a true cinematic experience.

Performance isn't amazing. While the game looks stunning it comes at a price. Most of the time the game runs pretty good but in some areas fps drops drastically. Gladly those areas doesn't involve any combat. Just walking around. I had no framerate issues during tense moments or when the rats appear. Played on ultra/high settings @3440x1440, 5800x, rtx3080, 32GB. Yes the game has native ultrawide support which makes the game even prettier.
I and other people had some technical issues where the game didn't start which was caused by audio device selection. So if you have a black screen after hitting play then change your audio device.

Sound is another area where the game is astonishing. Voice acting is great and all the characters are well acted but what makes the biggest impact is soundtrack. It's one of the best if not the best soundtrack of 2022. It's just that good.

Overall an excellent game which was greatly improved compared with the first one. Amazing story, great characters, stunning graphics and excellent soundtrack makes this one of the best releases of 2022.

Pros

• Great emotional story
  
• Stunning graphics
  
• Outstanding soundtrack
  
• Improved gameplay
  
• More than one way to complete most levels
  
• Native ultrawide support

Cons

• Average performance

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