Recent reviews by Bacxaber

Secret word: bard
Assessment of my advisory skills: magnificent

This one is actually really well written, save for a few minor inconsistencies such as Magnus preferring ranged combat but also choosing "sword & board" over it, and as others have pointed out, "thrown under the bus" makes no sense in this context. An easy fix from bus to carriage, but still.

As for my suggestion, I think Magnus should stick with Haralt. Something's fishy about the staff proposition, it seems they acquired it too easily and it's either cursed (hence why Haralt's been destroying them) or it's a fake.

Secret word: shepherd.

The aforementioned witch never appears, we never encounter anything that's mentioned to be a few feet ahead of us, we never see other wanderers or animals they chose to become besides the popular butterflies (that doesn't mean they're all butterflies), and the game keeps insisting its "secrets" require "exploration" when the rooms are tiny and you'd have to be blind to miss them.

An absolute disgrace to the XCOM franchise. Awful millennial dialogue that doesn't even seem coherent, worse mechanics, a confusing base UI, retconned lore (Bradford acts like we've never worked with the skirmishers before), terrible redesigns (namely mutons), and a weird difficulty spike. The only positive thing I can say is that the 2K launcher is finally gone.

Developer is attacking random users in update posts now. Very unprofessional. Didn't like the game either.

The game is extremely short, has no music, basically no sound whatsoever, and makes no sense. Things just seem to happen, and the protagonists don't seem all that bothered by any of it. I question why an SCP-esque agent doesn't have a weapon. There's a hammer you need that Alagossa refuses to pick up until you find a door to bash down, but why wouldn't she take it as a general weapon? They already knew there was something ♥♥♥♥♥ about this place.

The game lacks WASD movement which is a big sin, doors say they're locked twice sometimes, some flavour text is missing on objects but present for others, and it feels like the post-game room had way more effort put into it than the rest of the game.

I fully understand that Larian poured heart and soul into this game. Keep in mind, I stand by my vote (this) for game of the year, mainly out of respect and because the other corporate slop didn't deserve anything. That being said, this game is so...BADLY structured. A million little things that add up, which cultivated in an extremely frustrating experience. This review contains spoilers, so beware.

First of all, Dammon randomly dies if you save the grove. According to the game, he's the only person in the world who can help Karlach, despite the game setting up THREE alternative mechanics (her former one, the ironhand gnomes, and the guys who make the steelwatch). All of these options are completely ignored by the game, despite a line about how the steelwatch run on similar engines to hers. To lock someone out of a big portion of the game because ONE guy died for NO reason is absurd. Karlach even mentions the possible solution of a wish, but it's never actually an option. The game ignores dozens of solutions to force drama.

Second, the Free the Artist quest is completely broken. I got the game quite late, so these developers that everyone swears "care more than anyone else" and "work so very hard" had time to fix larger issues such as this, but nope. Nothing. The first issue was, the book explaining where his heart jar was didn't appear. It took SEVERAL save reloads to get it to work. Then, I killed Carrion, then the questlog just kept telling me to talk to him meanwhile the artist and his wife cannot be talked to. It cancels the conversations immediately. Similarly, the included "see invisible enemies" potion within the artist's mansion stopped working on the last poltergeist despite still being "active", so I sat there for half an hour passing turns, trying to find and kill it to no avail.

I have other examples, such as the anti-hag society. It just kept pointing me toward their evicted house and it wouldn't update. I had to find Auntie by accident, and when I killed her, the paladin(?) in their new building said she would help me but she's not listed among my "gathered allies". That's...stupid, especially when useless people like Volo are counted in that list.

Third, the unstable blood mechanic is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ curse. One that is permanent and incurable, and one that is not properly explained until it's too late. You are afflicted with it from a potionmaker in act 3. Like what she did in act 2, I logically assumed she was going to make a potion to cause explosive attacks or something, not make me explode every time I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ attack.

The difficulty settings don't seem right. On medium, I miss literally every attack. Online discussions seem to corroborate this in a bubble, but such discourse seems drowned out in the overall universal praise this game gets. I'm not one for playing on easy mode - I avoid it when possible, but missing attacks is something outside the realm of skill. It is simply bad design.

Sometimes, characters will appear in important scenes regardless of your party makeup, other times you are punished for not having the right character at the right time. Namely, anything involving Lae'zel will make sure to include her, but you didn't bring Gale to the ship? Spend the rest of the game hearing about how he "shirked his duties" and "refused to sacrifice himself". I wouldn't mind either system, but it should be consistent. As for the companions themselves, their relationships are stupid. Merely talking to Wyll constantly improves your relationship, meanwhile saving Astarion and his loved ones from slavery? Your relationship remains unchanged. It doesn't make sense.

Withers is a bad character. He is purely function for your playthrough, and refuses to have adequate reason or explanation for anything he does. He's just some "wraith" as the game calls him, who follows you for no reason and says "no" whenever you ask him about his goals or past. I've seen games pull this sort of thing off in a comedic matter, but he's played completely seriously, which just makes the developers come off as more pretentious than funny.

Both Astarion and Gale are relatively normal people, temperament-wise, and yet they turn completely deranged at some point in their subplots. They both suddenly turn into power-mad wannabe gods which isn't like them at all, then you say "bruh dont" and they go "oh ♥♥♥♥ u right". Like, what? This is the holy writing of the game of the century? It's not "realistic" or "complex", it's just inconsistent. It'd be like if Mr. Rogers suddenly kicked a puppy mid-episode and then continued as if nothing happened.

Hell, there seems to be a suspicious amount of conceptual overlap among the companions. Two of them are bombs (Gale/Karlach), two of them are slaves (Astarion/Wyll), two of them randomly become power-hungry monsters out of nowhere (Astarion/Gale), and there are two druids which is redundant. Unless you re-spec them (and we shouldn't have to), only one character besides yourself is built for heavy armour - Lae'zel; yet there's so much heavy armour in the game! Why? We can't use any of it. I love heavy stuff myself, but I play barbarians. Even with proficiency and mastery, it still prevents you from raging, so I can't enjoy it either. "Oh just use hirelings" Why should I when the other companions are actual characters?

Karlach is generally a moral person who approves of standing up for the downtrodden and freeing slaves, yet she disapproves of you calling out the immorality of soul coins. What the ♥♥♥♥, guys? She doesn't sound touchy at all in her response either, it's just neutral disagreement. Bad writing!

Despite lots of failsafes and ways to cheese puzzles, I find the game ignores situational context. I approached the guy who pilots the submersible and he genuinely thought he could take me 1v4. Nobody ever comes to help him, even though EVERY battle seems to throw millions of trash mobs at you. No fishmen, no other workers, nothing.

Eventually, Orin threatens you into killing...one of the other bad guys I was already going to kill. The hostage bargain makes no sense. Something else that doesn't make sense is that dragonborn have tails in this game. Is it a pointless detail? Maybe, but bad lore is bad lore. I highly doubt this was done for legal distinction. I also question why the guardian can't be the same race as you (or at least not dragonborn). My friends keep saying there's a reason for it, but I'm not seeing one.

It's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easy to break quests by doing them in the wrong order, it drives me insane that people say this game is full of player choice and freedom. It's not. If you even OPEN the cell doors in Moonrise, the prisoners just stand there, bricking the quest. If you jump into the oubliette, the aforementioned prisoners teleport down there with you and immediately die. They shouldn't be down there at all! While the Thaniel quest can still be completed if you fought him much earlier, your character doesn't tell Halsin about it for a very long time, making me THINK it's broken. After beating Ketheric, my fear paralysis was frozen and wouldn't wear off, so I couldn't move. Having my party follow him down the tower into the next area did not reset/fix me, either.

This is the game that can never be topped? This is the game that made all the Tears of the Kingdom simps collectively die, Phantom Menace style? I'm sorry, but I don't see it. This game has been nothing but a frustrating slog. The high-tier clothing shops don't even consistently carry COMMON dyes. I have only seen three yellow dyes in my playthrough. I'd understand for the weirder, rarer combinations but yellow? ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ really?

Lastly, the temple of Shar can go to hell. Seriously, that place is the most confusing pisshole I've ever had the displeasure of navigating. ♥♥♥♥ that place, it is singlehandedly the reason I will not be doing a second playthrough.

Helicopter.

Good enough game, despite NRS' ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ writing. Problem is, it used to run perfectly in 2020 but now it crashes CONSTANTLY. Yes, I've turned 60fps krypt and fullscreen off, it doesn't help.

This DLC accidentally removes the outfits from Ambitions, do not buy.

A fun RPG; just be aware that one of the "secrets" is mandatory and complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that you'll never find on your own. So, when you get to the Naev temple, the final piece of the stained glass is through the wall in the upper left area with pots. Besides this hiccup, this game was great.