Greedfall - First Reviews and Impressions

I'm sad that I can't play Greedfall - the game was making me real sick, and it seems like I'm not the only one:
Sorry to hear that. :(
I hope they'll find a solution!
I'm lucky that I don't have any problems with this myself, in fact I don't even notice anything shaky.
 
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It's not that hardcore with landmarks and whatnot, which is what makes complaining about a lack of a mini map even stupider. There's a map with markers. I didn't see an option to turn them off, but I didn't go looking for it, either. There's also one of those compass bars with quest markers at the top of the screen, and doors and quest NPCs are marked in the world. I'm not far in, but it's been a hand-holding cakewalk thus far.

And yet I noticed there is at least one reviewer (non-english) who feels lost in the game. And for that reason he wrote that he doesnt like to run in unattractive environment, lol.
BTW the same person also claims that..
- all cities in Greedfall are (almost) the same
- he is angry that to perform some deeds in RPG like cook chemical substance you need Alchemy talent :)

Its not a joke. Still this crap in 2019. Regarding the cities you can see even from YT that its not true. Well, there is obvious explanation - if you just run through the game, skip some cutscenes and play for 2-3 hours just for the sake of writing quick wannabe "review" then its probably possible that you feel like cities are the same, enviroment is unattractive because you dont care… you cant do some things in quests because you dont care about talents and how to upgade your hero… and you cant navigate yourself in the game. :)

Fortunately its minority. There are a lot of positive or normal reviews this time.


Arkadia7 said:
re: Kotaku review.
lol, the reviewer is probably mad that the story is not about taking the oh-so-noble indians/natives side against the "evil" colonialist forces. I don't know much about the story line or plot, but if it actually gives a choice between siding with the colonialists or the natives, that would be so very unacceptable to SJW type thinking…

What makes this person really stupid IMHO is the fact that he/she played the game only for 10 hours! Its clearly stated in the review. He/she didnt see the whole story. One quote:

I’m hoping this changes in the later segments of the game.

How could you make conclusion and be angry about story progression if you see half at best?? More likely even less.

Guys, I wonder if one day someone from RPGWatch or RPGCodex will make "hall of journalistic stupidity" or something like that. :)
 
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And this year's RPGWatch Golden Raspberry of Game Reviews goes to…

The award could be abbreviated by "GRGR" which sounds like an angrily growling watchdog.
 
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This is my sentiment as well. I too prefer self contained "large" areas as found in Gothic 1 and 2 instead of huge empty open world like Skyrim filled with generics dungeon, loot and monsters etc.

Give me a small hand placed and hand crafted world any day.

I didn't know much about this game at all till now seeing these post and its giving me a good "Gothic " vibe so I will have to check it out as well.

Me too. I always prefer semi-open world games choke with content rather than large empty worlds.
 
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Dungeons in Skyrim are a lesson on copy/paste. There are 4 main types and everything else is copy paste.

Monsters are another copy paste lesson. You get bandits, rogue mages, wolfs and more bandits.

Loot - Randomly generated and level scaled ….

NPC - I don't remember a single memorable NPC. Lydia doesn't count!

If Skyrim's size was reduced to say 1/4 then it would have been a great game as you would have less need for copy paste etc. And that was my point, I rather have smaller world (Gothic) and less copy paste.

I think comparison between first two Gothic games to the third one is much more accurate. First two games are filled with handcrafted content waiting to explore, while the third one is full of generic nothingness.
 
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By the way, if someone is still waiting for more reviews (or lower prices, some more patches, whatever), one previous Spiders game is now on GOG, at 80% off: Bound by Flame.

Are you sure about the 80% sale part, because I don't see any in the GOG page.
 
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But this limited variety also extends to character skills and abilities and whichever "build" you aim for wont ultimately make much of a difference to how the game is played and this is a major drawback.

This looks to me to be the biggest shortcoming, although I'm early on a haven't done a ton of combat…and character builds are rather important to me. This has as much creative variety in character development as Assassin's Creed Origins.

p.s. A big fart noise to those who are still whining about the lip sync (who cares)

One character's mouth looked remarkably like a dessicated corpse talking at me, so I looked at a lovely rendition of a Colonial chest of drawers instead, though I agree with you philosophically. The art is really nice, if not varied, and the map is drop-dead gorgeous.
 
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There really is a lot of beauty in this game! The starting town with plague victims is well done. I mean, dead plague victims and human misery isn't beautiful, but you know what I mean.

And the faces vary. I do not care about lip sync at all. But characters can sometimes look horrifying. Also, I made a white male as my main character. I might restart with a female, because my first companion looks almost identical to me, and switching in the inventory screen gets confusing as to which person I'm looking at. That's just a minor nitpick though. But inventory could have been done better. It's in the "clunky" realm for some reason. There's so many better inventory solutions they could have emulated.

I almost always dislike crafting in games beyond a very simple level. I can't take the idea of a person carrying huge amounts of iron ore (for example) around very seriously. Collecting ore needs to go away in all games. And I dislike the concept of carrying 38 short swords and 27 shields and sets of leather armor back to town to sell for 2 gold pieces each. It's all very old, unrealistic and kind of tedious. But that's my personal opinion, and it happens in many games.

My take is that the main thing smaller, lower budget titles lack is an overall Art Director, UI/UX person, whatever. Seems plain that different teams and people worked on different elements of these games without an overall lead to bring it all together. That's where the budget shows. Not that it's overall weaker, but that parts don't often mesh well.

I am enjoying it so far. I've been wondering about the Colonialism angle of the game myself. Even the name "Greedfall" evokes rapacious greed of Colonial forces and the bad things that fall out from it, which has happened in our collective history many times over. I agree the Kotaku author should complete the game before "reviewing" it. But the game by its very nature and name is going head-first into the concept of colonialism and power struggles between invading forces and native peoples. I'm interested in what they do with it. I think Pillars of Eternity 2 went with that framework somewhat, but this seems to be the main focus of the stories in the game.

Now I need time to play and a way to avoid spoilers.
 
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Are you sure about the 80% sale part, because I don't see any in the GOG page.

I'm sure, I got it at that price, but it seems the sale ended. Sorry, I did not check the duration when I posted it.
 
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Greedfall is a definite improvement over Spiders' last three games but those comparing it to a Bioware game are deluded.

Its RPG lite in the sense that Gothic games are RPG lite but I consider Gothic games to be superior to many recent Bioware games.
 
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I played for about an hour just to get a feel for it. My impressions so far are mixed.

I really like the art style or at least what I've seen so far, and the graphics in general are pretty good. I've seen some complaints about the facial animations, etc, but the only thing I noticed was some slight graphics clipping on some pieces of armor.

I don't like the voice for the PC at all. Quite frankly, he sounds like a little bitch.

Combat is a mixed bag. I find the animations for human enemies to be a bit off. They move side to side so quickly it looks like they're on roller skates. Also, who thought it would be a good idea to bind sprint and dodge to the same key?

I like that there's some challenge though. I chose Hard difficulty, and I got my ass handed to me multiple times in the short amount of time I played. Hopefully the difficulty curve doesn't decline too quickly.

I wish we were given more than just 1 skill point to start the game. It would also be neat if companions could use non-combat skills, but that doesn't seem to be the case. What's the point of Kurt having armor that gives him +1 to lockpicking? (Other than stealing it from him and giving it to the PC)

How long does it take to advance a few levels? Also, can you return to Selene once you leave?
 
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How long does it take to advance a few levels?
I've played for 7 hours and I'm level 10.

Also, can you return to Selene once you leave?
Not immediately.
As it's mentioned that the journey takes several months, I don't think it will be a regular location to travel to.
 
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Sorry to hear that. :(
I hope they'll find a solution!
I'm lucky that I don't have any problems with this myself, in fact I don't even notice anything shaky.

Thanks, I hope so too!! I feel like I am the only one missing out on massive fun :'(
 
Thanks, I hope so too!! I feel like I am the only one missing out on massive fun :'(
Btw. I took a closer look last night. Although it doesn't affect me negatively it's indeed shaky. How on earth could anyone think that implementing this would be a good idea?
 
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I don't find it particularly shaky while exploring the wild, but running around town is pretty bad. Especially going through doors. I guess they do it as a part-loading thing, to make transitions smooth without appearing as if there's a transition. That really shouldn't be needed in this day and age, but it could be an engine limitation. It does seem like it's an upgraded Technomancer engine, especially since they're still running the whole "fake 3D" thing, where flying monsters aren't actually flying, and the characters can't jump.

At any rate, I'm enjoying it quite a bit beyond the weird shaking/transitions. :)
 
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Are Baldur's Gate games superior to recent Piranha Bites games?

I have not played the Baldur's Gate games yet so I can't answer that question! Baldur's Gates were released at a time I was heavily in real time strategy so I wasn't playing any RPGs at that time.

However I would say that I had more fun with say Bioware games such as NWN, SWTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age than they recent Piranha Bites games such as Risen 3 and Elex. These games are not directly comparable to me but you can still compare the overall fun factor. Piranha Bites have "formal" which they perfected in Gothic 2 and Risen 1. They do the "same" in subsequent games such as Elex so the novelty factor is gone now days.

However, I still prefer Elex to recent Bioware offerings such as DAI, Andromeda and Anthem. DAI might have far better character customisation, RPG system and story than Elex but the whole game was big let down for me.

The world of Elex draws you in, its very scary place. The world immediately challenges you. You cannot get comfortable here and it doesn't let you off this hook for very long time. Because of this, even small things matter in Elex. A small healing potion or herb matters. There are great rewards for exploring the nooks and crannies. Weapon upgrades and armour upgrades matter and they feel unique. Levelling up matters as you can feel your character power. None of this happens in DAI so nothing feels like they matter since you the purple weapon you got will be replaced by another randomly generated yellow in next few minutes….
 
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*GASP*
Are you planning to play BG series sometime? *wink wink* ;)

I have been meaning to play the BG games for long time now but failing. I own the original edition as well the EE version of all those games (for PC and ipad as welll!) but for some reason I can't get pass the starter areas. I thinks its graphics and also pre 3rd edition D&D. But one day I will play them :)

Please tell me you are referring to the original campaign and the 1st expansion :p

Yes but I liked both expansions as I thought they were very good. Plus the countless user made mods as well.

I liked NWN2 as well by Obsidian but never played their expansion. NWN2 was not good as NWN but still a good game.

I have not played the NWN MMO as I hear its crap tonn of micro transactions.

Is there any other types of NWN? :)
 
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