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videogametim · 4 years

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Top 10 Games of 2019 if Your Name is Erin and You’re Writing This on 12/30/19 at 8:30pm (Eastern Time)

haha funni title

Starting with two honorable mentions like everyone else does.

Super Mario Maker 2

It’s great. It’s infinite Mario levels and now with co-op and even more tools. Honestly the only reason it doesn’t make my top 10 is because as good as this is, I don’t really enjoy Mario games all that much. For any other person it’s probably easily a top 10.

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince

Beautifully directed and stylized game. The gameplay was a little too simplistic and the puzzles never had me stuck for longer than like 2-3 minutes. But it’s the kind of game you like for a lot more than just the way it plays.

So real list time…

10. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I was really struggling with where to put this game. I knew that I liked a lot about it. Most importantly, I knew that I liked Fire Emblem. And when it comes to actually playing the Fire Emblem part of the game, I think it’s the best it’s ever been. Three Houses gives you an unprecedented amount of control over the growth of your characters. You can train them to do exactly what you like and with enough work, they’ll be masters at whatever you have them do. One of my favorite parts about discussing this game was seeing how everyone promoted their characters and who they used. It’s the kind of game where everyone swears the thing they found is the most broken or OP. This kind of character diversity in an SRPG is a huge deal. But the surroundings of this Fire Emblem game are what keeps it from being higher up on the list. This isn’t a full review of this game so I have to keep it short. But my complaints mostly boil down to the presentation and some extremely one note characters like Bernie (sorry girl you’re cute and all but I couldn’t keep listening to you keyboard smash every time someone tried to talk to you)

9. Astral Chain

Confession. I don’t actually know how this game ends yet. I’m actually about to go finish the last chapter after I write this. There’s some rough edges here. The way they ask you to platform could just fail to work sometimes for no real reason, the control scheme is extremely unconventional. But this is still one of the finest action games of the year in my opinion. The presentation is extreme hit or extreme miss. When you’re actually out in the city and seeing all of the neon lights and holograms, Astral Chain is such a feast for the eyes. But once you step into the Astral Plane, which is where a majority of the combat takes place, the environmental design becomes the most dreadfully boring I’ve ever seen. I can go on for a little longer about why the Astral Plane is such bad design but nobody wants that right now and I’m supposed to be telling you why this game is good. Astral Chain is one of the corniest games you’ll play this year between the anime opening, the weird jokes and the way the cutscenes are directed (especially the way flashbacks are depicted). But if that sounds like as good a time to you as it does to me, you can’t miss Astral Chain. It also gave us Marie, one of my favorite new characters of the year.

8. Resident Evil 2

I was never a huge Resident Evil fan (though I’m slowly becoming one lately). For the longest time, all I really liked was some of the earlier ones. RE1 and it’s remake being my favorite. I definitely wasn’t happy when I saw RE7 switched to a first person perspective. I was worried that would be the way the series would continue because it was so well received. Nothing against first person perspective in games, I just feel like Resident Evil is a very character driven series and it helps when I can see the character. One of the easiest ways to keep me on edge in horror is when I really don’t want to see something bad happen to the main character(s). I was invested in Leon and Claire and keeping them out of danger was what was making me feel so tense when things got hard and so relieved whenever I would get away safely. Mechanically, this feels like the final form of Resident Evil. You have enough control over your character that you’re not cursing tank controls but aiming is still difficult enough and ammo is sparse so you can’t just gun down everything in your way like some of the newer Resi games. This is peak survival horror. Can’t wait for 3 next year girls.

7. Bloodstained Ritual of the Night

Oh my GOD this game. The king of the genre himself, Koji Igarashi returns to make the hottest metroidvania since Symphony of the Night. This genre isn’t in as dire of a situation as it was when the Kickstarter for Bloodstained first went up. In fact these days if you had a giant dartboard of every PSN, eShop, or Steam game, you could probably hit a metroidvania with ease. But hitting one as good as Bloodstained is the bullseye. This game is the needle in the haystack. The castle in this game feels massive your first time through. Every location is varied and interesting. Except for the lame underwater part. The way you build your character is entirely unique to you. It’s another one of those games where everyone swears something else is broken. But if everyone can come to a different conclusion like that, doesn’t that mean the progression system was a success? Your end game Miriam will probably be quite different from mine. Your weapons, skills, spells, and familiars are all a mix and match of the ones you like best in the situations you find yourself in most. Don’t get me started on the soundtrack either. Michiru Yamane is a goddess of the industry.

6. Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield

Is this still a hot take or have we all settled down now? I played Shield personally but if you know the series you know the versions don’t differ much. I actually consider this my favorite game in the series (and I’ve been playing since Yellow). The dex was a big loss, I understand that. Especially if your favorites didn’t all make the cut. But this is the Pokémon I’ve always dreamed of. The wild area was an innovation I wanted to see in the series for a long time. There’s finally a co-op activity that I enjoyed playing with my friends. Me and one of my girls spent hours just doing raid battles and chatting with each other for a few weeks it felt like. It was one of the most fun Pokémon experiences I ever got to have aside from watching Toonami with my friends while playing gen 3 on our GBAs. For a series so friendly, there was never really anything to do before with your friend’s besides trade and battle. Having a new cooperative feature definitely lengthened the amount of time my friends were playing this one. The characters are my favorite cast in a Pokémon game. Your rival actually has a really nice arch that he learns from and it helps him develop into a better person and find his place own place in the world. The soundtrack (especially in the gym battles) is the most memorable work in the series in generations. But you’ve already made your mind up on this game, right? Most people have and that’s kind of a shame. But maybe in a few years, the people that turned their nose up to this game will realize just what they were missing out on. This was a very special Pokémon game. I can see myself coming back to this throughout the year to get whatever new raid events happen. Better go get your gmax Snorlax before it’s too late!

5. Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled

In 2017, Crash Bandicoot came back with the N Sane Trilogy which remade the first 3 games from the ground up. But the true believers knew there was more to be done. So the boys at Beenox cooked up a dish with that old flavor you’ve always loved with some new fix-ins that are staples now. It wasn’t enough to just get the entire original Crash Team Racing experience remade for just $40. You also got every single track from Crash Nitro Kart and free monthly updates that add plenty of new tracks and characters. People will complain to you about the microtransactions but I promise you those people don’t play the game. The coins you use to unlock new characters and skins are given out insanely quickly from online races especially if you play on any given weekend. And even then, everything that was in the original CTR is here for the price of admission. It’s all supplemental content. The skill ceiling is a lot higher than your average kart racer and it’s certainly got at least double the content being that it’s two games in one with even more stuff being added every month. I think it’s the clear winner whenever you’re thinking about playing a kart racer for the foreseeable future.

4. Code Vein

What a surprise this was. Code Vein taught me to enjoy a genre of games I was previously indifferent about. The Souls-like. This is likely another game you can already tell you dislike if you don’t like the art style. But if you do? You’re in for a treat. The most important way this game breaks the mold of souls-stuff is how often you’re allowed to change your build in the middle of the game. I mean hell if you’re fast enough you could change your entire build during a boss fight. The only thing you can’t do is purchase new skills which needs to be done from a mistle (the bonfire equivalent). The next trick Code Vein has up it’s sleeve is it’s story telling. Going into this game, I wasn’t sure how much I would care about it’s events and characters. I know this genre is often more lore driven rather than having an in your face plot so I assumed that’s the way Code Vein would go as well. But the plot is actually pretty insistent you pay attention to it. The characters are a lot more enjoyable and friendly than they look on the surface (which is pretty cute honestly you know?) and getting to learn about their past by walking through their memories was quite a treat. I know some people are allergic to this level of anime and edge. But if you happen to have both the anime gene and the Dark Souls gene AND the edge gene, you’ll love this one. It’s good enough that it has gotten me to get back into Sekiro after previously dropping it because I thought it was too hard for me.

3. Devil May Cry 5

The boys are back in town. And better than ever. Dante has the largest arsenal of weapons and moves he’s ever had access to. Nero is much more fleshed out than he was in DMC4 in terms of both gameplay and character. The newcomers are huge knockouts too. V’s gameplay style was unique and pulled off well and the way he tied into the overall narrative was a real treat for long time fans. Nico fits right in with the rest of the cast of kick ass women like Trish and Lady. She drives a van that looks normal on the outside but the inside looks impossibly huge. Big enough for people to stand up in, hang out in, even has a store inside with a counter, a jukebox. The inside of her van is like a pocket dimension. Capcom’s RE Engine is a miracle. This game did not have to make a choice between performance and visuals. It’s one of the best looking games of the year and it runs at a solid 60fps the entire time even on my base PS4. On a high end PC, it legit looks like a game from the next generation that we have some how brought into our current timeline because Dante didn’t want to miss the PS4 and Xbox One. Devil May Cry 5 brings the series to new heights and honestly, Capcom is on such an upswing now that I can’t wait to see their attempt at topping it. This is one of the games I’ve been popping back into the PlayStation the most all year.

2. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age -Definitive Edition-

When Dragon Quest XI was first announced, it was announced for PS4, 3DS, and the NX. We didn’t know at the time what the NX was, but I knew that I wanted to play it on that. When we eventually learned what the NX was, the Switch, I knew that’s how I wanted to play this game. So I waited and kept myself away from any spoilers when the PS4 and newly made PC versions both made their way to the states. (The 3DS version couldn’t make the flight apparently) That wait allowed me to have the best RPG experience I’ve had all year. I really do think that if you call yourself a fan of JRPGs, you owe it to yourself to play DQ11. This is what years of experience mastering the genre looks like. Beautifully animated cutscenes and characters, combat that is straightforward but has much room for experimentation, wonderful English voice acting, and a fantastic musical score from a piece of shit that I honestly cannot wait for to die. The Akira Toriyama art direction really pops here. Even on the less powerful Switch, you’d be hard pressed to find prettier games than this. They may have higher graphical fidelity, but they won’t have half as much charm and personality as Dragon Quest XI does in everything that it does. It took a lot for me to not pick this game as my #1. It may even be more deserving than my actual #1. But this is instant classic. This is a timeless gem. I would recommend this game to people more than any other game on this list. I feel like it’s simply the safest pick. If you like JRPGs, you will like this. It’s really that simple. Don’t let the legend of the luminary be lost to the cruel passage of time. This is a must play.

1. Kingdom Hearts III

It finally happened my friends. They have taken all of my own personal emotions and have pressed them onto a Blu Ray disc. To say that we’ve waited over a decade for this game is rather disingenuous. From 2005-2019, we’ve had no shortage of Kingdom Hearts to play. But this is the one we knew we all wanted. We wanted another console experience with Sora in the driver’s seat and Donald and Goofy right at his side. And boy oh boy does this game deliver on giving fans what they wanted. Some highly requested Pixar worlds like Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. both finally make their grand appearance and they’re just as you imagined them in your head when you were day dreaming in school about the new worlds you wanted to see in another Kingdom Hearts game. Square Enix marketing kinda dropped the ball by revealing every Disney world before release but I understand they needed to show off that fresh new Frozen world to get the new keyblade masters involved. Kingdom Hearts is a nearly impossible series to get into as an adult. And even if you did, you might still only like it ironically. But if you were there from the beginning and you’ve always loved Disney and you’ve always loved Square Enix, how could you not love all there is here? This gameplay is the evolution fans have been waiting to see since KH2. Each game in between that and KH3 have had a rather different approach to the combat. But there’s no cards here, no skills to meld. You have an actual MP bar again. It’s the Kingdom Hearts you remembered playing sitting on the floor on a cushion too close to your little CRT television that probably had a built in VCR while you ate a tube of 3D Doritos and drank a bottle of Fruitopia. Tetsuya Nomura has said in the little booklet that game with Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix that the original game still plays like a modern game in many ways. The Kingdom Hearts series has always been ahead of the curve when it came to action RPGs and no games have ever really successfully emulated it’s gameplay or even tried to as far as I know. We’ve had many action RPGs over the years but baby let me to tell you they just don’t them like this. The score is some of Yoko Shimomura’s best work. As I write this I’m listening to the new version of Dearly Beloved and holding myself back from tears. This game is either one of the biggest emotional payoffs of your life or just an awkward anime Disney game with good gameplay. But boy am I happy it’s the former for me. And with the DLC coming next month, I’m really looking forward to putting this game back in my PS4

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videogametim · 4 years

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My Top 10 Games of 2019

It was pretty hard to narrow down the list this year. 2019 was a lot stronger for video games than 2018 and I feel a LOT more confidant about my picks and GOTY choice. In addition, there were also a lot of indie games not mentioned here that I think I will highlight in another post a bit later. For now, here’s the Top 10.

10. Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo)

Sayonara Wild Hearts is something special. Although clocking in rather short at just under an hour long, I would best describe the game as an Album Video Game. Each of the game’s 23 or so levels has its own song. The actual gameplay consists of mostly on-rails segments where you have basic movement and avoid obstacles and collect pickups to boost your score, but every level has a unique take on that concept with major climax levels being full tracks with vocals. It’s incredibly stylistic and tells a heartwarming story about dealing with heartbreak. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys musical games.

9. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Intelligent Systems)

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the first game in the series that managed to grab me. It’s a very competent tactical RPG with one of my favourite casts of characters this year (especially the Black Eagles house). I was consistently impressed the most with just the sheer amount of content and detail that went into it. An unnecessarily large amount of the dialogue is voiced, the second half of each of the three selectable house’s routes are totally unique, and each route takes around 60 hours to complete. I really never thought a Fire Emblem game would be my new most played game on the Switch by a mile but here we are.

8. AI: The Somnium Files (Spike Chunsoft)

Kotaro Uchikoshi’s (creator of the Zero Escape trilogy) latest work might be his finest. AI: The Somnium Files is the game on the list this year with the most heart put into it. Consistently funny and over-the-top, a wonderful cast, and a really well executed sci-fi murder mystery. It makes me hope that Uchikoshi continues to make the kinds of games he wants to make, because you can definitely tell he had the most fun making this one.

7. Resident Evil 2 (Capcom)

Resident Evil 2 is the new gold standard for game remakes. I could go on and on praising it for how good it feels to play, the sound design, and the painstaking detail of recreating the original game from the ground up to be a third-person shooter. Quality of Life changes like the map marking items and telling you when a room is cleared and telling you when it’s okay to throw away key items are such fantastic additions. It gives me really high hopes for the RE3 Remake next year. Capcom’s hotstreak continues.

6. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (From Software)

Sekiro rightfully earns its spot as my second favourite FromSoft game. The Souls formula is still there, but the gameplay is fairly different now. Taking Bloodborne’s aggressiveness encouragement another step forward, Sekiro rewards not giving the enemies a chance to breathe more than ever. Boss battles are a tug-of-war of trying to break each other’s posture and perfect blocking to mitigate it. The dodge button pushes you forward by default and you often hope to have your attack blocked more than a it be a direct hit. Some of my favourite FromSoft bosses reside in this game with the final boss perhaps being my favourite overall. Level design is also at its best with the game finally giving you a greater range of movement and verticality with jumping and grappling. There’s even decent stealth mechanics. Sekiro was a really pleasant surprise and I hope they continue The Wolf’s story.

5. Judgement (Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio)

Judgement is a Yakuza game in all but name, and RGG Studio’s first one set in Kamurocho without Kiryu as the main character. After giving up being an attorney, Takayuki Yagami becomes a freelance detective and investigates a series of murders in the city with the help of his former law office and ex-Tojo clan friend Masaharu Kaito. Substories are framed as side cases that Yagami can take on to earn some extra money, and new mini-games like drone racing and the Paradise VR board game are incredible additions. Anyone who is a fan of the Yakuza series should really check this out, and newcomers can jump right in without prior knowledge.

4. Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)

Disco Elysium has some of the best writing I have ever seen in a video game. As an amnesiac detective, you explore the rundown post-wartime district of Martinnaise trying to find who was behind the lynching of a mercenary before the situation gets out of control. What sets Disco Elysium apart from other RPGs in terms of gameplay is its character builds. As there is no combat, the 24 skills that you can put points into when you level up are all social skills. The higher you have various skills leveled, the more you will hear advice from them during conversation trees. A high Authority level will constantly remind you to tell people you are The Law, where a high level in Inland Empire will let you talk to inanimate objects to gain new perspectives. I also feel I have to give a nod to your partner throughout the game, Kim Kitsuragi. I’d rather not give anything away but they could not have written a better character to support you throughout your journey. I’ll likely be thinking about this game for a very long time.

3. Control (Remedy Entertainment)

I think Control flew under a lot of people’s radars until the publicity from the overwhelming number of Game Awards nominations. Control is a game for people who like SCP, psychokinesis powers, cool architecture, and a bit of Alan Wake. It wears its inspirations very blatantly on its sleeve and wraps a very cool story and even better side quests around them. It’s very stylish and has phenomenal lighting. Perhaps this is my Remedy bias but I really really adored this game and featured the coolest moment of the year for me. Please check it out if you get the opportunity.

2. Kingdom Hearts III (Square Enix)

Kingdom Hearts III has been a long time coming and what I think it nails best are the size and scale of the worlds. Olympus is the best its ever been with how much of the area outside the Colosseum you get to explore. The Caribbean is more expansive with boat combat that’s better than it has any right to be. Monstropolis has a great original story with some incredible tie-ins to the Kingdom Hearts plot. There’s a ton of incredible fanservice moments too for everyone waiting to see their favourite characters again. I still think a lot of it is really hype albeit cheesy, and it finally puts to rest an arc that has been going since the very first game. Kingdom Hearts isn’t over, but KHIII wraps a lot of things up in as satisfying of a way as they could for a story so expansive and often times convoluted. It’s very rare when a game that has been anticipated for so long not only doesn’t fumble it, but delivers on what I had hoped for, so I’m really glad it got to finally release this year.

1. Devil May Cry 5 (Capcom)

Speaking of games that I’ve been waiting a very long time for, DMC IS BACK! Every moment of DMC5 is a treat. Dante and Nero are at their most fun to play in this game, and V is a very cool addition both story-wise and gameplay-wise.This is the game from this year that I’ve kept going back to the most whether it’s for getting good at harder difficulties, or playing through bloody palace until floor 70 and give up ,or practicing with different weapons. It makes me happy to know that Platinum haven’t just been relegated to being the character action studio and that Hideaki Itsuno’s still got it. There’s no question that this is my Game of the Year and anyone who loves action games but hasn’t ever jumped into this series really needs to address that because DMC5 alone is worth it.

That’s all for my GOTY 2019 Top 10. If you’ve read this far, thanks for doing so. I really enjoy writing these and there’s a lot to look forward to in video games next March year, so please join me again next time when we can do this all over again!

#goty 2019 #sayonara wild hearts #fe3h #ai the somnium files #resident evil 2 #sekiro #judgement #disco elysium #control #kh3 #dmc5

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videogametim · 4 years

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Death Stranding Review

I’ve tried to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible. I make a brief mention to how the game is paced in the paragraph about story, as well as a couple of character names. Feel free to skip those paragraphs if you are concerned.

Hideo Kojima took the blank cheque that Sony gave him and used it to make the biggest budget arthouse indie game there ever was loaded with his favourite actors, directors, and other celebrities. The result was a game that on paper, should be AAA poison. Death Stranding is slow, meandering, sometimes frustrating, action is downplayed, and the plot is sometimes difficult to follow. Yet considering all that, it’s still earned a spot on my Top 10 list this year.

The primary gameplay of Death Stranding consists of package delivery. The main character Sam (Norman Reedus) is a porter who journeys across a post apocalyptic America, connecting outposts and depots to the network and delivering packages along the way. Upon your first journey to each outpost, the challenge is how you’re going to get there with the tools at your disposal. You’ll typically gear up with ladders, ropes, and a pair of boots to start with and you’ve got to do your best not to stumble or fall even with the mountain of cargo on your back that affects your balance. As you progress further through the game, you unlock more and more equipment that makes your job that little bit easier. All these unlocks are well-paced throughout the story. I really recommend that anyone who is having a tough time with the early game to just stick with it until Chapter 3. Once you’re in that chapter the game really opens up and you get some much-needed equipment almost immediately that make your life a whole lot easier.

Once you’ve linked an outpost up to the network, you’ll be able to see other player’s structures and equipment in the surrounding area. You can see how lots of other people tried to solve the same problems you did, and it makes subsequent trips that much easier. Maybe someone put a ladder across a gap you didn’t think to do. Maybe someone built a bridge over a river that saves you some time and stamina trying to cross it. This is absolutely one of my favourite parts of the game and something I’ve never really seen on this scale before. There was one moment in particular during Chapter 3 where I was about to walk into an enemy encampment when on the corner of my screen I noticed someone had left a sign warning me that there were enemies ahead, and behind me was another sign from a different player pointing to a side path up a cliff that let me avoid the area entirely.

Another core part of the experience is the Like system. Say you found someone’s structure or sign helpful, you can literally mash that like button and send that player a whole bunch of likes, which upgrades one of their five Porter stats. You’re constantly getting notifications about players who liked something you did or built which really helps it feel like an interconnected experience.

Combat does exist in the game and it’s serviceable, but it takes quite some time for it to pick up and be a little more engaging because many of the combat equipment is locked to later chapters. Much of it is fun to use though. Stealth exists too, but in all my time playing I didn’t have any success in (or really, need to) sneaking up on the regular human enemies.

The stealth instead comes up in the BT areas in which you must maneuver your way through rainy areas of ghosts that you can only see if you’re either very close to them or you aren’t moving at all. The BT stealth segments I found to be well done on their own. They’re stressful because you’re typically trying to get through them with all the gear on your back, and since the rain accelerates time of anything it touches, you’re on an invisible timer to get through it before all your gear is ruined. If one of the ghosts catches you, it will attempt to drag you off into a mini-boss encounter. These mini-boss fights are generally easy if you’re well equipped, but you can also attempt to escape the zone too. Defeating the BT will stop the rain in that area while you’re there and reward you with an otherwise uncommon resource as well. My problem with these encounters is that they are too frequent. After defeating a BT, the encounter respawns almost immediately after you leave the vicinity and it’s often difficult to run right through them which gets annoying even in familiar areas.

For me, the weakest part of the game is unfortunately the story. It’s rarely engaging, and I think the major reason for this is Kojima’s tendency to over-explain himself. This has always been the case and was especially true of the Metal Gear series, but I think the key difference here in Death Stranding is that Kojima explained things he shouldn’t have. There’s so much incredible world building and Lovecraftian designs/ideas in the game and a lot of that is diminished when you get beat over the head with every conceivable explanation and detail of what it all means. There are plenty of great moments and set pieces too, but a ton of that is backloaded into the final stretch of the game. A certain Square Enix game earlier this year was paced similarly, and this is that times a million, so keep that in mind if it does or doesn’t bother you.

The other side of the writing is the characters, whose writing quality is bizarrely all over the place. A few of the characters are wonderfully written and a joy whenever they are on screen (Heartman was my personal favourite), a few of the characters are criminally underdeveloped (see Deadman), and a few of the characters are downright nonsensical or straight-up terrible. It sometimes felt a lot like all the characters and their arcs were written by different people.

Overall though, I’m very happy this game exists. I hope Kojima continues to get the funding he needs because for better or for worse, he is doing what he wants to do. A game like Death Stranding achieving the success that it has is also hopefully a symbol for certain publishers and creators that it’s okay to take a chance on things that are further outside the realm of convention. I’m going to continue playing it myself because I still haven’t tired of making deliveries, and I’ll probably be listening to Low Roar while I do it.

#death stranding #review #spoiler-free

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videogametim · 4 years

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The Outer Worlds Review

The Outer Worlds is a game that starts with the player character being cryogenically frozen aboard a large-scale colony ship bound for the Halcyon solar system. The journey was supposed to take 10 years, but something malfunctioned and the player is woken up after 70 years by scientist Phineas Welles. From here you begin a quest visiting the various megacorporation run planets and moons in the system in hopes of finding a way to revive all your fellow colonists who are still frozen.

The Outer Worlds is a Fallout game in all but name with a handful of refreshing new spins on it. You have your standard set of skills that you level up, everything from one-handed melee weapons to lockpicking to persuasion to science. In TOW, skills are grouped together in categories. For example, Persuade/Lie/Intimidate are all together under Dialog and Sneak/Hack/Lockpick are together under Stealth. You level the whole category up until the first skill in the group reaches level 50. After that, you must level those skills individually. This is a fantastic implementation, especially for first playthroughs as it lets you experiment in the early game with different skills until you decide what’s going to be most important for your character. Additionally, each skill has a list of milestones for every 20 levels in that skill that enhance it in some way. For example, the level 20 milestone for lockpicking lets you unlock doors that would normally require one lockpick for free.

There’s also a perk system much like Fallout which the player may take every 2 levels. Unfortunately, save for a handful they are all basic minor stat increases. Throughout the game the player will also get the opportunity to take various flaws, which are permanent stat decreases or temporary debuffs (e.g. Robophobia will give you a decrease to some stats whenever you are in close proximity to mechanicals) in exchange for a free perk unlock. However, since many of the perks are so inconsequential these rarely feel worth taking.

There’s even a replacement for V.A.T.S. called Tactical Time Dilation (TTD). A side effect of your extended cryostasis, the player perceives time differently and can effectively move in dramatically slowed-down time. Your TTD bar drains faster when moving or attacking, but while active you can see weak points and other stats (like health) of the target you’re looking at. This makes for a lot more of a speedy and natural combat flow than V.A.T.S. It’s also very handy for sneaking through areas quickly.

TOW’s writing unfortunately starts off at it’s strongest. The starting town of Edgewater has the best written side quests and story arc in the game. As you visit later destinations you feel the stories going on in each planet are less and less developed until the finale when it somewhat picks back up again. There are a few different ways to complete the game however so the replayability is there. You also have a set of 6 companions you can recruit, almost all of them within the first couple of areas. They’re all likeable enough, but only half of them get a strong questline with character development and the others get shafted, with one companion lacking any quests at all beyond their initial recruitment.

In general, there’s two more glaring issues I have with the game. The first is that it’s too easy. I was worried playing a melee build that I was going to have to stock up on resources since I’d be in more immediate danger, but after the first couple areas I felt unkillable and I rarely had to repair my equipment. The other issue I have is with the absolute abundance of supplies. The first part of this is that stealing items is risk-free. NPCs aren’t very attentive, and even if you do happen to get caught all one has to do is pass a relatively easy speech check or bribe their way out of the situation to avoid conflict. Even if you decide not to steal, there are recovery items everywhere. There’s a difficulty mode called Supernova with a bunch of different modifiers including needing to eat at regular intervals, but there’s no way this could ever be an issue. The loot, number of vendors, and items laying around really needed to be toned down to feel like exploring and collecting items felt a little more meaningful.

Overall, I think The Outer Worlds is a solid game, but it really needed a bit more attention to the game’s difficulty balance and item availability. I think a lot of the issues this game has can easily be ironed out in a sequel, and if Obsidian can do that right then they have some real competition for Bethesda on their hands.

#the outer worlds #review #spoiler-free

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