Recent reviews by GRIMM

Dear Ubisoft,

We'd love to finally see some achievements on these newer games. We'd also love to see native working controller support that does not require tinkering. And where is Far Cry 6?

But hey, thanks for Scott Pilgrim! Much appreciated!

Yours Truly,
Everyone

IFR is an open world action adventure title with environmental puzzle elements. The game takes places in a massive world based on ancient Greek mythos with you playing a mortal character named Fenyx on their quest to ultimately face Typhon and save their brother. While Greek mythology plays a massive role in the game's world and storytelling, there is a lot of of tongue in cheek humor that uses modern humor tropes and oddly enough very subtle and sometimes not so subtle modern references. A great deal of this is told through some great narration from Prometheus as he tells this story to Zeus, with some great back and forth banter.


IFR is broken down into several categories of gameplay: Open world exploration, traversal, combat, and puzzles.

The open world exploration borrows a bit from other Ubisoft titles in how you open up parts of the map by seeking high vantage points in certain locations to scan the area. Something seen in titles like the Far Cry series and Assassin's Creed. Once you have uncovered a section of the massive map, you can even go into a focus mode and visually scan around for key spots that range from chests, other items, enemies, puzzle areas and more. The world is massive and ripe with key spots for all sorts of open world explorers to enjoy. Seems there is always something new to discover.

Traversing the map comes in many flavors outside of your normal walking. Equipped with the powers of the gods, Fenyx can move about in many various ways. Using the strength of Herakles Fenyx can move massive blocks to allow for big stepping stones to reach higher areas. Fenyx can climbs mountains. Fenyx can double jump and even soar through the air equipped with the wings of Daidalos. They can tame wild creatures to use as mounts. And more. There's no shortage of ways to move around the massive world. For those who are impatient there is of course a nifty quick travel option from the map for some previously explored spots. Now some of the traversal sadly comes at a cost, as it does use up stamina. So you won't be climbing or soaring for an endless period, but with upgrades and potions it can seem that way.

Combat would be the key factor into also having the action tag on this title. And there's plenty of it. Combat to me at least feels very similar to the newer Assassin's Creed titles, such as Origins. You have ranged combat with Fenyx's bow, melee combat with 2 weapons, both a sword that dishes out quick light attacks, and a heavy attack thanks to a meaty axe. Attacks from the melee weapons can be chained, and thanks to moves like a dodge and parry that gives you an advantage, combat never seems too difficult when enemies are in the right skill range. Ranged combat also comes in 2 ways. you can either aim and shoot normally with arrows that shoot in an arc, which is fine for closer ranged combat, or you can guide the arrows in slow motion thanks to the power of Apollo's arrows. In all honesty this actually negates standard aiming for ranged combat as Apollo's arrows are much easier to use and are seemingly endless since they just recharge after a few seconds once depleted.

Lastly, you have puzzles. IFR is definitely not short on these either as there are puzzles scattered all over the world. This part of the game reminds me a lot of Breath of the Wild. If you're not a fan of action oriented environemtal puzzles, this might be a game you may want to skip, as this takes up a huge chunk of the game and is also mandatory in some parts for progression. If you've ever played Breath of the Wild, you'll feel right at home in this area. When I say environmental puzzles, what I mean is that the puzzles use parts of the enviornment in a lot of cases. And there's a lot of variety in them too. From your basic block pushing puzzles to puzzles that have you shooting cleverly obscured targets with Apollo's arrows, to puzzles that have you using ball rolling physics, and a lot more. Puzzles can be found outdoors in the open world which usually lead to treasure or other things, but are also contained in their own "dungeons" much like Breath of the Wild. Being a fan of BotW, I quite enjoyed these parts of the game.

All in all, the whole definitely is greater than the sums of its parts, and in terms of gameplay, IFR is neatly packaged into a grand adventure with lots to offer.


IFR does not try to go for the photorealistic look as seen in other massive open world Ubisoft games and instead goes for a more cartoonish look that actually works well given the overall tone of the narrative. Some parts of the game offer a bright and cheery colorful look with sprawling grassy and foresty areas surrounding by calm blue waters, and a colorful skybox, while others will look more dreary and wartorn with darker hues. there's several different biomes to showcase the variety in overall aesthetics. Makes for some great screenshots for sure! And luckily Ubisoft tossed in their photo tools as seen in other titles to make for some amazing looking snapshots. Character models also look fantastic. the overall look is still cartoony, but fits the visual tone of the game quite well.

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As for performance, well, mileage may vary. I am personally playing with an RTX 2080 Super, i7-9700KF and 32GB of Ram on an SSD. I am also playing on 3440x1440 ultrawide monitor. (Yes Ultrawide works great in this!). Running the game at default settings I encountered a ton of stutter. More so in cutscenes, but still somewhat during actual gameplay. Lowering the settings did not do me any favors except in increasing FPS. I was still getting a lot of stuttering. After quite a bit of trial and error in settings I managed to get the game in a very stable state without any stuttering, and still having settings at max in most options. I'll post in the comments what settings I am using for anyone curious. Either way, if the game auto detected settings based on my configuration, it did a poor job. Luckily it runs fine with some settings changed. I've heard quite a few people complaining about the same issues in this regard, and to those I will say just keep at it. Play around with the settings and find that sweet spot.


While you won't have music blaring at all times, it does kick in at key moments, and is mostly fitting for those occasions. I would not say any of the music is entirely memorable, but it's good enough fill in those spots where it's truly needed. Most of the time you'll have your ears filled with serene ambiance instead as you explore the world. with some softer music kicking in too while exploring every now and then, kind of going back and forth to remind you its there. The ambience though is glorious. Walking around you can hear the wind rustling through the trees, the occasional sounds of wildlife and more. It's never truly quiet, but also never too much. Voicework is also superb. It never overstays its welcome, but when it does pop up, it's a thrill to hear. Especially from the narration itself.


Is it worth it? Absolutely. Despite being heavily downvoted for some very petty reasons, the game itself is amazing. Fans of open world action adventure titles will love this. Breath of the Wild fans will love it for the puzzles also. It's a great amalgam of different ideas brought together in one solid package.

Pros
+ Aesthetics
+ Narration
+ Combat
+ Powers of the gods
+ Tons of secrets and puzzles for explorers
+ Great use of ambient sound
Cons
- Has optional microtransactions (does not impact gameplay luckily)
- No achievements yet

Rating 9/10

Spider-Man: Miles Morales takes place shortly after the first Insomniac Spider-Man game putting you into the role of new and upcoming protege to Peter Parker, Miles Morales. If you've played the first Spider-Man game, this one is not too different. Same city, same type of combat, similar flow. It's going to feel right at home basically. There's really not much new to learn here in terms of the gameplay.

However for all the similarities of Miles to Peter in terms of combat, Peter at the start of his own game was already a veteran superhero. And Miles? Well, he's the new kid on the block. And it's refreshing to see his character grow here. He does not start out like Peter who is already established. Miles' attitude shows that he is still extremely green and awkward getting into the role of New York's newest web slinger. So his gaining new abilities throughout the game will make a lot more sense as opposed to Peter who has been doing it for years.

And with as similar as they both are, Miles will come equipped with his unique abilities such as his venom attacks and camouflage stealth that he gains in the game. Miles also has his own fresh style of web swinging. A lot more animated and flashy. And yes, this would be the reason for the infamously taken out of context quote "The exaggerated swagger of a black teen". But it makes sense when you think about it. Miles is young. He just got these powers recently. And he is having the time of his life! Don't tell me if you had these powers you would not be kicking in your own swagger showing off. Hell, look at Andrew Garfield's web swinging in The Amazing Spider-Man movie. That dude was having some fun! And so is Miles.


That's fine. But you really should. But even if you don't, that's still okay. To boil it down, Spider-Man: Miles Morales is an open world superhero based action game that is structured around main and side missions. You can fully explore their version of Manhattan, If you don't know anything about Spider-Man, just know this... They all have mostly similar basic abilities. They're super strong, agile, have "spidey-sense" that tells them of incoming danger, and one of their trademarks is the ability to cling to nearly any surface (like a real Spider), and also the ability to shoot webs which they can use as projectile attacks and also to create tethers to swing around with. With these moves, Miles is able to swing around the city in spectacular fashion, zipping between buildings. He can also climb walls, or even run up them. And when he sneaks around he can even cling to ceilings and crawl around upside down.

As for combat, the game borrows heavily from the style made popular by the Batman Arkham games, which has similarly been used in other titles like the Middle Earth titles, Mad Max, and others. It's basically a mix of attacks, counters and dodges. In all of these you are usually given a visual indicator of an incoming enemy attacks to give you time to dodge and counter, however it makes the most sense in the Spider-Man games due to the actual use of the characters spider-sense which is part of their canon. With the arsenal of moves, spidey-sense, agility, web slinging and more, the combat is extremely fluid and never seems to get stale in any occasion. It also just looks amazing to see in motion.


Like the first Insomniac made Spider-Man game, the game is extremely well optimized. And no matter what settings you are playing at, the game offers a crisp looking New York in very high fidelity across the board. This time things are mixed up with a snowy backdrop, and I honestly love the effect it has on the games overall aesthetic look.

For those that have beefy enough hardware to handle it, the ray tracing effects look simply stunning, especially when hugging a wall on the side of a skyscraper. The ray tracing works wonderfully to reflect both yourself and the surrounding areas as well as adding some other visual effects like a coating of grime on unwashed windows for a more realistic touch. Even without ray tracing turned on, the game still great.

Also a site to behold the city below from way up above. With great draw distances you can see the city come to life from 70+ stories up looking down. And speaking of the city below, like the first Spidey game, the streets are bristling with activity. The city really feels alive. Streets are not empty, and instead littered with traffic, and people walking around everywhere.

I might be overreacting here. But damn, this and the first Spidey game both look gorgeous. Hats off to the devs for making this a great looking title at day 1.

The audio is also equally amazing in this one. Like in the first spidey game, the voice acting is superb. Cutscenes never feel boring or overacted. It just all feels professionally done. The banter you hear down below in the city streets is also nice. Though you might hear the occasional line being repeated it's not often luckily. When swinging through the city, the music kicks in, and it's a nice change of pace and fitting for Miles as it opts for a more mellow and chill hip hop sounding theme as opposed to the orchestrated and cinematic sound heard in the original.


If you have read any number of complaints about this game before coming out on the discussion boards, one of the biggest would be claiming that this game is overpriced DLC. Well to set the record straight, it is in fact not DLC. As DLC would actually require ownership and installation of a base game in order to be played. Miles Morales does not require any other title owned to be played, and is therefore a complete standalone title.

That said though, it is still a step back from the first Spider-Man in this series in terms of length and feels more like a big standalone expansion pack rather than a full on sequel. To make matters worse, the pricing is a bit harsh. On the Playstation 5 Sony was smart enough to package both games together at a reasonable price of $69.99 msrp (usd). On Steam however to get the same experience you'll be dropping $109.98 (usd) for both titles. Yikes. By itself however, Miles is priced the same across the board. Still seems a bit high. I would not recommend buying the game directly through Steam in this case, and instead venturing to some sites that may offer this cheaper. Just not those nasty grey market sites. There are legitimate publisher partnered sites offering the game at a hefty discount already. And because of that, I'm saying get the game! Just don't get it through Steam, unless it goes on sale. But hey, at the end of the day, it's your choice. Miles Morales is definitely worth picking up either way. How you do it is up to you.

Man, this is just a rock solid port. Absolutely amazing so far with literally 0 issues encountered thus far. I only have one teensy gripe and that is that I wish it had ultrawide support. That's not really an issue though as much as just a feature I'd like to have.

Already played it on the PS4 but never got around to beating it because I kind of gave up on my PS4. So I am familiar with a bit of the game and can highly recommend it. However I will drop a full blown review for this later on when I rack up some more hours.

But anyway, it's Persona 5. Fantastic game. Amazing soundtrack. It's just... so damn good.

It's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunbga Collection, of course


Yeah. But this is not a new game, but rather a new collection of old titles. Hence the word "collection".


13 games in total per region. You can play each game in a US and Japanese version.

You've got an assortment of titles ranging from platforming action, to arcade beat em ups, a trio of fighting games, and even a very rare metroidvania style game in the mix. The platforms these originally appeared on were the Arcade, NES, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Gameboy, and their Japanese counterparts.


I know it might look like this, but in the case of doubles (or even triples) the games are different enough to really justify them as different entries. There might be added levels in one version, better music and audio in the other, different bosses in both versions, and more. In the case of the 3 Tournament Fighters games, let's just say we have 3 very different fighting games that all happen to share the same name.

Basically each entry in this collection offers something unique.


No worries. Digital Eclipse brought over a great feature they also used in the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection. A "watch" mode. This essentially lets you watch the entire game in a sort of speed run of sorts from beginning to end. This can be used as either a tool to help you learn some stuff about the game, perhaps a strategy on how to beat a boss maybe, or just to learn the layout of enemies through a level, or maybe just to watch. The other thing it can be used for is to allow you to skip to a certain part of the game, as you can jump in any take over at any time during the watch mode. Yeah, that's right, you can skip right past that DAM water section in the first TMNT game. Keep in mind, you can not earn achievements for beating any games using this feature however.

The other tool to help out is something that is being used in more and more retro compilations these days: The rewind feature. This allows you to rewind up to 10 seconds of gameplay. Really handy when you want to learn through trial and error on how to overcome something, or just a nice little cheat to help you out in a jam.

These mixed with the fact that some games (not all) have some options to enable unlimited lives, level skips, god mode and other useful tools will make even some of the more difficult TMNT games a mere walk in the park. And of course anyone who does want a challenge, everything is optional, and it's really up to how you want to play.


It does. But only for a few games unfortunately. And more unfortunate, the online is not that great. Hopefully this is something that Digital Eclipse or Konami addresses and works on fixing. And hopefully if enough people voice their feedback maybe we'll see them adding multiplayer to some of the other games.


Well, aside from the games this collection offers one of the biggest museum modes I have ever seen in a compilation. You have high res flattened box scans for all of the console and handheld games, instruction manuals, comic book covers from the Eastman & Laird run up to the newer IDW stuff, magazine ads, old design documents and concept art, and more scans. You also have soundtracks for all of the games, and more goodies. The oddest thing is the inclusion of screenshots of various episodes of the TMNT cartoons. I guess that might appeal to some people, but the rest of the museum for me is where it's at! I literally spent an hour day 1 just going through exploring the various things, and I go nowhere near seeing it all.

There's also a very handy strategy guide that covers all of the games, and is styled like the old game magazine guides we used to read through back in the day. I think it's both cleverly done, and also extremely useful at the same time.

Aside from that, each game comes with a special menu to enhance the selected games features. For some games this might mean enabling additional characters, for others it might mean adding in god mode or unlimited lives. My favorite though is the ability to remove the flickering from the old NES games. You don't get the same options for each game sadly.

Each game does also have a universal set of options that you can typically find in most retro compilations that allow you to add various filters to the games, and also to change the size of the game window (or even stretch it to fill the screen). Sadly because they used this as a shared universal set of screen options they overlooked 1 important thing... No Gameboy filters. Instead you have TV, Monitor and LCD screen filters, and this reflects on all of the games, including the Gameboy entries. So far this is my biggest gripe. I'd love to be able to play these classic Gameboy titles with better filter enabled, and ones that actually are representative of the hardware these were originally played on.


Why yes. Yes it is!


Well, it depends. If you only wanted this for the online play, that might be the biggest downside in general, as it is only limited to 4 of the 13 titles And even then, the online component is not all that it could have been. Aside from that one detractor, the rest of this compilation is bar none one of the better entries I've seen in ages. Digital Eclipse took great care to bring over one of the best retro museum modes I've ever seen in a compilation before. On top of that the games are extremely fun. And even if you're not a long time TMNT fan (who will have bought this regardless), and instead a new turtle in training, or just someone curious, there is bound to be something here that catches your interest.

Hot Wheels Unleashed? Take note. This is how you do a Hot Wheels game the right way. And this is just an expansion!

Back when the SEGA Saturn was an actual thing and not just a retro collector item, I owned one (luckily still do). One of the games I played on it the most was actually Nightwarriors: Darkstalkers Revenge. I fell in love with this game from the moment I heard about it. The art style, the crazy cast of monster characters, the music. It all just clicked. I remember buying a guide for it back when guides were a popular item, and just loving digging through the artwork. Lord Raptor was easily my favorite design. Probably because I could draw him so easily.

Anyway, that was my first Darkstalkers game. I have played others in the series, but that one will always be my favorite. And I am happy to see CAPCOM has released this wonderful collection of games on STEAM and other platforms. Not only Darkstalkers, but we get some great other titles in Hyper Street fighter II Anniversary, which is basically the definitive version of SFII, Super Gem fighter Mini Mix, which is a great lighthearted take on Street Fighter with some other Capcom characters thrown in the mix, Red Earth, which is being released outside arcades for the first time ever, and some other cool stuff too.

It's about time we let CAPCOM know that we love Darkstalkers. I say go nuts and buy this! If anything, do it for Lord Raptor, Jon Talbain, Felicia and the rest. Let CAPCOM know we want a new Darkstalkers!

For anyone curious: Yes, Street Fighter is still censored.

And also, the games work wonderfully on the Steam Deck.

So what is Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, and how does it compare to the classic 1997 Playstation title?

Well the original Final Fantasy VII for some is one of the best RPGs of all time. And it is indeed well deserving of all of its praise. It was revolutionary, and a major game changer for the console RPG genre. A tale of a band of characters brought together with similar goals of saving the planet. And furthermore, it was an RPG that actually spanned an entire planet. Well the "remake" is the first part of a series of games that is more a re-imagining of the classic title, rather than a straight remake. And this is what might confuse some people who played the original. Not just the fact that the game takes place in mainly Midgar, which is a small portion of the original, but also that the story has been repurposed. The characters are all the same. You have your defiant group of heroes, lead by Cloud. You have the evil villains, such as Sephiroth. The planet destroying company of Shinra. It's all here. And some things will seem right as rain for veterans of the original game. But then, some things will seem way off, and you'll get to pints in the game where the story goes left when in the original it went right. This is where the game turns less into a remake and goes full blown "What If...?". This is where the game feels more like that gray area between a remake, and a full on reboot. It's neither, and it's also both. If you can go in with the mindset that things are not going to be the same in key moments of the game, then you should be in for quite a wonderful journey. If you however want the same as the original, just stick to the original.

I won't spoil any of the story or story changes for those who have yet to play. I will however say for those new to Final Fantasy VII, you owe it to yourselves to also play the original.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/39140/

Aside from changes to the story, there are some major changes to how the game plays as well. It's like a mashup of the original with the newer combat found in Final Fantasy XV. That is to say the combat is mostly real time. And the type of attacks will vary based on the characters. Cloud uses his massive sword. Barret uses his gun arm. Tifa uses her martial arts. You get the idea. Coming back is the ATB system. The way it works in FFVIIR is that you get different abilities to choose from based on the ATB guage. The normal combat however is not locked to this. It's important to manage this as normal combat is fine for some enemies, but certain enemies will require special attacks to really do some damage. ATB can be filled with normal attacks and guards from enemy attacks. Also like in FFVII you can equip various types of materia to your weapons and gear. Materia gives you different abilities, such as magic, buffs, debuffs and more. Some of them even allow you to use summons. Also you can mix and match different types of materia for bonus status effects. This allows for some nice customization to your characters.

Midgar in the original FFVII was big. But it was not THAT big. It was a section of the game that acted as an entry point to a much larger world. It was definitely not a world that comprised of a massive epic journey. But it was a necessary entry point. It made us discover the reasons for what these characters were doing. What drove them. But at the same time, it was still a small section of a larger game. In the "remake", Midgar is expanded upon immensely. It's larger. Much more open. Much more full of life. And as depressing as the world may seem, being ruled by a planet killing corporation, it is still a sight to behold. Bustling towns, shanties, urban areas, industrial complexes... They all look fantastic. It's both the Midgar we knew, and the Midgar we didn't.

Aside from making Midgar much bigger, they also fleshed out the length of the game in both some good and not so good but necessary ways. For starters character development is much greater in this title than the original's Midgar sequence. Characters who were largely throwaways in the original (you know who) have been given new life and personalities. Also there is a lot more to do in Midgar now. And sadly some of it seems like excess padding. But its the same tropes you will find in most RPGs. I'm talking about the side quests. Lots of them to be found. But as stated, this is a necessary thing, as it leads to some valuable rewards.

Final Fantasy VII Remake is not the perfect Final Fantasy VII game. But neither is the original. Remake does some things better, but also some things worse. It's the same, but it's also different. It's an adaptation to something some of us hold dear to our hearts. So while it's different, I say buckle up and enjoy the ride.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the latest in the long running line of licensed LEGO games from Traveller's Tales. It was also one of the most heavily anticipated games in the entire TT LEGO series. And why is that? Well, for 2 reasons... 1, the trailer looked amazing. But also because it was one of the titles that spent the most time in development and promised the most new features and changes to the series. If you look back at the long line of games you'd see we got a new LEGO title pretty much annually. In some years we even got as many as 2 or 3 new LEGO titles. Basically Traveller's Tales was pumping these out like clockwork. And then after 2019, after the release of The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame, nothing. We got our first glimpse in 2020, but it would not be for another 2 years until the game finally released. A little over 3 years between games. Yes, the anticipation for this one was as strong as the force. But was it really worth the wait?

Skywalker Saga takes the formula of past LEGO games and makes a bold choice to switch things up, which results in a few steps forward, but also a few steps back. Where the game really shines would be in 3 key areas: Action, exploration and unlockables. But where it suffers mostly would be in the overall flow of the main game.

The game is comprised of 45 stages spanning all 9 movies with 5 stages per movie. The stages are tied together by segments that will have you go through some of the free roam areas, but in general they are rather short. Most of the playtime will be spent revisiting stages to unlock things you could not access before with new characters in free play mode. It's a bit of a downer when compared to previous LEGO games, and this is primarily due to the fact that levels are not padded with puzzles but rather focus more on action segments with minimal puzzles, which is a 180 turn compared to previous titles. While the game does do a good job capturing many key moments from the movies, there are also a lot of key scenes at the same time that fans will notice are missing, or heavily compressed into short segments in cutscenes. While it's not unusual for LEGO games to rush through story pieces taken from movies, it is still a major bummer since we waited this long.

Luckily the game makes up for some of this in other areas. For starers revisiting some stages is a blast. While some are going to be short no matter what, others do feel a tad bigger when revisiting to unlock things. Also the free roaming areas for the most part are massive with tons of side quests and lots of things to unlocks. You'll spend a lot of time hunting down these new things called kyber crystals, which are essentially the replacement for gold bricks. In past lego games gold bricks did not hold much merit. Some games allowed you to accept new quests if you got so many gold bricks, but that was pretty much it. Kyber crystals on the other hand can be used for currency to unlock new abilities or enhance character classes. And there are a ton of these to collect also, with over 1,000 of them scattered across the entire galaxy.

Combat is also another major improvement over past LEGO games. In previous titles combat was simple, and pretty much a straight up button masher. That's not to say this one is not also a button masher. It still can be. But there is also a bit of strategy to be found here as you can pull off combos now. Sometimes enemies will even block your attacks if you mash the same button over and over, forcing you to press other attack buttons. It's a small change, but its still a very welcome one that takes away from the tedium of pressing the same attack buttons over and over. Ranged combat has also been overhauled, as you can freely aim in any direction now like a traditional over the shoulder 3rd person shooter. Some enemies will even have reactions depending on which body part you hit. Like shooting at their legs may make them fall over, or shooting the helmets of stormstroopers will actually make them fly off revealing the lego heads underneath for a followup headshot resulting in an instant kill. You can even sneak up on enemies for stealth kills. Hell, there's even a counter button, though I did not see much opportunity to use it as the LEGO characters you play as already seem kind of overpowered as usual not giving you many opportunities to need to use the counters. But when you do get an opportunity the counter will result in a special move reminiscent of some of the flashy spectacular special moves you'd see in some of the past lego games. Some of them very good for crowd control too. Needless to say, the combat changes overall are a very welcome addition to Skywalker Saga.

Aerial and space combat is also a welcome change. In past games that featured this you usually had 2 types of aerial and space combat: On rails or tilted top down. Now there are still a few on rails segments here, but they have ditched the tilted top down space combat for full control of your spaceships, meaning you can get into some full 3D dogfight action for once! And it's a blast when you are in these stages. You'll be weaving in and out tie fighters with your X-Wing, Millennium Falcon or whatever ship you have access to while taking down the enemies or shooting at cannons, satellite dishes or other objects on massive space stations or dreadnoughts or other massive spacecraft. Sadly this type of combat is limited to certain stages, and the space sections you'll find while exploring the galaxy are just that... space. It would have been nice to see more action in the free roaming space sections.

Visually Skywalker Saga looks phenomenal. The name of the game is anything but realism, and instead your characters are all comprised the typical LEGO bricks. I mean we are talking a LEGO game. But the mixture of solid animation and little details make it a visual treat. You'll find little visual nods like when you walk around Tatoonie seeing bits of sand getting stuck to your minifigs, or walking through the snowy tunnels of Hoth and seeing your bricks getting snow stuck to them. Cutscenes also have some wonderful animation that look like a proper CG movie. Very spectacular and a great treat to behold. And the overall look of the worlds is also eye candy on the LEGO scale. Like many past LEGO games, it is a mix of bricks and more realistic looking set pieces also. Typically if it is made of bricks it can also be destroyed, so some areas can get completely wrecked leaving bricks scattered. Sadly the chaos does not last as bricks do disappear when destroyed after a short period. But all the same it is very satisfying breaking things down.

Mostly the game runs great for me playing at 3440x1440 with an RTX 2080 Super playing on max settings. The overall stability of the game is far from perfect however as there are still some bugs to be ironed out. I have had the game crash to desktop on me a total of 4 times in the 25+ hours I have played so far. 2 of the crashes while revisiting the General Grievous. There are also 2 areas which also are prone to massive frame drops even on high end machines as multiple people have reported (myself included). Those 2 areas being the Droid Factory Frenzy stage and the Ewok Village. Traveller's Tales is aware of some of these issues so now it is just a matter of how long before they are fixed. But when not encountering the 2 aforementioned sections the game runs extremely well for the most part.

Pros:
Amazing changes to combat
Huge open world hubs
Tons of collectables
Aerial and space combat is extremely fun

Cons:
Story skips or rushes through several key segments
Bugs still need to be ironed out
Open world space sections feel underwhelming

Overall, I think Skywalker Saga was indeed worth the wait. It might not be perfect, and some parts do feel rushed, but that aside I have had a blast so far playing the game.

So some are treating this like it is an entirely brand new re-release. The truth is these games have been re-released also previously on GOG a few years back. Same exact games. The ones on Steam are no different in terms of the way they look and play. The one major thing the Steam versions have going for them however which would make a good choice for people who are wondering which versions to get are that the Steam ones are more streamlined in overall presentation. The games on GOG come as separate entries in your library. Things such as manuals, guidebooks, codebooks and other content are all downloaded manually on GOG. Some items even have to be extracted after being downloaded as they download in zip files. And then it would be a little cumbersome to search for the necessary documents when you need them each time. What GOG does have going for it though is that they are 100% DRM free titles.

Now where Steam shines as mentioned before is how streamlined they are with these games. You get a unified launcher for the gold box games. any games you own in the series will show up in the launcher. so you could launch say Archives Collection One and play Pool of Radiance instead, or maybe Al Qadim, as long as you own those also. Furthermore, documents, code wheels, and everything are accessible right in the launcher. no need to hunt them down. It's recommended to play in a windowed mode to have access to both the game and the launcher for your necessary resources, but the launcher has you covered with a variety of windowed resolutions to make things look nice. GOG on the flipside would require you you to manually go into dosbox to fiddle with these settings as the basic launch only gives you either fullscreen or a tiny window if you alt tab out. It can still work the way you want, but for those not looking to waste time setting things up and get right into the games, the Steam version has got you covered in the best way.