The Backlog Check-in Vol. 64: 3/23/19: Generation Zero Edition

[Phaseknox]

Played: Divinity: Original Sin, Earthlock: Festival of Magic

Finished (playing): Earthlock: Festival of Magic

Playing: Divinity: Original Sin

I stopped playing Earthlock: Festival of Magic despite somewhat enjoying it because I wanted to play Divinity: Original Sin. When I first started playing Divinity: Original Sin I was really enjoying it, the story seemed to be on the basic side (two Source hunters going to investigate a murder in a city) and I liked its throwback to old school isometric view fantasy RPGs offering tactical turn-based combat. My characters (you begin the game as a duo) offered back-and-forth banter while making their way to the city, and we encountered some enemies along the way as well as an optional dungeon to explore.

I was liking the pace of the game and its semi-open environment where I could go off the beaten path just enough to make it not feel linear, but once I got to the city the pacing slowed down to a crawl putting me in a really big city with nothing to do in it but talk with NPCs everywhere that never shut up - their dialogue goes on and on.

After a while a story event occurs setting up the main goal of the game which is the usual chosen ones/end of the world scenario that's been overdone in RPGs. It's a lot more convoluted than necessary, especially for a game that doesn't seem to take itself too seriously. Despite some dark subject matter, it has a somewhat cartoonish visual style and an overall comedic tone to it with a lot of humor similar to Fable and Sacred 2.

Despite some complaints, I'm liking enough aspects of it to stick with it for now. It even has an easy mode that I can switch to if things get too hard, so the difficulty shouldn't be a reason for me to quit. While the story isn't doing a whole lot for me, the characters have been decent and the tactical turn-based combat is fun.

A lot of games come out next week, but the one that looks the most interesting to me is Generation Zero:



It's a first person open world action/adventure/shooter (single player or co-op) that looks like Far Cry meets Horizon Zero Dawn. It was developed by Avalanche Studios (Just Cause, Mad Max), and is a slightly lower budget game in terms of cinematic flare and production values so it's releasing for $39.99.

[isthatallyougot]

Still playing Dark Souls 3, OOTP, and as side palate cleanser I've been playing Dead End Road (PC). I've been enjoying all 3.

[jfissel]

Finished: Nothing

Now Playing: South Park: The Fractured But Whole

Added to Backlog: Nothing

Current Backlog: 32 games

Have only had a couple of hours with South Park, but it's off to a funny start!

[Phaseknox]

The overabundance of uninteresting long drawn out dialogue in Divinity: Original Sin was boring me, so I quit playing. There are tons of NPCs everywhere, and they all prattle on endlessly in a drab fashion to convey things that could be explained simpler and to the point. A good amount of time that I put into the game was spent walking around the city and reading NPC dialogue, which is also voiced by what sound like bad theater actors that made it even worse.

In addition to this, the game has poor pacing, poor quest handling and an overabundance of useless inventory items and skill upgrades that bog the whole thing down. If any game needed some content editing, this is it. The quests and things that you're supposed to do add up fast, and they're difficult to keep track of since everything is vague except for putting little markers all over the map. But they're only for select things, not for everything.

I decided to play Divinity: Original Sin II since I heard that it's an improvement over the first game, and it is. While it's still a similar game in a lot of ways, many aspects of it are better including the story, characters, writing, pacing, quest handling, equipment/inventory menus, etc.

The story, characters and writing are the biggest improvements. There's still some long conversations, but they're more interesting and better voiced. There's a better balance of seriousness and humor as well, the first game was constantly being silly even during the more serious moments but this one keeps the two separate which I prefer.

It offers the same tactical turn-based combat system as the first game which is good, but a little slow paced. I'm playing it on its easy setting, but it's definitely not easy. It's more of what I consider normal. There's an even easier setting called story mode which I assume is easy.

[jfissel]

Anyone else watch the PlayStation State of Play video yesterday? I didn't see much except a few release dates announced and a lot of VR stuff...not much in there for me.

[Phaseknox]

I was enjoying Divinity: Original Sin II at first, but it ultimately turns into a slow slog. You slowly move through the semi-open environments (no run option), there's tons of NPCs everywhere that prattle on endlessly and the combat is a bore.

Combat is one of the biggest problems with the game, it's extremely slow and not fun. There's too much of an emphasis on magic in the game, enemies almost always use some type of elemental or magic attack where they can attack you from a distance and hit your entire party from the start because they always get first attack for some reason. And you're always up against multiple enemies that are spread all over the map including higher areas. There's no quick combat scenarios, they all plod along at a snails pace.

It's also hard even on adventurer mode (easy). I dropped it down to story mode to make it more reasonable, but all that does is make your characters take less damage from attacks - your attacks still do little damage to the enemies making the battles drag on.

There are things that I like about the game such as the story, characters, graphics and music, but it's really slow paced with too much boring NPC interaction and dull drawn out combat that focuses too much on the use of magic. I just wasn't finding it fun to play, so I quit.