The Elder Thoughts

Finished

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

By far, my game of the year. Such an incredible game, with so many mechanics, at first a bit too similar to Tears of the Kingdom, but soon you notice all the new and improved mechanics, and details, and new maps, and the myriad of weapon combinations, and vehicle building... It's huge, really huge.

Also, is a game you enjoy more without spoilers, simply arriving from having played Zelda BOTW [1] and continuing the story. You'll naturally learn all the new things along the way. After all, this is Nintendo, and they are the masters of guiding players and smoothing the learning curves (while keeping a high peak!).

I picked the official game guide just to have a big checklist of all the things I want to do. Because the numbers are staggering: 3 maps, dozens of main quests, combined hundreds of side-quests + side-adventures + shrine-quests + similar, 152 shrines, 1000 koroks (collectible the golden poo-like objects)... I finished the game at around 90 gameplay hours, with ~90 shrines done. At the time of writing this post, I'm at 112 shrines and +110 hours, and lots of things to do and secondary quests to finish. It is immense.

Diablo IV

Sadly, my disappointment of the year. I was expecting more Diablo III, maybe with a fair amount of repetition, but also quasi-endless replayability. Instead, what we got was a game that sits in between an MMORPG and Diablo III, kind of picking the worst of both. The lack of random dungeons or enemies (each map zone and dungeon has fixed enemy types), combined with a significant amount of required grinding and a semi-broken difficulty level system [2], makes the game boring once you pass the story and reach around level 60 or so.

I said that I could probably play this title for years. Well, after just two months, I instead got too tired, and felt that the Seasonal system is really badly implemented (lots of grinding with almost no new mechanics, and really bad "free" rewards). And I've noticed that either you endlessly play nightmare dungeons (remember, no randomness, so always the same bosses and enemies and maps) or you just stop playing. So I chose to do the later until an expansion or significant patch comes out.

Ongoing

Starfield

I had high hopes for this one, but I was reluctant to pre-order it without having seen the final result. I'm happy for not having picked any fancy edition, but I am playing it, and I feel... kind of sad.

It feels like a good game, but nowhere what the hype sold us about an amazing space adventure. Starfield feels more like "Fallout 4 in space". Same mechanics, some additions (like space-combat), different setting... but still clearly an improved version of the same engine, and at times too familiar to Fallout or Elder Scrolls players. Also, some of the new systems or changes to existing ones feel quite patchy:

• Ammo does not weight, but most other things do, and containers have "limited weight space", so you'll just drop stuff around your ship/house
• Quite a few skills look exactly like a sci-fi Fallout 4/Skyrim, and some are mostly just locks behind crafting different stuff. Plus topics like lock-picing is even more tiring this time (puzzles to solve each time? really?)
• NPCs are cool at first, but the eyes are too bright, sometimes the face gestures look weird, and crowd-NPCs are way simpler than the ones you're expected to interact with. Plus some dialogs trigger incorrectly, or repeatedly, breaking the moment
• You'll miss lots of tutorials on how to do things: It took me 10 minutes to find the "storage" in my ship (hint: near the driver seat, and there are actually two of them, one in front of the other); I can equip boost packs, but can't boost until I unlock the boost perk... and is just double jumping; Advanced lock-picking perks are confusing (and one feels useless); I had to search online to learn that I cannot be alone, and will always have a companion, which at the beginning means no sneaking/stealth because you go questing with a big noisy and chatty robot at your side
• The graphics look great at times, and just a beefed up Fallout 4 other times. I feel we were shown videos and demos very carefully selected to showcase the cool parts, while hiding that the game feels so similar to previous Bethesda titles. Plus requires a beefy graphics card
• Too many loading screens, and all the exploration and space flight part feels like a poor copy of No Man's Sky. I expected smoothly going from the planet surface to space, then flying to my desired planet. Instead, you get to hold a key, watch a cinematic, open terribly-designed menus to pick a destination, hold another key and watch another cinematic. Did somebody really thought this is a cool and immersive experience, that you are supposed to hundreds of times? To me, it feels more like the game engine couldn't do better, so they just pushed in the new space sub-system, glued together with loading screens, and decided to force you to use menus and fast travel
• I'm already using more than half a dozen mods just to fix or improve things: color exposure, flashlight radius, NPC eyes, a better UI for the inventory (terrible by default on PC)... To me, this is a sign that things were not fully refined and playtested, just hurried away to focus on other more pressing topics

In any case, I might try to at least finish the main quest storyline, but this is a game that needs months of patching and community mods to aspire of becoming "great".

Dragon Age: Origins

At first while waiting for Starfield, and now mostly because of it, I decided to begin with the Dragon Age trilogy. I had played a few hours before, but long ago, so I restarted. At times I remember too well what's going to happen, but I hope to reach the point where I left it (which I don't even remember exactly!).

Anyway, it's a nice Bioware-syle game, my beloved Star Wars: KOTOR system with a fantasy setting. Graphically begins to feel very outdated, but the writing/dialog is soo good; It is so fun to listen the conversations between the party members (often they don't think alike, and just tag along because of you), entertaining to solve some quests in different ways (this is a game where persuasion/intimidation opens new choices), and the story so far is a bit typical and kind of predictable, but good enough to make you push forward, and a good excuse to allow you to solve situations in different ways (including malevolent and violent ones).

[1] Although I recommend not playing both just one after the other. Take your time, because TOTK requires a lot time.

[2] At least with some classes, you'll transition from being under-powered to over-powered in the current tier quickly, but then need to rely on Nightmare Dungeons to level up decently and improve gear, until you can properly play in the next tier. I soloed the Tier 4 unlock dungeon at level 66, but Tier 4 enemies are level 75+, so until I reached level 70 couldn't even fight normal enemies.

Posted on 2023-09-09

Again no painting nor boardgaming.

I planned to buy Games Workshop's Lion El'Jonson primarch miniature, but their greed made it impossible, by only offering a limited edition (with some extra minis) that went away as soon as it went online. So I'll wait until the normal edition comes out, whenever that happens (GW an amazing company but at times totally careless about their customers).

Let's go on with the video gaming updates:

Finished

Hand of Fate

To be honest, I finished this title a while ago, but decided to play it a bit more before starting with the second part (whith I put on hold, for various reasons).

It is a small gem: A roguelite that is partly a "choose your adventure" game, partly a card game, with a big amount of luck/randomness, and bits of arcade when you fight enemies and bosses. The premise is that you are a warrior that will play a very dangerous game with a "dungeon master", having all sorts of adventures, choices to make, and dying (a lot), all meanwhile you unlock better cards to potentially use in your next attempt.

It can get a bit repetitive at the end, when you've unlocked most cards and basically depend on luck and some bits of strategy to reach the last levels not only alive but well equipped, but the storytelling, the voice acting, and the atmosphere is awesome.

Warhammer: Chaosbane

Meanwhile I waited for Diablo IV, I picked up some similar action RPGs with isometric view, and Chaosbane was the first one I went with. While not terrible, you will soon notice the medium-budget aura. Mechanics are not too varied (a few feel half-done/unfinished), maps are very repetitive, and in general there's not much incentive to play it once you finish the campaign once, because you will face almost the same content, with no randomness.

Still, if picked in some sale is fun for a few hours.

Wolcen

Another action-RPG, this one with more budget than Chaosbane (but still not a Triple-A title). Wolcen is... a bit disappointing. It begins nicely, but has too many ups and downs: in the story, in the gameplay, in the graphics (why some characters are so taller that you feel puny?)... It is not bad per-se, and I mostly enjoyed going through the campaign. But instead of keeping and keeping playing, even with some curious end-game rogue-lite mechanics, I "shelved it" as soon as I finished, wanting to move on to another game.

Again, good if picked in a sale.

Diablo IV

Diablo is back. When I write a bit below about the only title I have in progress, I can only say that I was happy that Zelda TOTK was released a few weeks earlier than Diablo 4; That way, I could enjoy both, as now Diablo is eating most of my free time.

While to me feels way better than Diablo 2, and in some mechanics also than Diablo 3, D3 is still a superior and more polished title. D4 feels... rushed out. The campaign is a bit too long, with some fragments a bit boring (while others are great), the game has been transitioned to a kind of lite-MMORPG, with tons of very similar side quests and an open-world map at times repetitive...

But my biggest issue is the voice acting: Diablo titles never had the best voice acting outside the main characters, but in D4, it feels like they spent most of the budget in Lorath, Lilith and a few other voices, and 90% of the remaining ones have quite noticeable accents, giving the game a feeling of being lower budget than it really is.

As usual also with all the series titles, except maybe the first one, male characters excepting the Barbarian are "too emo" or ugly, so after levelling a male sorcerer to 52, I decided to start again with a female necromancer (drow-like appearance, really cool).

By the time of this writing, I've already finished twice the campaign and I'm enjoying the "end game" content (where really most of the content resides, except videos!). We'll see how the seasons work, and how Blizzard updates with some free content, apart from confirmed paid expansions, but the loot formula is there and working wonders (most of my friends are also playing it).

Considering that I put hundreds of hours in Diablo 3, plus some unmeasured (but not small) amount in the first two titles, looks like a game I'll be playing for years.

Ongoing

Zelda: Tears of the kingdom

Although I haven't finished it yet, after more than 70 hours of gameplay, in my eyes the new Zelda is the game of the year for 2023.

"Bigger, faster, better" is the TL;DR. Same world, but with notable changes. Same 3D engine, but pushed this time to the limits of the Nintendo Switch. Similar familiarity if you have played Breath of the Wild, but new at the same time...

I won't spoil anything about the game, other than it begins just a bit after where BOTW ended, that the new magic abilities are between cool and amazing (the ultrahand/"glue" is simply mind-blowing), and that now the game has three maps: air, land and underworld.

If you want to know more go and check some review, or watch one of the official trailers, but if you have a Switch, this is an even more must-have title than Zelda: BOTW was.

See you back once I'm done with Hyrule (and more Sanctuary)!

Posted on 2023-07-02

Book: Siege of Terra: The End and the Death: Volume I

The Horus Heresy Warhammer 40,000 novels have always been about expanding some basic lore concepts known since long: The Emperor created 20 space marine primarchs, the forces of Chaos spread them through the galaxy, The Emperor reunited them, at a certain point some, led by the favourite and warmaster primarch Horus Lupercal rebel, and although in the end are defeated, slain some loyal primarchs and leave the emperor heavily wounded and destined to sit forever in the golden throne.

After more than 50 books on the general story arc, Games Workshop/Black Library (their editorial wing) decided to elongate the money making machine a bit more, and divide the final confrontation (the Siege of Terra) in apparently another further 9 titles. Don't get me wrong, lore is the single best thing about the Warhammer 40k universe, but at times is clear the lore expansion is secondary to adding more volumes.

Although this novel is the 8th title on the Siege of Terra series, I wanted to begin with it because it's the most critical point: Loyalists are losing the war, the enemy is almost at the palace gates, reinforcements are not going to arrive in time, and the Emperor must do a final gambit to turn the tides: Go out and fight Horus.

So I'm probably missing a lot of context on some of the characters, and I indeed felt some of the side-stories felt a bit lacking information, so that's on me. But being a long book (more than 650 pages according to my eReader), and considering there will be a second volume (I sincerely hope they don't go too far and make it 3 parts), while reading I got the impression that there was a significant amount of fill content. The story advances, but at slow and very deliberate steps, also leaving you with a multi-faceted cliffhanger everywhere.

The writing is excellent, and having a lot of small chapters, each focusing on one of the characters or "groups" helps to keep clarity, but my impression was that it is intertwining, twisting together both three really important story lines (the Emperor, Malcador, and Horus) with lots of, at least for now, weird secondary quests and adventures, some of them a bit odd and even a tad silly.

Still, I think it's a good read, and combined with the remaining volume will become the new expanded lore about that truly important moment in the WH 40k universe. It could simply have contained the whole story in a single title.

Posted on 2023-06-05

Long ago I reviewed Diablo III: The Book of Cain, and as you might guess, Diablo III: The Book of Tyrael continues on similar grounds, expanding the lore and adding some new beautiful drawings into the mix.

This title is not as appealing as the first one, because it picks most of the texts and notes from the Diablo 3 and often merely expands them, decorating the content but not really adding anything new. It does however fill details only vaguely hinted at in the game, such as the witch Adria's background, and a lot of filling around the factions, clans, character classes and cities seen and mentioned in the game.

Having notes from multiple sources (Leah, Deckard Cain and Tyrael), at times feels a bit chaotic, but in general works nice and makes it feel a bit more "casual", a collection of notes joined together instead of a real book. I disliked a bit that the font is a bit small and the background is not bright enough, so at times is not easy to read the text, I get that the illustrations are great but legibility should come first.

Sometimes interesting, sometimes boring, that's my general feeling about it.

Posted on 2023-04-06

Almost no painting and no boardgaming, so I'll focus on RPG and adventure videogames.

Finished

Mass Effect Andromeda

I picked this title in a sale, and was a pleasant surprise. Despite some rough edges, repeating mechanics and still some weird character faces (the game features a lot of procedurally generated content, but has improved from the initial release), story-wise it felt different and refreshing, and I enjoyed a lot some of the teammates and their side-quests.

You also get to visit quite a few worlds with nice variety and great level design, and being a different story helps to provide different adventures. There are also quite a few boring "filler" quests, But there is enough content and pseudo-mini-games that I registered more than 50 hours before the ending.

Highly recommended for Mass Effect fans, as for now there's nothing else in the horizon.

Mass Effect Legendary Edition (1st game)

I wanted to revisit commander Sheppard's adventures, so I also got the Legendary Edition trilogy with a nice discount, and, after ME Andromeda, decided to replay the first title (for the 3rd or 4th time). Despite of the graphical improvements, it begins to feel the weight of time, especially regarding scenarios: Most non-critical side-quests reuse even the same maps with different generic prop placements; the scenarios feel big and vast but really empty; and the Mako sections (a land vehicle you drive and shoot from) have improved but are still dull and become really boring by the end of the game.

And yet, story-wise is still awesome, as it is playing as a purely evil character (a "renegade"), solving most situations in a badass but funny way, often involving fighting. Later titles became less appealing in regards to the main story, although secondary quests were the best I can remember; ME1 originated everything and it still feels to me like one of those classic sci-fi movies that you can re-watch from time to time, never getting tired.

Ongoing

Valheim

Ongoing, slowly progressing as I read tiny bits of initial strategies and learned that my initial world seed was not very too good, but thankfully you can travel "between worlds". So I could move the character and inventory to a more suitable one, with more varied biomes, more terrain, and less tiny island-like.

The setting of the game is really good, but at the beginning the "survival" part is your real challenge. And I'm loving the norse mythology vibes.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Dreading the insanely long previous playtimes to feel you are advancing, I don't know why I almost parked this title. Well, actually I also think that the heavily scottish-like accents, while not new to the series, had something to do. They are very noticeable because the first hours involve a lot of talking between many different characters, many of them with the accent. Plus some weird stuff that I don't yet know what it means (no spoilers).

Still, pushing my way through slowly as I guess the remaining folks I'll meet will be more "generic English" voiced. It will probably be my main RPG target for the following months as I'm eager for the story and how it fits with the previous titles.

New

Conan Exiles

As if one survival game (Valheim) wasn't enough, I went and picked another one! Also just began playing it so it's still early to form a reliable opinion. Your first steps are quite hard (dying of thirst, hunger, or killed by any human I find), and so far I've been just learning to survive, and chopping trees and rocks to be able to build a (tiny) house. Everything requires a lot of materials and breaks so soon!

The hugely varied crafting system is what lured me into this title, so let's see how it evolves. It also looks to contain a huge world to explore.

Hogwarts Legacy

Just began playing this one. Planning to take it slowly, as I like the movies and world lore but I'm not a real Potterhead.

Posted on 2023-03-05