Recent reviews by Reborn

The game's battle system has two unique designs. The first one is every unit has armor and strength. While armor determines defense, strength is both damage capability and health. This is a good design as it provides tactical decision depth. The player needs to decide whether to cut down enemies' armor or control their strength in every move. Some characters are better at cutting armors, others are better at dealing damages.

The second unique design is the action sequence. The player's team and enemy's team always take turns to act, and within each team everyone take turns to act. This design sounds okay at first, but it leads to bizarre conclusions. The players will quickly find out two patterns after a few battles: 1. It is normally better to weaken a enemy to low strength and don't kill it; 2. It might be easier to handle more enemies than less enemies. These patterns are very counter intuitive and prolong the battles unnecessarily.

If I remembered correctly, there's another problem before the start of a battle. When the player is deciding the starting location of characters, the enemies' location can be seen but the you will not know their action sequence. So you will have to guess their action sequence and place your team's starting locations accordingly. The difference is between a perfect battle and suffering casualties. This could be very frustrating in higher difficulty runs, as this is an element that is out of player's control.

If you choose to go for more battles, for achievement or just your style, the battles at the late games would be boring and painful as they are very long and repetitive.

In those random events encountered on the road, some options may look fine but in the end it could lead to death or departure of important characters. Those consequences from dialogue options are very unpredictable.

There isn’t any special or creative mechanics worth to be mentioned. Battle difficulty is low. Story line is very plain and predictable. The characters has nothing to be remembered either.

There are critical bugs in the saving function, especially the one in the middle of a battle. I encountered two corrupted save file incidents in one run and have to replay those.

In today’s environment, most games keep lowering down difficulty to attract new players. Dark Souls series walks a different path. In this path, there are full of challenges and frustrations, but the players are promised with great glory and satisfaction at the destination. Beating difficult enemies and maliciously designed environments, the players grows more than the characters they controls.

Bosses fights in the game are actually more difficult than dark souls 1 and 2. If a boss is too difficult, don’t hesitate to call the sun bros. Try to minimise the souls on the character before a new boss fight to reduce frustration.

Any kind of play style can work in this game as this game has more action element than RPG. I prefer a no spell no shield no ranged weapon kind of play style and I have completed all dark souls series games with only a claymore and armor.

Achievements in this game requires at least three runs to be fully completed. The difficult part is not the two additional runs as by the time the player would be very experienced and familiar with the battles and map. The real pain is the farming of covenant items, especially the ears.

While working with a bunch of tenants in this dystopian world, the player still need to handle a demanding wife, manage a rebellious son and protect an innocent daughter.

This game is difficult, which aligns well with its depressing story. Not all good people could have good endings. Someone has to be sacrificed, even with perfect information.

In the default difficulty, many players could find it really hard to meet every family member’s demand in the limited time. The key here is to put down your conscience. Framing all tenants by planting illegal items at their home and then blackmail them is an effective way to earn enough money.

In the end, by playing the game you will know subconsciously what thing you are holding dearest. Family, moral values or just survival? This is a meaningful game, but definitely not a comfortable one.

Trainee modes achievements can be earned in default difficulty as well. DLC is required for full achievements.

The game has a lot of replay value with many interesting cards, relics, potions. Different characters have different cards and different deck building strategies. This is the most fun part of the game to explore viable strategies.

Achievements in this game are difficult. The most difficult one is the ascension 20 achievement in my opinion. High ascensions (15+) are quite challenging and even experienced players cannot guarantee successful run every time.

In my earlier hours of the game, I tended to play a lean deck. After failed badly for many times in high ascensions, I revisited my deck building strategy and realized that a thick deck with many powerful cards may work even better. In the end, I managed to clear ascension 20 using Ironclad with a thick deck.

Darkest dungeon is a very difficult and hard core strategy game.

The first layer of difficulty comes from the saving mechanism. While the save and load system is a standard function in most games, darkest dungeon auto saves every move and doesn’t allow re-load except for continuing the game. Due to this, every decision you made cannot be undone and thus carry a risk. This forces you to treat every decision seriously.

Next is the permanent death of characters. In the dungeons, whenever you lose a character, you lose him forever, there’s no way to get him back except for rare random events. While losing a high level character doesn’t mean end of the game, it is still a heavy blow that is difficult to swallow. If this happens at a boss fight, the immediate problem is that you will need to decide whether continue to fight with the remaining team or retreat. Those are often difficult decisions.

On top of that, luck plays a big element in battles. Missing several attacks, or being critically hit a few times could easily mean death of a character. Using items carelessly could summon a powerful monster and lead to a squad wipe. This would be really frustrating as a few unlucky or careless incidents could mean hours of effort being wasted.

Stygian difficulty is for experienced players only as there is not much room for experimenting new tactics. It’s also important to know what item should be used for which event to avoid negative effects. For characters with high stress and negative perks, dismissal is always an option to be considered as it is not included in death count.

DLCs are fine but not as good as the main game. Crimson Court has some notoriously long dungeons although it allows you to quit half way and continue later. Color of Madness is a persistent battle which only certain classes shines. Butcher’s circle is for PvP, which unfortunately does not fit the game’s audience.

Achievements in this game are difficult and DLCs are needed for full achievements. There are some death or win battle with restriction achievements need to be contrived. There is one achievement in butcher’s circle need to play with a friend. The other achievements are all obtainable on your own.

Baldur's gate is my all time favourite game series. It uses a Real Time with Pause system which no longer popular nowadays. The rules in the game are based on D&D 2nd edition.

While this game series is well known as classic games, the entry level of this game to the new players are actually very high. D&D 2nd edition carries a lot of concepts that is very different compared to the latest generation of video games and some of the concepts are difficult to digest even for players familiar with latest edition of D&D rules. Examples are concepts like THAC0, Dual Class. These concepts are abolished since D&D 3rd edition.

Spellcasting related concepts add another layer of difficulty to understand the game mechanics. Any one who read the spell descriptions would feel lost easily. Casting time is a numerical number; Spell effect lasting in rounds, turns, and seconds, which the length of a round or a turn is never explained in game; Saving throw mechanism is not explained as well. So basically the developer expected the players to be very familiar with the whole D&D 2nd edition rule books. This in my opinion is the biggest hurdle new players need to cross.

Next challenge is the RTwP system. This is a system more difficult to understand than turn-based systems, but it carries its own advantages. While turn-based combats requires the players to control every character for every action, in the RTwP system the players can just buff the whole team with one or two spells then sit down and watch the team to eliminate all the enemies. So RTwP is a system that is friendly to experienced players, but unfriendly to new players, especially compared to turn-based system.

The game’s main story line is excellent. Side quests are plenty and interesting. Teammates are fun and charismatic. Interactions between teammates (includes you) are amazing. Romance options are not bad. Plenty of challenging fights to enjoy. The whole game experience is very satisfying.

Although this game's main story line does not change, it still has a lot of replay value. The player can test out difference character builds, try different team components, make different choices, use different spells, etc.

If you are wondering how I played for so many hours, I have been replaying the game with additional restrictions. I set two additional criteria for my runs: 1) solo 2) no-reload. No-reload carries a Role Play factor and a much higher level of stress. It presents a challenge that if you are really in Faerun, what will you do? While in a normal run you can handle all kinds of situations easily, in a solo no-reload run, you have to think very carefully about how to handle situations that normally is not handled by your class.

For example, when playing a non-thief class, how to handle a trap with a domination spell? A failed saving throw for the spell in a solo run means death instantly, and for a solo no-reload run means the end of the run. Try the luck, or buff up saving throw, or summon minions to be the sacrificial lamb, or use a protection scroll, or drink a mind protection potion, or use a charge of a necklace, or simply don’t take the risk and walk away. There are plenty choices and only in a solo no-reload run, you will seriously weight all the available options and decide carefully.

I have successfully complete the solo no-load runs on insane with berserkers, bards, sorcerors, fighters, archers, paladins, and several multiclass characters. These runs give the most satisfying gaming experience so far, and I will recommend the experienced players to try. In these runs, you will re-learn your spells, portions, scrolls, weapons, items. You will have a new understanding about different classes and play styles.

The DLC siege of dragonspear is newly created by Beamdog team. The quality of the DLC is decent and worth to play through at least once.

Achievements in this game are very challenging. The biggest challenge is the Legacy of Bhaal difficulty. This is only recommend for very experienced players. Especially in the earlier stages, the game difficult is at least 5 times higher than insane difficulty. New players please do not start on this difficulty, it will ruin your game experiences no matter how good you are with other PC games.

DLC related achievements tests more on patience than skills. The choices made in earlier chapters of the DLC will have impact on the final chapters which will affect your achievements. Some of the DLC achievements are very easy to miss without a walk through.

The main story of the game is amazing, complex and a bit dark. There are many characters and factions in the game which takes a while to figure out their complex relationship.

The choices in the game are difficult to make. Geralt is often stuck between two evil parties, and have to choose the less evil one to help. The problem is to decide which party is less evil could be very subjective and based on limited information. Another problem is helping an evil party to beat a more evil one doesn’t necessarily feel good.

The combat systems is very different from other action or ARPG games. The player is mainly giving instruction to Geralt on a style of sword move and Geralt will perform the move after he finish his current action. The correct timing could be counter intuitive and thus players may feel out of sync.

What really shines in Witcher 3 is the choices and consequences throughout the game, especially some of the side quests. Geralt is often placed in an ethical dilemmas position and the player has to make difficult choices. Then when the consequences come out, the player may often question oneself whether the other option would be a better one. It often turns out that the other choice is still a bad one and the player needs to decide which one is more acceptable. This whole process significantly improves the role play experience.

The combat system of the game is average. In most of the battles, Geralt just need to dodge then attack, without the need to observe enemy’s attack pattern. Even in the highest difficulty, the battle is still not challenging as long as you don’t fight those with significant higher levels.

There are many NPCs in the game and a lot of them have met Geralt in the past. This is why I will recommend new players to play Witcher 1 and 2 first for a better experience in Witcher 3. For experienced players, If you have played Witcher 3 and like it for its story, there’s a good chance that you will like Witcher 1 and 2 as well.

The two DLCs further extended Geralt’s journey and have two great stories. The main story line in the DLCs are actually much better than the main game, and thus very recommended.

Gwent, the in-game card game is sufficiently good to be an independent game. There are many people who enjoy this card game more than the main game. The only issue with the card game is the strange feeling you get when someone rushing to save wife and daughter would gladly accept your gwent challenge.

Achievements are not difficult, but tedious. Achievements like knock X enemies off the cliff and kill X enemies with crossbows are not difficult if go for it intentionally. The only missable achievements are probably the difficulty related and gwent collection achievements.