Recent reviews by The Continental

Pros:
- Amazing game;
- amazing preservation effort;
- and unexpectedly nice lore additions
- and development documentary additions!

For those who haven't played it:
- female protagonist;
- tasteful treatment of her;
- amazing world and characters, character design also;
- amazing attention to detail;
- stylish graphics;
- a combat system that is as light as it is satisfying;
- still a unique game about a journalist unraveling a conspiracy while taking photos of the amazingly diverse an uniquely behaving nature;
- the finest racing music you never knew you'd need.

That was what I was buying this for. Also I voted with my wallet on sequel.
This is a game I want a sequel for!
The modeling got a lot of love, cinematics too.
We can finally play it in widescreen and without stuttering.
Everything finely tested, spotless in every regard.

Cons: If you didn't grow up with it, you might not feel this as much.
But the lighting and shading DID NOT NEED A REWORK.
- It was amazing and stylish before, but now it feels unnnecessary much more realistic overall, darker and HDR, and is worse for it! Especially, harder, darker contours on textures and darker textures. It ruins some moments for me, the comfy vibes I had. That PBR was uncalled for, a more cartoonish style would do well.
- It's like Uncharted: original fake lighting was done much more artistically, then the remaster team comes in with heavy limitations and do a mod for realistic light. Which makes some scenes that popped become a blur. They tune it up a bit, but to be realistic and good, not how it was.
- overall, the picture is much darker, contours are harder and the water reflections look worse, despite containing more of a wave.
- Some characters have shaded faces (Pey`j is all wet and bumpy like) while Jade doesn't (flat);
- I'd really like to be able to switch between the Old and New.

You might see a remaster like what I want with Soul Reaver 1&2 Remasters.

Although I liked the setting, art (not animations) and game design updates here, I hated its writing with a passion. Bounced off in the first half an hour.

You should watch a bit of the walkthrough before buying to see if you can take it. I didn't and I couldn't. No, really try it. You might just love it.

Probably lots of love and amazing work by Nightdive. Couldn't appreciate it. The writing isn't something easy to fix in such a game.

Maybe it gets good at some point, I wouldn't know. See for yourself.

It's an excellently written game with excellent visual design. But, as for game design, though Breached is simple, it's rough around the edges. All core mechanics are, mostly, excellent both in their elegant simplicity and execution. The interface and navigation, landscapes and relics of a long gone civilization, all the visual and, especially, sonic stuff is brilliant.

Yet an essential part of it, the Fuel Synthesis process, relies completely on chance. One cannot solve the proportion of elements as a system of equations, so there's no way around trial and error. And this element of chance gives the game its 'challenge" part, but it comes with great frustration. And a lot of replays. One minor failure can doom the playthrough. It's kinda realistic, but, man, devs, cut us some slack.

A pretty, excellently written, simple game, Breached is as frustrating an experience as its bleak narrative implies. You're a lone, hopeless, broken survivor. This unforgiving game conveys that excellently.

TL; DR
1.Excellent original, bugged Enemy Within (but Firaxis are tracking bugs and fixing them).
2. Play only if you are able to do so just for the sake of it: little to no closure in a terrible ending.
3. Even if you win, it's non-canon anyway.

I love this game. it has great strategical and tactical depth, which one can feel deeply whilst playing on Impossible Ironman difficlty and appreciate, enjoy when on lower levels. It has flexible, perfect game design which may be challenging, but can also be tuned to play for fun.

The original game is excellent and polished through and through, but the Enemy Within is... Say, if you want closure, boy does this game have some game-breaking bugs for you! The bugs would never let me finish the game on any difficulty except Easy, and even then I must save at different parts of a final level and always expect not a hidden enemy, but an enemy within the game, the game-breaking bug which would never let me progress. But hey, Firaxis are tracking those bugs and shooting 'em like a Squadsight Sniper In The Zone.

And the ending is so short it had to be explained by designer. And it's not even canon!

This game is the closest you might get to The Last Express in modern gaming. It's subtle, has a lot of clues you can miss and tons of stuff to discover. Buggy at times, but it's great.