Haven't posted in a while.
But I finished a few games!
-Vaporum.
Bootleg Legend of Grimrock... it really, really feels like it. Not that it's a bad thing, Grimrock 2 is the best dungeon crawler around.
Great visuals, nice atmosphere, good level variety despite being a single dungeon... but since you only have one character in combat, it's definitely a bit simpler, and the progression for both new unique items and skills is also a tad simplistic.
The puzzles are decent enough, but it's definitely a bit too simplified combat wise. On the other hand it's more approachable too, that's definitely a great "my first dungeon crawler".
An expanded second game like what happened from Grimrock 1 to 2 would be great, and it definitely could be just as good.
-Outward.
Quebecjank galore.
It's pretty much the Gothic 3 that never existed.
It does suffer from the same problem of a large open world (made of 4 large maps) with not much in it, a shit ton of backtracking and a complete lack of fast travel. Yeah, it can be a pain.
But on the other hand, you get that Gothic design in the numerous dungeons (with no map so don't get lost) which are excellent, plenty are very long, filled with important stuff to find, and it's not rare to find shortcuts for the open world too! It's almost like giant interconnected maps, and that's pretty cool and unique.
But it really nails the feeling of adventure, with long journeys to prepare to with the survival elements... which I was a bit worried about, but are absolutely not intrusive in the least. Starving or dying of thirst is almost impossible, however making good use of ressources and recipes makes for massive buffs. Like being able to sprint with no concern for stamina or boosting your damage by 50%? Yeah, that's a big deal, far more than just chugging some water every 10 minutes in other survival games.
Plenty of stuff to craft, and you don't need to know the recipe to craft anything. It's pretty fun for multiplayer and subsequent playthroughs... which also benefit from a "New Game +" of sorts, where you can deposit gear in legacy chests and get them on your new character. Neat little gimmick.
The big weak point compared to Piranha Bytes games lies in the writing. There's almost none in Outward frankly. Very few quests, rarely interesting... and just almost no dialogues in general... big downer after Elex, which was miles ahead of the competition with interconnected quests.
On the other hand, the combat is better than anything PB ever managed to put out, and it sure crushes Elex.
Far more fluid, much better hitboxes, a ton of build variety (and you can make broken builds for any archetype)... and of course the usual AI infighting to use at your discretion. It's actually not bad at all when you unlock more stuff and understand how to break the enemy's poise (something that definitely goes above the head of many from what I've seen).
It's pretty much the antithesis to the open world fake RPGs with level scaling, loot scaling and copy/paste everywhere, and it's nice to see a very small team doing it well.
But the lack of means shows... outside of the lighting system, which make dungeons pitch black when you don't have a source of light, and it feels a lot like what Dark Souls 2 was supposed to be; dark, creepy and treacherous. Great use of modest visuals.
Great game, a lot of fun, if massively lacking in the writing department.
It could be the start of another cult franchise with a few fixes.