The world is beautiful — simply moving around the continent is a pleasurable experience and more than once I caught myself stopping to just look at the scenery — fights are challenging and satisfying; and with the characters’ unique playstyles, the Picto/Lumina system, and the various weapons available, I’m having a blast seeing what combinations I can put together to maximize my team’s strength.

I also found myself really caring about The Expedition itself — figuring out what happened 67 years ago; the backstories (and fates) of Lune, Gustave, Maelle and the rest of the team; and why The Paintress is painting death.

Story Introduction

I honestly often find the story as an afterthought when playing video games. Given the amount of time it takes to get through a game, and the varying games I play, it can be hard to keep track. Expedition 33, though, captivated me. And in order to preserve that for you, I’m going to make sure not to give away any major spoilers.

If you’re completely unaware of the story, though: in this world there’s a giant woman, known as The Paintress, who sits (seemingly weeping) at the base of a sheer face mountain known appropriately as The Monolith.

Annually The Paintress wakes up and writes the next number in a countdown from 100, and on that day everyone that age gets Thanos-snapped (though it appears to be more permanent), in an event they call The Gommage.

And, after The Gommage each year, a group of “Expeditioners” go on a, well, expedition to try to stop The Paintress. It’s been 67 years at this point, people are used to the loss, and have largely given up hope on the idea of any Expeditioners actually succeeding. You play as the 33rd, though, and believe you’re the one’s who will finally get it done.

Combat

Expedition 33 is an expansive RPG with turn-based combat. But you have to still pay attention when it’s not your turn, though — parrying and dodging play a very important role here. Nevrons (which are the primary enemy you encounter; though there’s a couple others) can hit pretty hard. But every attack can be avoided and/or blocked, if you time pressing the button just right.

If you parry all of the enemies strikes in an attack, you’ll do a pretty powerful counter (which can also be leveraged into various benefits, given the Pictos). And if you manage to not get hit in battle at all, you’ll get a 20% XP bonus.

Each enemy also has a Break bar, which when filled will cause a “Break” attack to stun the enemy. I didn’t do much optimizing around breaking, but there’s definitely weapons and Pictos that allow you to do so. It can be a great way to slow down some of the faster enemies and take down the stronger ones, though.

If the enemy does get the best of an Expeditioner, there are remedies. Some characters can heal themselves and/or other members of the party, and some attacks will heal as well. There are also potions that can be used to heal up if someone has taken too much damage, and even ones to revive fallen teammates. Using a potion does count as your turn, though, so use them wisely.

Attacking

Alright, enough about defense. There are 4 different types of attacks: Basic Attacks, Skills, Free Aim Shots, and Gradient Attacks. You’ll primarily be using your Skills in battles, and they do more than just damage your enemies. They can add buffs to your team, or status effects and debuffs to the enemies.

Each skill takes ‘AP’ to use — differing amounts depending on the skill — and free aim shots take 1 AP each time you want to take a shot. In order to replenish your AP, initially you’ll use basic attacks, but as you play though the game, you’ll unlock Pictos and other Skills that can increase the amount each character has each turn.

Gradient attacks unlock around mid-game, have their own separate bar that fills up as you play, and can be powerful ways to turn the battle’s tides back in your favor. On top of that, Gradient attacks don’t count for your turn, so you’re able to attack again after using them. Endgame, there are some awesome Gradient attacks, but I won’t spoil those here.

Skills

Each Expeditioner employs a unique skillset, with varying ways to improve your attacks as you play. Lune (pronounced Lu-Nay), as a mage for example, will create elemental “stains” when she attacks, which then get consumed by other attacks to increase their strength — with stronger attacks becoming available when all and/or all types of stains are available.

Maelle on the other hand, with moves seemingly based in fencing, has different stances she can take. Each stance has different passive effects (like increasing the amount of damage given or decreasing the amount of damage taken) along with more active effects given the skill/attack used (like increasing the amount of burn applied to an enemy if she’s in offensive stance).

Each character has their own skill trees, gaining skill points each time they level up; with the most powerful skills costing up to 10 skill points, and not being available until previous skills are unlocked. The characters’ skills build on each other, too, so you’ve got to pay attention to ensure your skills mesh together well if you want to be able to do the strongest attacks.

Like, it’s wise to use a couple skills in conjunction in order to get Maelle into her Virtuose Stance. That 200% damage increase is no joke. There are several characters you’ll meet along your journey, and each one has a new mechanic to explore, and I’ve been having a ton of fun doing so.

Weapons

On top of their individual moves and skills, there are a bunch of weapons that can be found for each Expiditioner that really enhances their abilities. Keeping with the examples above, Lune uses a floating weapon with 4 spots for her stains. Each weapon is named, but I don’t see anywhere that says what the weapon itself is called (if you know, let me know over on Threads!)

You may find one that will generate a random stain at the beginning of her turn, allowing her to enhance her attacks that much sooner. Or one that will decrease the amount of AP needed for certain skills, allowing her to cast them more frequently. Weapons level up as well, and each one has 3 benefits which unlock at levels 4, 10, and 20.

Along with Skills, The weapons themselves are also elemental, and the enemies have various reactions to different elements. There are certainly weaknesses — like a fire enemy taking extra damage from an ice attack — but that’s not all.

There’s also resistance, where the enemy takes less damage from the attack; nullified, where the enemy takes no damage from the attack; and absorb, where the enemy actually gains health from the attack. It’s definitely something you should pay attention to, it can be frustrating loading up one of your strongest attacks only for the enemy to gain health back when you execute it.

Pictos & Luminas

I’ve mentioned them a couple of times now, but haven’t really delved into them. Pictos are essentially items that grant passive effects to whichever expeditioner has them equipped — each one can only be equipped to one character at a time.

They may grant you more AP at the beginning of your turn, apply burn on free aim shots, make you resistant to certain debuffs, heal you when attacking, and lots lots more. There are tons of them to find, and each time I think I’ve found the highest level/most beneficial Picto, I end up finding another, better one. 60+ hours in and I’m still finding new exciting Pictos.

Luminas give the effects of the Pictos, but without having to be equipped. Luminas can be freely enabled on all characters with no regard as to whether or not another character has it. In order to get the effects of a Picto as a Lumina, you simply have to win 4 battles with the Picto equipped. The only caveat here is that they have to have enough Lumina Points.

Each character will naturally gain Lumina Points as you progress through the game; and you’ll also find “Colour of Lumina” out in the world, which you can use to manually increase a characters Lumina Points. Personally, I chose to evenly distribute my Lumnia Points across all Expeditioners, but I definitely can see a scenario where you put all of them into one character and make them, just, bananas strong. Maybe I’ll give that a shot in NG+.

No Armory Here, Unfortunately

A pretty gaping oversight with all of this is the fact that they don’t have a way to save builds or loadouts. It can be pretty disappointing to have a great setup, but want to try something else, and having no way to quickly change back. Or, given the elemental aspects, you may want to save a specific “fire” or “ice” build in order to target particular weaknesses. But alas, you’re not able to do that here. Hopefully, they fix that with an update.

Attributes

In addition to earning Skill Points when you level up, you also earn Attribute points. These are used to increase your base stats, of which there’s 5:

• Health – How large your health bar is
• Attack Power – How hard your attacks hit
• Speed – Chance to attack more often
• Defense – The game says this is a resistance to attacks, but I’m not 100% sure how it actually comes into play or how it differs from Health
• Luck – Crit chance

You’re able to apply your attribute points to these relatively freely, except they don’t always increase the the stat they’re coordinated with. Sometimes increasing Luck will increase your Speed instead of Crit chance, or increasing Defense will increase Attack Power.

You kind of get used to the pattern, but it was somewhat frustrating when I was specifically trying not to increase one characters speed and it would increase anyway.

All in all, though, between the Skills, Weapons, and Pictos/Luminas, I’ve been having a blast mix-and-matching different combinations; and trying to figure out how to make each Expeditioners’ skills work in tandem with one another in order to make the strongest team possible.

The Continent

This next part you don’t encounter until several hours into the game, and I was quite surprised when I found out. I wouldn’t call it a major spoiler, but it did give me a “holy shit” moment where I realized the game is a lot different than my original impression.

The world of Expedition 33 is beautiful, though I wish I could get 60fps in “Graphics” mode. The atmosphere is a lot more flat in “Performance” mode, but the frames are necessary for those smooth dodges and parries.

I went in with zero expectation, and as I played through it seemed like it would be a rather straight-forward, linear game; with some side areas to explore. But I was way off. After a while, though, you’ll leave the first area and you’ll find yourself on “The Continent”.

Here, the view is much more zoomed out (think Diablo), and you’re kind of moving across the world — between areas — rather than within it. There’s definitely still secrets to find “on” The Continent. And, while they don’t pursue you, there’s enemies here as well (in fact, some of the strongest ones).

But when you get to a new area you want to explore, you “enter” it, the perspective zooms back in, enemies pursue you, and you’re now “in” the area. It’s kind of hard to explain textually, check this out:

Side Areas

I played through the entire storyline, and realized I experienced only about half of the game. I did a decent amount of exploring, but kept coming across areas that were way too strong — I figured either I’d have a reason to revisit those areas later, or they were designed to be explored in New Game+.

Before I committed to NG+, though, I did some digging. It turns out that the enemies scale as well, so they likely are meant to be explored within a single playthrough. And a way to reveal hidden items and areas doesn’t carry over; which, again, gave me pause in restarting.

Going back and exploring the areas has been a blast, though. I’m loving the Gestral beaches, struggling to beat the minigames and complete the platforming sections. It’s been unreal unearthing unique universes (like the underwater world that’s not exactly under water). And finding hidden enemies has been great. I can almost predict where I’m going to see a mime now.

Powerful Enemies dot the continent

And a lot, as a level 60+ and having beat the story, I’m still struggling with. My initial plan was to do the story restart with all of my upgrades. But slowly it’s become to explore the world on this playthrough, get as strong as I can, and see if I can finally take down, hell, Sprong for starters.

The scale of the enemies can be incredible, too. With some of them being mountain-sized monsters towering over you. When the battle starts, though, the tend to shrink some to a more “manageable” size. It’s still pretty amazing sometimes feeling bug-sized when fighting these beasts.

While life on The Continent is bleak, not everything is out to kill you

There are several Gestrals around the world, largely acting as merchants, that you can interact with and buy powerful items from. They also love a good fight, so defeat them in a battle and you can unlock the ability to buy something even better.

They also offer welcome reprieves from nigh endless battles, with the aforementioned Gestral Beaches. Instead of a fight, these areas have challenges; like a parrying challenge to test your timing and reflexes, or even an obstacle course. One may even tag along.

That said…

Given the size of the world, and the various side areas, there’s very little in the way of a map. You really have to rely on your memory trying to explore an entire area. There’s not even a checklist to show whether or not you’ve completed/found everything in an area. It’s quite frustrating.

I spent a ton of time running around the [frozen area], backtracking a couple of times ensuring I found everything. One of the friendly Grandis in Monoco Station needed a [frozen flame?] to “increase my defense”, and I wanted that done. I couldn’t find anything new, so I figured I found the item; I just needed to go and talk to the big guy.

When I did, though, I hadn’t found the item yet. I looked it up an discovered an area I could access by taking the handholds in a different direction that what was obvious. Which is fine, but it might literally be the only place in the game where the handholds fork, so it’s not like it’s something I was looking out for. And without a checklist or anything, it felt like a waste of time having to go back and forth to figure it out.

Tomorrow Comes

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this, I’ve really been enjoying getting to know these characters and figure out just what exactly is going on in the world. Even sitting around the campsite, chatting with the characters, and the stories and secrets that are revealed within, has been a pleasurable experience. Don’t sleep on it, you never know what you might be missing out on.

Overall, though, I can see why this won so many game of the year awards. I’m approaching my 70th hour, and have no plans of stopping soon. The Dark Matter grind can wait.

Thanks for reading! If there’s enough interest, maybe I’ll stream some NG+ gameplay or something in the future. Let me know over on Threads or on YouTube if that’s something you might be interested in. And don’t forget to check back often for more awesome gaming content!

The post Expedition 33 | No Frida Kahlo appeared first on I Talk Games.

We happened upon Real Civil Engineer playing this game one day, though. And to my surprise, she actually seemed interested. We were both ready for something new, so we downloaded it and dove in.

Sometimes I don’t know why I do a spoiler disclaimer. Like, how could there not be spoilers about the game in a post about the game? Anyway, proceed with caution!

The storyline of Grounded 2 has you playing as one of four teens who have somehow been shrunken down to the size of a Nickel, a-la Honey I Shrunk the Kids, or Downsizing. Technically, this is the second time these kids have been shrunk down (this is Grounded 2).

A Quick Recap

Apparently in the first game, the kids were able to re-grow themselves with the help of a robot named BURG.L. At the beginning of this game (from what I can gather) the scientist who shrunk you down is having a meltdown over being thwarted, and is taking it out on said Robot. The kids want to save their friend, though, so they’ve come to the park to stop the scientist when an explosion happens. And once again, they’ve woken up small.

Since being shrunken the first time, a completely different group of people have taken over the corporation responsible for shrinking. You’re able to communicate with the new Director/CEO, who seems just as confused as you are about what happened and why you’re shrunk again.

There’s also a mysterious stranger who’s taunting you (and periodically sending bugs to attack you), and you need to figure out her role in all of this. So far, I’ve been having a surprising amount of fun exploring this park as a miniaturized person, climbing picnic tables like they’re mountains, and struggling to kill bugs I’d usually just smush with a shoe.

So, What are We Actually Doing?

Grounded 2 is an adventure survival game with resource-harvesting, crafting, inventory management, progressive unlocks etc. Dandelions and blades of grass are towering over you like trees, and you chop them down in order to obtain larger construction materials like planks and logs. Tiny “pebblets” (pieces of stone smaller than pebbles), sprigs (pre-grown grass), and acorns (acorns) act as smaller construction material. They’re also used for crafting your first weapons, pieces of armor, and spots needed to make more advanced items (like workbenches and cooking stations).

Food and water is important, too. There are weevils and aphids that you can cook to eat — and some mushrooms you can grab in a pinch. And since you’re so small, a simple dewdrop on the tip of a blade of grass is all that’s necessary to quench your thirst for the day. It’s honestly pretty adorable (initially).

Enemies, naturally, take the form of bugs; and at this size, they might as well be dinosaurs. Borderline-microscopic critters (like the aforementioned aphids) are the size of small kittens, and ants are the size of Big Cats. And those are just the first few foes you’ll encounter.

Ladybugs, butterflies, bees, and of course spiders, and roaches (and more) all make an appearance. There is an arachnophobia slider in the settings to make spiders less triggering. I’m not sure how it changes them, though, I left my slider at “maximum spider”.

Of course, as you progress through the game and create better items everything gets slightly easier to manage. Only slightly, though, because, frankly, this game is pretty tough. And I’m playing on the easiest difficulty. I thought this game was going to be a mild, casual game to play with my girlfriend; but it’s been giving me a real challenge so far.

Cache-Collecting, Controlling Character, & Combat

The controls are relatively simple, but they’ve still managed to provide quite a challenge. You’re given an “Omni-tool” that can turn into a hammer, axe, shovel, or repair tool as needed. Simply holding the “Omni-tool” button (‘X’ by default on Xbox) near the item you’re trying to gather will gather that item.

You don’t have to switch, say, from a hammer after destroying a rock to the axe in order to chop down a tree. You just hold the button and it works. And there’s no wear on the Omni-tool, so you don’t have to worry about it breaking or having to repair or create a new one later. So that’s nice.

Movement

Traversing the world is largely on foot, and unfortunately, there’s no double-jump. Within the “mutations” menu, there’s a hidden upgrade under “Exploration”, which suggests there will be another way to move around the world in the future; but so far, I haven’t found out what it is yet*.

That said, I found myself not using my ant all that often. Primarily because of the Mutations you can apply to your character (more on those later). One of the mutations will increase the rate that your stamina recovers; but in order to unlock it (and it’s subsequent levels which improve the mutation), you have to deplete your stamina a bunch of times. I wanted to make sure I got the top level of that, so I ran pretty much everywhere; and essentially just got used to it.

Also, the ants combat assistance continues after your character dies. While you’re respawning and figuring out how to get back to your stuff, your ant is still fighting the enemy that killed you; and will often die itself doing so. You can call your ant to you as soon as you respawn, but you have to actually think to do that — which you won’t know to do at first. At least we didn’t, assuming our ants would continue to follow us like it did everywhere else (to an almost annoying point).

When your ant dies, there is a cooldown, seemingly, until you can call your ant again. And I have seen them come back after dying. But more often than not, we’ve looked up and are missing our ant. It’s not following us like it usually does, it doesn’t come when called, and when we open the companion menu, there’s no ants to be found.

Granted there is an anthill that can be built that we haven’t used yet. And that may facilitate the respawning of ants. But if that were the case, I’d love to see some acknowledgement of that. Say, a pop-up or something after the ant dies that says “build an anthill to bring your ant back” or something.

It’s the most obvious after loading back in to the game — either starting up a new session, or simply because the game crashed (which it does fairly often). Maybe there’s an issue where your ant disappears if the game quits or is closed before the cooldown is up. I’m not sure what the culprit is, but we’re each on our third ant. Maybe there’s something we’re missing but it just seems buggy (pun intended).

Combat

I mentioned earlier that this game is surprisingly tough, and combat is one of the reasons why. Fighting consists of pressing the right trigger to attack, the left trigger to block, and ‘B’ (on Xbox) to dodge. You can also do a perfect block (parry) by hitting the trigger at the exact moment they hit you. It’s relatively simplistic, but it’s anything but easy.

The window of opportunity to perfect block is larger than a lot of games that I’ve played; and the enemies attack patterns aren’t incredibly complicated. But there’s still times where blocking feels muddy, and you end up getting hit when you were sure you timed the perfect block correctly.

Even the initial bugs you come across, like ants, provide a decent challenge — they take a lot of hits to kill, and they do a decent amount of damage. I ran an archer build for a while and oftentimes simply dodging just didn’t cut it.

The bigger-stronger bugs are even more bullet-spongey, and some even have status effects like Venom or Sizzle. That’s not to even mention the damn stink bugs that release a gas cloud that damages you. You can make a gas mask that negates the effect of the bug’s cloud — but you need to kill a stink bug in order to make it. Kind of a catch-22.

Enemies also pretty relentless. There were several occasions I accidentally came across an aforementioned stinkbug or something, but knew I didn’t want to fight it. So I ran. But despite running well outside of where I found them, and seemingly running for a while (though it’s not like I timed it), I’d turn around and they’d still be there. You can get away. It’s possible. But make sure to keep running, and hope your health isn’t already low in the initial encounter — they’ll probably hit you once or twice before you’re far enough away.

Health

Don’t expect to just sit behind a rock for a little while and get back to the action, either. Health doesn’t regenerate, not even outside of combat. And the easiest health item available — Fiber Bandages made out of Plant Fiber and Sap — doesn’t regenerate your health instantly. There’s a sub-bar that slowly increases, and you’ll only get the health if you don’t get hit before it fills up.

There are potions that can be made that will give you more health and have it increase instantly, and some food will also increase health. And with the cooking station you can create meals that gives quite a bit of health and will cause it to regenerate for a short while. But those, of course, take more resources which takes more time to go out and acquire.

Health items and other consumables also only stack to 5 (until you’ve leveled up your Axe and find a pretty rare item, which takes a while). So I’ve really been struggling to balance holding the right amount of health items, and figuring out the most efficient way to create more.

So far, just grabbing the sap and plant fiber and making a few bandages has been the most efficient solution — given that they can be created on the fly and those items are the most readily available — but there’s still a lot of complications.

If you’ve got any status effects on you, you won’t actually gain any health from the wrap because, remember, there’s a sub-bar that increases that stops as soon as you take damage. So if you’re affected, you take damage immediately, and the healing instantly stops. And given the limited stack sizes, you’re not really able to hoard the materials, either.

The carrying-capacity smoothie might be the most efficient drink that can be made. I’ve started using them more and more — they recover a decent amount of health, and do so instantly. They take resources that are slightly more difficult to gather, though, than the wraps. And you can’t simply make them from your crafting menu — you have to make them at a specific Smoothie Station.

Sleep does regenerate health, too, but you can’t sleep whenever you want. The kids have to be “tired enough”. And it doesn’t regenerate all of your health. So health management is definitely an important aspect of this game.

Truthfully, given such small stack sizes, the lack of fast travel, and the complicated nature of finding a lot of the materials needed for health, I have no idea what the developers of the game intend for you to do to survive on long treks through the park.

You essentially have to use half of your inventory slots simply being prepared — needing food, torches, enough health items to survive a few tough encounters, and potentially a backup weapon (so you can both see and fight when necessary) can leave you with very few slots for gathering resources in a hurry.

Maybe I was supposed to make more bases instead of constantly trekking back to the same one. But, man, a lot of times it felt like there were decisions made to simply extend the required playtime arbitrarily.

Getting Stronger

Of course, there are ways to improve your strength and defense, and a surprising amount of playstyles to choose from. It’s actually quite deep. Each type of armor (type being the kind of bug used to make it) corresponds to a different combat style. And there’s three armor slots, so you can equip one of each of the same type of armor; which will give you an additional bonus.

So for example, equipping the Bee Facemask, Bee Shoulder Pads, and Bee Shinguards — which all give the Ranger bonus for archery — you not only get a speed increase when drawing an arrow, but your arrows can also release a pollen cloud that slows enemies.

While I went into the game not expecting much, I was pleasantly (and frustratingly) surprised with the combat. There were times I wanted to throw my controller through the TV, but isn’t that the mark of a solid experience? Don’t make the mistake of thinking that since you play as teenagers, and the graphics are a little on the cartoony side, that this is a simple, casual game. Like I did.

Some Mild Complaints…

An ongoing gripe with this game is inventory management. Resources only stack to 10, and consumables to 5 — and that’s only non-expiring consumables. All food (raw and cooked) can spoil, so they’re each on an individual countdown… Which means they each take up their own slot. Again, there’s no real way to hoard the items you need for long treks.

Granted there are upgrades to increase these amounts, but not by much; and not until several several hours into the game. If you’re the type loot every enemy and hoard every item (like me), well:

And most of them aren’t. Almost all of the weapons use both hands, so, so far, I’ve been running a couple weapons simultaneously.

I wanted to primarily be an archer, but I made sure to keep my spear leveled up because I knew I’d have to use it anytime I needed light at the same time. Even Candy Staves are two-handed, so I’ve been having to keep it up. At this point, spears are essentially my primary playstyle (again).

Hopefully there’s some sort of hip-mounted light source that we can unlock so that I can main pretty much any weapon. But until then, I’m making due.

You Mentioned Planks and Logs Earlier?

Something I’ve always loved in video games is the building and creating aspect. I remember copy and pasting ROSEBUD a hundred times, so I could build a megamansion and furnish it with the most expensive items in The SIMS. I’ve also grown to appreciate earning the ability to build a massive home, too, which is why I was so proud of my Minecraft builds.

Build Mechanics

Rather than needing the items in your inventory (or in storage nearby) to begin the building process; you’re able to put a  “ghost” of the item in the spot you want to place it. Then you’re able to come back and add the materials as you acquire them. It’s nice, because you can get a feel for what you’re trying to do before actually committing. And you’ll be able to see if your idea is even viable before wasting resources.

That said, occasionally I did wish I could build the items instantly. Namely floors and stairs, so I could get higher more easily to build more levels and the roof. Ceilings and roofs need to be supported as well — and you can’t even place the outline if they aren’t (an outline can be supported by another outline, which is good). So shaping substantial structures takes a bit of additional creativity to even plan. And you may find yourself building section-by-section.

I also need to keep experimenting with the building mechanics. I decided to start with building the floor (obviously), but I started with the lowest elevation in the area. So, a lot of the floor pieces ended up, visually, underground. They clipped through in order to attach to the other floor pieces. The ground floor of my house looks like a crawlspace under a trailer. I don’t love it.

I want to try building a new house, this time starting at the highest elevation in the area. But I feel like the house would look like it was floating or cantilevered at that point; which I don’t think I want. The best-case scenario, which I need to figure out, would be Palworld-style where the bottom level creates a “foundation” to the ground, so it’s not just floating, and it makes sense visually. Again, it’s something I need to test. Again, maybe in creative mode.

Time to Buzz Off!

Overall, I’ve had a surprising amount of fun playing Grounded 2. It’s still in Game Preview mode, and it shows in a lot of ways. But running around as a three-inch person, and experiencing this perspective has been incredibly interesting. And despite it’s somewhat cartoonish appearance, it can really give you a challenge (and a scare if bugs already freak you out).

I’ve still got some work to do in order to re-grow myself, and I can’t wait to dive back in. Just don’t ask me to play in VR.

The post Grounded 2 | All The Small Things appeared first on I Talk Games.

So when I heard about a new game by the same creators, that was set in a futuristic world, I was extremely excited. I remember playing the original GTA (the top-down versions) which had multiple factions/gangs, and you had varying levels of reputation with each. If you had high enough reputation, you’d get more missions and other benefits from them.

Spoiler Disclaimer: I don’t necessarily try to spoil anything, but I do give my authentic experience. Sometimes that entails giving details about the story or late-game items you may want to discover for yourself. Proceed with caution

The initial hype had me hooked, hearing about the different backgrounds you can select and how the world was split into areas controlled by different factions — Voodoo Boys, Tyger Claws etc. When those first few bits of information started to come out, I thought back to those early GTA times and thought the relationships with the factions would be a big point.

Here’s to a Never-Ending Backlog!

Regardless of my excitement, I’m still a big proponent of not pre-ordering games. Especially in this day-and-age where we can simply download them. It’s not like you have to sit in line at a store so you can acquire your copy at midnight anymore.

So, I waited until the initial information about the actual game came out before buying it myself (and as we all know it was a doozy). Also, I’m perpetually behind on games, anyway. So I wasn’t exactly ready to play as soon as it came out. Fortunately for me, by the time I played, the vast majority of the kinks had been ironed out.

I will say that I was a bit disappointed in how the gangs and their territories ultimately came in to play. It doesn’t really seem like any of your choices are all that impactful. I think there are a couple specific quests where, if you go one way or the other, the way you’re treated later by some members might change. And I know choices are impactful for personal relationships. But there was definitely no reputation system and nothing seemed to be locked behind being to friendly with one clique over another.

Hell, in my first play-through, I was extremely hesitant to work with or for anyone who seemed like police. I kind of avoided Regina’s gigs and the Cyberpsychos, and didn’t really do of the Assault in Progresses. I was playing as a corpo-turned-criminal, and I didn’t want anyone getting the idea that I might work with cops.

That said, after playing a while, doing a couple, and seeing nothing change; I realized they were inconsequential. It doesn’t really matter. I can do a gig in a Tyger Claw bar, kill everyone in there, then walk through the front door to Clouds like it doesn’t matter.

I suppose there’s one quest — well, Side Job — where you’re somewhat recognized. There’s a food vendor who convinced his sister to leave her gang and take a job with a corp. A couple guys from the gang want to steal his bike in revenge, and if your rep is high enough, they might recognize you and run away.

If you’re becoming a “Night City Legend” though, it would seem that you’d get recognized like that more often, but you don’t. Combined with the lack of meaningful reputation, I don’t ever feel like I’m becoming a Legend. I see how I’m becoming more and more unbeatable; and am taking down groups of enemies without breaking a sweat — but without the recognition it doesn’t give legendary to me.

Enough Complaining

Having just played Watch_Dogs, I leaned into the Netrunner on my initial play-through. I really like the idea of sitting outside of a building, hacking into their cameras, and just taking care of whatever I need to take care of from afar. Makes me feel like the “guy in the chair” but more deadly.

Cyberpunk doesn’t fully let you do that — given a lot of the missions require physically stealing something, uploading software, or rescuing a person. But still, Doing recon and taking out anyone who might be in my way before I even set foot into the building was a lot of fun.

That said, I saw the other options open to someone who wants to vary their playstyle (or have multiple play-throughs) and very quickly had some ideas on what I wanted to do next. It’s taken a few years to get to that point. But with a few big updates (and, obviously, Phantom Liberty) behind us and the upcoming 0.23 release, I thought this was the perfect time to dive back in and try out something new (and see what I’ve been missing since those huge updates dropped).

Even while playing the first time a few years ago, I anticipated doing a female V for my second playthrough, using Sandy and the Mantis Blades. In hindsight, that character might be a bit cliché (I’ve been watching some Cyberpunk YouTube videos, and I realize I basically created Oda), but oh well it sounded fun.

While I see how you can still go through the game without really ever using the weaponized vehicles — and you wouldn’t miss out on much. It’s a nice addition, and they’ve certainly been fun to play around with.

I also don’t remember crafting being as robust as it is — being able to craft weapons and quickhacks & upgrade cyberware. I can’t say I touched the crafting menu once in my first playthrough, but now I often find myself looking through it to see if there’s anything new I can use.

Even after several hours in the new playthrough, I’m still finding new items and upgrades that I can craft (technically I’m kind of on my third playthrough, too, because I’m running a couple characters concurrently; so that helps with keeping crafting fresh)

Early Struggles with New Playstyle

When I started playing, I pretty immediately fell into old habits and wanted to play stealthily. I really like the idea of getting in-and-out of places without the people being any wiser. Nobody knows the thing is missing until they need it and check on it. Real Danny Ocean stuff.

I thought that one of the primary selling points of the Sandevistan was that you’d be too fast to be noticed. In the early-game, though, that wasn’t the case for me. Moving as fast as I’m able, I was still frequently getting seen by cameras and other enemies. And once I inevitably entered combat, my perks felt pointless.

I distinctly remember attempting to dodge a melee enemy, but they still hit me. Sometimes they were far away, but the hit still registered, and others they would just zoom up next to me by the time they were actually going to hit me. It was super frustrating; but in hindsight, I guess hadn’t upgraded anything yet, so it makes sense that higher-level enemies could still hurt me.

I also struggled in the early game with Sandy, given I had no real way to survey my environment or make enemies look away (so I thought, I figured out throwing knives later — oh and I did find the recon grenade as well, but those are ass…).

So in general, there was a lot of trial and error to figuring out this playstyle. Reddit told me to just be aggressive, go in and mess everyone up; but I didn’t want that. And now that she’s more established, I’m happy with the route I went.

Ghost in the Shell

A huge help in being stealthy was the perk that decreased detection as your mitigation chance increased (when crouched). Whenever I added more cyberware, I primarily focused on maximizing my mitigation chance; and now, my detection is at 12% [confirm this] when crouched. I am virtually invisible. I also got myself to a place where I could unlock crouch sprint pretty quickly, and that was a big help.

To leave nothing to chance, I also started using optical camo, too — it’s basically gotten to a point where I don’t feel like I fight enough sometimes. I find myself initiating combat when I don’t really need to, just to get the experience points. I’m basically a ghost, picking and choosing the times I bless the enemies with being able to see me.

Staying on the “Ninja” theme, I wanted to use blades whenever I engaged an enemy. Initially, I wasn’t sure how I’d defend myself from guns when I’m using a sword or arm-blades, and planned to rely on moving around quickly enough with the Sandy. I was pleasantly surprised, though, when I found the bullet deflect perk; and felt like Luke Skywalker returning bullets back to the shooters with prejudice.

When I first started out, I was watching Titans (the live-action show about Robin, Raven, Starfire, and Beast Boy); and saw this V having a similar skillset to Deathstroke — using a sniper to take care of enemies that were too far away to use blades. I soon realized, though:

1. That largely goes against the stealth aspect — I was found every time I shot (didn’t stick with it long enough to find out if there’s silenced snipers) and
2. There aren’t that many opportunities to snipe in the first place. Most encounters are relatively close quarters, being inside rooms and in alleys and hallways.

I decided to forego the sniper, my decision being a lot easier when I learned that I could throw knives. Honestly, I never knew throwing knives were in the game. And when I first found out, I thought they were their own separate weapon. I didn’t know that you could just throw knives. Once I found that out, though, those projectiles played perfectly with the blades theme I was going for.

With the Kerenzikov cyberware + Sandevistan cyberware + Juggler perk, you can run into an area and take out all the enemies before the guys crouching have a chance to stand up. I saw a clip of a guy who drove by some enemies, jumped out of his car with Sandy on, took out all of the guys and got back into his moving vehicle that stayed in the flow of traffic. I’m not quite that dialed in yet, but I want to try my hand at something similar soon.

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same…

There are some things that are frustrating that are the same three years and several updates later. The primary beef I have with this game (and games like it) are the dialogue options. There’s no indication of what’s actually going to be said when an option is chosen, or the tone it’s going to come out in or anything.

I understand making choices, and seeing the outcomes and consequences of those choices; but it doesn’t feel like I’m actually making a choice. It all seems arbitrary. I’ll read an answer in one inflection, but when spoken, V uses a completely different tone. I may want to be nice, but instead that option has V say something mean and the person I’m talking to gets mad.

I distinctly remember a conversation between V and Judy on the roof, where I was trying to be supportive. My girlfriend was watching me play, and we talked through which one’s we thought would be the best/most comforting/”nicest” option given the scenario. I reloaded the save a couple of times so that we could see the outcome of each of the three options.

Turns out, the once that both of us agreed was the least likely to give the response we wanted to give was in fact the one to give the most positive, supportive response. It makes it feel less like a role-playing experience and more like a guess-and-hope experience. I’m just glad this game lets you freely save-scum. I have no qualms with it in this scenario.

At Least Cars Actually Have a Purpose Now

I think driving still leaves a little to be desired. The cars handle a bit weirdly — turning can be difficult and drifting is far too easy. And cars are too quick to get to their top speeds, causing the engine audio to sound like you’re constantly redlining.

That said, I’m a Night City legend, so of course I had to get myself a Rayfield (or two). And since there’s a target on my back, I got myself a Hellhound just to be safe. I’m still working toward that Trailbruiser, it looks sick.

Something else that’s new that I really enjoy, is the body check for stealing vehicles. It’s always felt a little too easy just klepping the coolest-looking car in GTA. So making sure you’re strong enough to actually steal the car is refreshing. I kind of wish it were based on more than just body. I should be able to, say, open the door remotely if I can literally take over the whole car. But I still definitely like that they implemented this feature.

And this isn’t new, but I really like that some of the cars have video screens showing the outside, instead of windows. It’s the best of both worlds — more protection as well as being hidden from prying eyes. On top of that it’s just cool. Maybe not all that practical (you’d be completely blind if the cameras go down) but incredibly cool nonetheless.

Also, and this is apropos of nothing, but I think there needs to be a steal or pickpocket mechanic. If I want to role play as a thief, I should be able to get access to rooms by lifting the key off of an enemy; and not having to incapacitate everyone.

Later Chooms

There’s a lot of potential still to be had in Night City, I think. More reasons to use weaponized vehicles, the ability to acquire a flying car, and actually being able to experience the BD’s you buy (though, that could push the game into a completely different territory it doesn’t want to be in) are all ways this world can be built upon.

I heard there aren’t any plans to release more content in this game, but I don’t believe that’s actually true. The last couple updates were unplanned (or, at least, unannounced) so hopefully, that’s simply the case.

In the meantime, though, I’m really enjoying my 2025 playthrough(s) of this game. I’m constantly finding new and unique ways to combine perks, cyberware, weapons, and more to most efficiently solve gigs, take out enemies, cripple the corpos, and ultimately leave my mark on Night City. Peace, I’m off to find Songbird.

The post Cyberpunk 2077 | A Fresh Experience in Night City appeared first on I Talk Games.

It wasn’t entirely clear what the gameplay was going to be, but it looked fun and it was co-op; and worst-case-scenario we could just un-install it. So we downloaded it to be able to play the next day when it came out.*

A couple quick disclaimers before we dive in:

For one, as an Amazon Associate, if you decide to make a purchase through a link here, I may earn a small commission. It’s at no additional cost to you, and helps out the blog.

Additionally, I lay it all out there as I’ve played it, so if you’re sensitive to spoilers, read at your own risk. Thanks, and hope you enjoy!

Starting Out

We locked in our characters and their names, and dove in to the game.

A “Lighter” Diablo?

It’s almost impossible to talk about this game without talking about Diablo because there are so many similarities. There are a lot of comparisons here, so if you’re familiar with Diablo, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s online, so you’ll see other players running around as you’re doing the same. This was pretty unexpected, and I was thrown off when I tried to name my character simply “Ice” and it was “taken”… I didn’t realize I needed to come up with a “username”.

I didn’t love that I had to do that, so I just made something random & dumb — and did the same nomenclature with the GFs character’s name. Ended up going with Icethedragon for me and Saiyathedragon for her — y’know, because she’s a Saiyan. In hindsight, I should’ve gone with ITalkGames, but, hey, can’t go back.

Story & Character

For centuries, the people have been at war with the monsters that live in the land. They longed for more, though, and eventually built a city based on knowledge and not war — the city of Numbers. It was protected for a while, and society was largely thriving.

After a while, the monsters managed to blow up the barrier that guarded the city, killing thousands, and overrunning it. The people left and were able to survive by creating their society built into the side of a Belfry — which is a giant bell tower with a windmill on top.

In Towerborne, when people die they’re sent to The Ebb. And due to whatever damaged the city protections, the boundary between their world and The Ebb has been weakened. Harnessing the power of a mirror, though, there’s a person who’s able to pull souls from “The Ebb” who are willing. These souls are the souls of Aces, which is what you play as. And as Aces, it’s our job to keep the monsters at bay.

Character Creation

The open-endedness of the main character means that you can create your own Ace to play as. And as I mentioned earlier, the customization options are fairly in-depth. The body types are just Masculine or Feminine, and there are 8 voice options (largely for grunting and exclaiming). But the face is where it really opens up.

You’re able to customize pretty much all of the facial elements, and for some (like eyes) you can even get as detailed as adjusting sliders to really dial in the look you want. It’s definitely more of an anime style, so you’re not going to be able to look exactly like yourself, if that’s something you want.

That said, if you enjoy creating a character and giving them a unique look, there are a ton of options and a lot to like here. I will say that the facial hair options leave a bit to be desired. It was because of that that I decided to make a more interesting-looking character rather than one that looked like me — I couldn’t fine facial hair that I liked.

Classes

Instead of picking a single race or class for your character, there’s 4 archetypes you can choose from and switch between freely:

• Sentinel – the sword-and-shield fighter that can block and parry
• Pyroclast – wields a a stick that they can both beat enemies and shoot them with, causing Burn
• Rockbreaker – the boxer, who uses giant gloves to pummel their enemies
• Shadowstriker – an assassin that uses dual daggers to quickly dice their opponents.

Like I said, you can switch between these freely. So if you don’t like your current playstyle, you don’t have to create an entirely new character in order to try out something new. Each class does level independently, though, so you’ll have to take a bit of a step back when switching between them.

At first, I did try to level mine up uniformly — switching to a new class every 3 or 4 levels — but it got tedious. And, since I’m playing with my girlfriend, we’ve decided to stagger the leveling of our characters so it can be done quickly. When she decides to switch it up, I’ll carry her low-level characters in higher-level, well, levels, so she’ll get that much more XP. And vice versa.

Gameplay

When you’re thrown into the game, you’re given a short tutorial on how to fight, jump, dodge etc., and then you’re taken to the Belfry. The Belfry is the main “base” area of the game, and is where you collect and turn in missions, upgrade your gear, things like that.

In the beginning, you’re introduced to a few of the main characters. And through the first couple of quests that they give you, it introduces you to the gist of what’s going on. I will say that at first, even with the introductory missions, things weren’t extremely clear. I had a hard time figuring out where to go, and more than once I found myself in the completely wrong area. But after a couple missions you get the hang of it and it all falls in to place.

Map & Exploration

It’s pretty interesting the way they’ve gone about exploring and finishing quests, and I kind of dig it. You interact with the “map” to go out in to the world, but the world is made up of several hexagonal tiles.

You stand on, and interact with, the tile in order to start the mission or obtain the item. And you can pretty clearly see what you’re getting in to before you start a mission or objective. You’re shown the recommended “Gear Score” that you should be in order to complete it; and if you’ve advanced beyond the first area, you can choose the “Danger Level” before you start, but I’ll get to those later.

Some of the tiles can only be completed once — in fact, most of them can only be completed once. Doing so is how you’re clearing out the area of Monsters and making the Belfry a safer place. That said, there are a few tiles with repeatable events — and the “boss” areas in each biome are repeatable — so you can always go back to level up your characters.

Equipment & Items

Like Diablo, as you complete missions and clear out areas (in the form of the tiles) you collect various items — weapons, armor, and resources to enhance those. The weapons and armor come in various tiers and rarities, with common+ items also granting additional bonuses.

These bonuses run the gamut from increasing your crit rate or damage, to causing a status effect (like Bleed or Poison). Or even increasing the amount of health you have and granting regen. Again, if you’re familiar with Diablo, this will be right up your alley.

I brushed on it earlier, but each weapon and piece of armor grants a Gear Score. The higher tier, and more-rare items grant higher Gear Scores (naturally). This is done in a bit more simplistic way than Diablo (if I may continue the comparisons) where each tier and rarity of item grants the same Gear Score, rather than them being individually rated.

So for example, all T2 Rare (blue) pieces of chest armor are going to increase your score by the same amount, no matter what the power itself is. It definitely streamlines the decision-making process and I might say I prefer it this way.

Don’t worry, yes there are armor sets as well. These are how you take your character to the next level. By equipping the correct number of items within the same set, you’ll get additional bonuses on top of what’s already granted by each item individually.

Sometimes they’ll grant health bonuses, sometimes they’ll grant strength bonuses for yourself and your teammates, sometimes they increase the power of a move or move-type, and more. This is something that I love, and I’ve spent hours in various dungeons trying to complete sets in other games. I can definitely see myself doing the same here.

Danger Levels

In the beginning when you interact with the map, you’ll notice that you’re restricted in how far you can go. Near the borders where you can’t progress are numbers; and those numbers are the Danger Levels you have to reach in order to get there.

In order to progress to the next Danger Level, you have to pass a trial. The Danger License Trial can only be done solo, and it’s a challenge to defeat groups of enemies within a certain amount of time. If you pass, you move on to the next level. It’s a pretty unique gameplay mechanic that I haven’t seen before, and I like what they’ve done there.

The additional skills do things like increase the strength and type (poison, burn) of your attacks, and add bonuses to other attacks and combos. They also will allow you to have better defense — recover from knockdowns faster for example — and will increase the benefits of life potions.

There are several different skills in each group, and you can mix and match your skills at any time. There’s no penalty for de-selecting a skill, you don’t have to pay anything to re-map your moves, and you don’t get fewer skill points back than you spent. You can feel free to experiment with any sort of combination and switch it up on the fly.

I’m not gonna lie, I have issues making decisions sometimes. And when I’m playing something like Diablo, it can get overwhelming. And sometimes, I end up spending more time making sure my skills and equipment are in sync than I do actually using my skills and abilities. Here, I can pick and choose with ease, so I don’t have to worry as much about it.

Umbras

In addition to your own skills and abilities, you also have an Umbra that follows you around wherever you go. They’re also souls that have been pulled from The Ebb, and they take the form of (honestly, adorable) “pets” that follow you around.

And while they may be cute, they can really turn the tides when fighting monsters. Each one does something different, from shooting a projectile to dropping a bomb, or even supporting you with health increases; and you find them as you’re exploring the world. It’s a nice addition, and you can use them in fun ways to devastate your enemies.

Combat

All of that leads in to the “meat” of the game: fighting. Combat is fun and pretty satisfying, and I haven’t even found a legendary item yet. What I mean by that is (if it’s as I’m expecting) the Rare items are great, but there’s a significant shift with the abilities of the next tier up and beyond. And sets at those levels are where the “Thor showing up to the Infinity War” vibes really start to come in. I haven’t even gotten there, and I’m still liking it.

It’s largely combo-based, with a Light Attack and Heavy Attack (X and Y respectively on Xbox). And pressing them in certain sequences produces different results. And as you add additional skills, different variations and bonuses can be applied to your combos. There’s also both a Focus Meter and a Weapon Meter, which fill as you fight, and can be spent to execute the additional skills you can equip. There’s a good variety of moves for each class, and I’m excited to find out the different combinations I can make.

When your attacks connect with enemies, it’s pretty satisfying — it’s pretty good about making you really feel the hits. And you can definitely feel your strength increases when you start to eviscerate weaker enemies. It’s largely melee — there’s the Pyroclast class can shoot a bit, and there are some skills that let you occasionally attack from afar. But by-and-large, you’re going to be up-close to your enemies attacking them.

I typically like to play as a bit of a stand-back, attack-from-afar, mage-type character, and I’m kind of glad that that’s not even an option here.

Enemies

There’s a good variety of enemies, too, so you need to stay on your toes. There’s enemies that block (which you have to break to really damage them); there’s spear-wielding enemies that charge at you; there’s bombers, which you have to be really careful of — but if you get to them in time, they’ll blow themselves up, and more. Not to mention the bosses with stronger hits, and attack patterns that you have to memorize to defeat them. I’m continually surprised coming across new enemies, and each one gives a unique challenge in how to approach them and take them out.

I do want to point out that because of the side-scrolling 3D aspect of the game, missing your attacks is relatively common. You can be standing right next to the enemy, but technically slightly behind them… maybe..? so your attack won’t register. That can be pretty infuriating, especially when you use a focus attack or something that uses a resource that you have to wait to replenish.

All-in-all, attacks are gratifying, the enemies are challenging, and it makes for a rewarding leveling and looting experience.

Skins, Cosmetics, Stickers & Emotes

In addition to unlocking more, and better, armor; there’s also a plethora of cosmetic options that can be unlocked, too (and it seems to be a pretty significant part of the game (of course)). One thing I like, already, is that a lot of these cosmetics seem to be accomplishment-based, and not monetary-based¨.

I have no idea what some of the later-game outfits and skins look like right now, but I’m excited to find out. And I really like that you have to pay attention to the side missions and actually go for them in order to attain these items. Like going for Dark Matter in Call of Duty. When people see what you’ve got on, they’ll know that you’re elite.

Other than COD or Diablo, none of the other games I’ve played does this well. Typically, if there are cosmetics to be earned, they can also simply be bought. And there’s often no indication of which was which. I really prefer it this way, and hope more games do it this way in the future (looking at you GTA VI).

Overall, if you want something a little less intense, and a little less in-depth than diablo, then you’ll definitely want to give this a shot. It’s great. It’s relatively lighthearted and fun, but there’s still a ton of customization and move combinations. And with the different classes and moves to try, alongside the cosmetics and emotes that can be unlocked, there’s a near endless number of things to keep you engaged and coming back for more.

Thanks for reading! Have you played Towerborne yet? Let me know in the comments what your favorite playstyle has been so far. If not, give it a shot on GamePass. And make sure to come back soon for more gaming content!

The post Towerborne – Satisfying Side-Scrolling Brawler/Looter appeared first on I Talk Games.

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I haven’t gotten around to playing the Monster Hunter games yet, and that was the first thing that jumped out to me with this game. I watched the trailer and it showed the protagonist Brynn climbing up giant enemies, attempting to take down mountain-sized monsters. On top of that, the description talked about wielding magic, and creating weapons and armor to enhance your abilities, which sounded right up my alley. I installed it and dove in, and so far, I’m pleasantly surprised.

Visuals

The first thing I noticed were the graphics and visuals, and the various cutscene styles in the game. Some of the cutscenes are full videos, some are just a series of still with audio over them, and some are interesting in a way that’s difficult to describe. The characters move at, like, 5 FPS, and the scenery is mostly static. I don’t know, check this out:

I kind of like what they did there, strangely. It’s a little weird to look at, sure, but it’s unique and I bet it saves a lot on the size of the game. I can appreciate the efficiency.

When you’re actually playing the game, I’d say the graphics are kind of “comic book” in a way, and I think it looks great. The world is beautiful and the scenery is enjoyable to take in as you jump, climb, and fight around the various areas. It doesn’t look realistic — but in a way that looks intentional. And in my opinion, it really works.

Story & Gameplay

When it comes to the storyline and gameplay, Eternal Strands combines elements from a lot of different types of games into it’s own unique package, in a way that I’ve been enjoying.

In a storyline that seems somewhat reminiscent of The Witcher, you play as a “Weaver” — someone who studies and wields magic — who have largely been shunned from society. In the past, Weavers lived in harmony with the rest of the world, with their primary home being The Enclave. But 50 years ago there was an “arcane event”, after which the weavers sealed themselves off in The Enclave and the world plunged into war. While it’s not explicitly known what role the weavers had in the “event” and the war, they’ve been blamed for it nonetheless.

Not all Weavers called The Enclave home, though, and the ones remaining in the world have become a pariah. So, a lot of them have dedicated their time to getting beyond the barrier into The Enclave, so that they can get answers. Unfortunately, though, nobody has been able to.

Brynn has bounced around with a few different bands of Weavers, but when her last team disbanded, she landed with this group. And in a stroke of luck (maybe?) we’ve managed to become the first weavers to every make it beyond the veil and into The Enclave. Hopefully we’ll be able to learn more about what happened.

It’s a resource-gathering and crafting game, but not a mining or survival game. You need resources in order to craft weapons and armor, but you don’t need to make any sort of additional tools. Resources are dropped, seemingly randomly, from the various destructible items in the world (which there are plenty of, but I’ll get to that). And it’s a roguelite, where you essentially go on “runs” to complete tasks and gather the resources needed to upgrade your weapons and gear.

Between runs, you go back to your camp; and each time you do, the time passes. There’s two day periods and one night period, and the weather can change forcing you to think about your strategy each time you head back out. The strength and weaknesses of your enemies, and the ones that you should focus on for yourself, will change based on the time and weather conditions. So you’ll have to create many different types of weapons and armor using varying materials so that you can be prepared for whatever the game throws at you.

At the camp is where you can upgrade your gear, which is done by the various members of your Weaver group. Talking to the people around the camp, you’ll be able to create and unlock upgrades that will help with your survival in the world. Ultimately making your task of finding out answers easier.

There’s no character customization, but the armor you equip will change your look a bit. I haven’t seen any sort of transmog at all, but there’s a chance it’ll come later. Other than the items’ look itself, you can also change the colors of each item by using a different material. That said, the different materials grant different bonuses, so you won’t want to focus solely on cosmetics.

Exploration & Navigation

When exploring in Eternal Strands, there isn’t a minimap or compass or anything like that to show you where you are while you’re moving around the world, unfortunately. There is an actual map you can check in the pause menu, and you can call a “Watcher’s Wisp” that will guide you toward your objective. But if you’re one place in the world and you want to go to another area (not necessarily toward your next objective), you’ll largely have to orient yourself on the map in the pause menu and rely on memory.

That said, instead of one gigantic map, the game is broken into smaller worlds you go to on each run. Overall, it is one giant world, and you can move between them; but I’ve found that each run is typically spent in one world/area. And while they’re not necessarily massive, the worlds have plenty to explore, and many hidden secrets to be found. It all feels very tight and deliberate (in the best way), and I never found myself feeling particularly lost. There were times where I wasn’t 100% sure where I was, but a quick look at the map and it was pretty obvious.

Some things — larger items like trees in particular — break into smaller pieces that can also be destroyed. I think endgame content for me is to simply see if I can destroy everything that can be destroyed in the world in one run. If my spells and weapons are powerful enough, I’ll give it a shot for sure. Stay tuned for that.

Also not only is nearly everything destructible, but almost every surface is climbable as well. There’s mountains and trees and buildings, and you can climb all of them. Be mindful of your stamina bar, though. Once it runs out, you’re going to drop off of whatever it is that you’re climbing.

Movement & Combat

Movement can be a little wonky, especially around running out of stamina. When you’re sprinting, there tends to be a little bit of drift (though, that’s fairly easy to get used to) and occasionally there’s a delayed reaction after pressing a buttons. I will say that I did notice that my stamina was low in those situations sometimes. So, maybe this was user error. I often accidentally overlook the stamina bar while I’m focused on enemies — it kind of just fades in to the background for me — so it’s just something i need to be cognizant about.

There’s also the typical issue of getting stuck on an object while trying to dodge or escape an enemy, because you were focused on them and couldn’t really see what was around you. I’m not sure how any game could manage that better, though.

Combat is fine, but there is a little to be desired there, too. There were times where it was unmistakable to me that I hit an enemy, but they didn’t get hit. I was maybe just a little too far away? I’m not sure. Video games. And when I was climbing one of the giant enemies — an Ark — trying to hit its vulnerable spot after knocking off its armor, I had to be in the exact right spot in order to actually get a hit. You don’t have a lot of time before the Ark tries to either grab you and pull you off, or shake you off. So it was that much more frustrating missing a hit when I knew I didn’t have that many opportunities.

It’s also one of those games where the attack animation won’t interrupt in order to do something else. If you start to attack, but notice that the enemy is attacking, there’s not much you can do to avoid it. She’s going to continue to swing the sword and take the hit in the process. It calls for a lot more patient combat instead of just button-mashing.

I’d love to be able to stop what I’m doing to dodge or parry, but it is what it is. It is more realistic, but, I mean, where’s the realism when I’m using magic. And sometimes, even when I want to be patient, it’s tough when their attacks are faster than yours. Some of the enemies have a couple quick hits that they can get in while you’re swinging.

I had some struggles working with the spells, too — especially the telekinesis spell. In order to lift and move an object, the object needs to be glowing to confirm it’s the one you want to manipulate. It takes a bit before the item glows, though, and you have to be pretty spot on with the reticle. If you’re off by just a little bit, it won’t recognize what you want to grab.

Or, there would be a delay, so when I tried to grab something, I’d release the button to try again thinking that it didn’t work. It did work, though, and now the item is just floating there. And each time you press the button to activate the spell, you use some of your magic, whether you actually do the thing you’re intending to do or not. You could pick up nothing and the magic would still get spent, so if you mis-grab even twice, you’re now out of magic.

This all proved to be incredibly frustrating when I’m being attacked from multiple angles, and I’m trying to use a rock or a trailer to knock the enemies back and give myself some breathing room. Hopefully as I upgrade that move, it works a bit more quickly and reliably. The rest of the elements are similar in that you have to be pretty spot on with your aim in order to hit where you’re trying to hit. It’s pretty unforgiving.

Additional Details

Speaking of combat, one of the biggest issues to me is that you can be harmed by your own elements. If you trap an enemy with an ice spell then run up to attack them with your sword, you’re going to be taking damage from being too close to the ice. Or if you want to hit an enemy with your flame spell, you better hope you’re not too close to it because you’re going to take damage, too.

Again, I guess I get it from a realism perspective, but it also kind of makes me not want to use my powers in a lot of ways, which I think defeats the purpose. Also, when an enemy essentially has to attack through themselves to get to you (because you’re on top of them, like with the Ashpeak Drake) they don’t take damage from their own spells, so why do I? IDK, I guess it hasn’t proven to be that big of a deal yet, but it is a little weird. Something to get used to.

Health is somewhat hard to come by. It seems as though it’s a random drop, and there’s no indicator of which item will drop health — at least I haven’t noticed one. If there is and I missed it, let me know in the comments, I’d be so upset. I wouldn’t be shocked to find/be able to make equipment that gives me health regen or something to keep me alive longer, later, but early-on It’s a bit of a struggle. More than once, I had to do a tactical retreat from the enemies to see if I could find more health.

I played for several hours, but feel like I’ve only just begun with this game. I feel like I’m struggling a bit with the enemies, but I also think I could stand to take my time a little bit and not rush. I’m focused so much on completing the next task that I’m not taking time to make sure I’m strong enough to actually accomplish it.

The second time I fought the Ark in the beginning world, the battle itself took me a long time. I ended up running away several times to look for more health vials before going back and re-engaging. Eventually, when I couldn’t find anymore health vials, I ended up just standing in places where I couldn’t really get hit and just using my bow which was incredibly tedious.

After a bunch of running away, coming back, hiding, etc. I did end up defeating the Ark again. But I found myself wondering if I was going against the spirit of the game. Maybe I’ll take the time to get strong enough to dominate the area I’m in before moving on to the next. It is a roguelite after-all. Gotta buckle in.

I sunk a bunch of hours into this game, saw several maps, and took out 3 bosses; but truthfully, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. I’ve only crafted a couple new weapons and pieces of armor, and am looking forward to seeing what else I can create. And I’ve only leveled up two of my spells, with quite a bit more yet to be discovered. Despite some of the kind of wonky mechanics, there’s a whole lot about this game to like, and even more to be discovered. I can’t wait to find out what’s hiding out there.

Thanks for reading! Let me know in the comments what you thought of Eternal Strands if you’ve played it. If not, give it a shot on GamePass. And make sure to come back soon for more gaming content!

The post Eternal Strands | Giant-Slaying Roguelite appeared first on I Talk Games.

A while back I was scrolling through GamePass, as I often do, and I came across this game Robin Hood: Sherwood Builders. At the time, I was playing a lot of PalWorld, and when I read the description, it sounded like it had some similar vibes — like a building and resource gathering-type game, but as Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, rather than hunting and catching Pals. It sounded dope.

I don’t know why, because now that I think about it I don’t really have any strong memories of watching Robin Hood content when I was a kit. Maybe that cartoon with the fox as Robin, but even with that I can’t say I remember many details. I never saw Men in Tights (forgive me, I’ll put it on the list).

Still, for some reason I thought it sounded dope to play as Robert of Loxleyª, so I installed the game. I didn’t play it right away — it sat for several months — but recently I had a few hours to kill and wanted to try something new. So I fired this up.

Why are We Gathering Resources & Building?

The area that will become the town, from what I can tell, looks pretty sizable. And there even seems to be the bones for other types of buildings that will come, possibly after I reach certain parts in the game. There’s a section near a river that I just know is going to be some sort of sawmill.

Maintaining food and water levels for yourself is important in this game, too. There’s meters you have to keep an eye on and the meat that you gather can be used for Robin as well. There’s a place at your camp where you can cook the meat, and there’s a well where you can fill up water bottles. Yes, you need to have empty water bottles. It’s all plentiful, though, and it takes a while for the levels to deplete. So far I haven’t been affected by them yet.

I even tried deliberately to go hungry and thirsty to see what would happen. I chopped down trees, took on enemies, and ran around with empty food and water levels, but nothing ever actually happened. Eventually I got impatient, and moved on to an actual mission, and replenished my levels, so I’m still unsure (with the way the game saves, I didn’t want to find out what happens in the middle of a mission, and find myself reloading to a point hours in the past).

There’s also a kitchen that can be built that will give better-quality foods with more helpful properties. And of course there’s the furnace where you refine your raw materials, the blacksmith for your weapons, and the tailor for your armor. As well as training grounds to improve your abilities and even taverns for your townsfolk to enjoy.

Creating a better society for people requires, well, infrastructure. And as Robin, you’re building better infrastructure for the people of Sherwood Forest and beyond.

Issues & Frustrations

Movement and Combat

Right off the bat, I want to say this is a strange experience because the mechanics are, frankly, dogshit. Movement is clunky and inconsistent, and the crosshairs might as well not exist. You often jump when trying to dodge, and you’ll never be in the correct spot on the first try when mining or chopping down trees — which is a pretty big part of the game. If you do happen to get it on the first try, you’ll inevitably end up moving anyway because you’ll assume you hadn’t.

I’ve got some qualms about fighting that I think might be fixed by upgrading my skills in the tree, but one thing that I can’t upgrade is how it’s super inconsistent with dodging. Dodge, on Xbox, is “A”, but so is jump. When I’m sword-fighting a group of baddies, sometimes when I try to dodge an attack, I’ll instead jump kind of in the direction I was trying to dodge and I’ll still get hit. It’s incredibly frustrating.

Stealth is also an option in Robin Hood. There’s armor that decreases your visibility and movement sounds, and there’s skills in the skill tree that can be unlocked to do the same. That said, I haven’t fount it very useful — at least not yet.

In the very early-game, before you can unlock upgraded armor sets, you get spotted pretty easily. There’s tall grass to hide in, but as soon as you pop out, you’re often seen. On top of that, the game has done a pretty good job of having guards within eyeshot of other guards, so they’re not often completely isolated. And on top of that, you can only stealth takedown enemies that are the same level or lower than you; which they often are not.

Some areas I’ve noticed have birds you can use to get a slightly better view of the area. They’re glowing and if you look at them you can look through them to see where enemies are. It’s better than nothing, I suppose, but it doesn’t help all that much. The view is kind of blurry and distorted and it’s tough to tell the enemies from the other people just walking around. And Robin has a “Hunter Vision” that allows you to highlight enemies through walls (among other things) which works way better. It’s a cool idea, but is pretty meh in execution.

Once you are able to craft your first new set of armor, you’ve got two options: one geared more toward stealth and one toward health. But by the time I was able to unlock them, the difference in stealth applied by the “stealth” armor wasn’t much more than what I had anyway. And with the other set’s ability to regenerate my health outside of battle, it was a no-brainer.

Building

The Build Mode’s only real redeeming factor is that buildings are pre-built and just need to be placed. You don’t place individual walls and floors at all like in some other games. But even simply placing them isn’t super straight-forward. When playing with a controller on Xbox, the left stick controls the mouse cursor, the right stick pans around the space, and the triggers zoom in and out. So, in order to move, you have to use a mix of the right stick for direction and triggers for motion. It’s extremely counter-intuitive. And that’s before you decide on which building you want to place.

When you select a building the left stick, as the mouse cursor, moves the building around. But now, the right stick rotates it — the stick no longer looks around the space. So if you’re not already looking at where you want to put a building before you select it, you can’t move to that spot. You have to back out, move to the space you want (using the weird controls), and try again. If you end up not liking the new placement, you have to deselect the building and do it again.

I’ve largely gotten used to it by now, and (for the most part) think about where I’m going to place a new building before I build it. But since I can’t see the size of the building beforehand, I kind of have to guess. Luckily, buildings aren’t too big and clearing space is easy. You simply have to select a tree to knock it down and make a clearing, and you get the wood from the tree as well.

Village Gathering

When you build your village and have workers mining and logging for you, gathering those resources is also kind of weird and inconsistent. There are some workers that show up in a menu on the left side of the screen in the build mode, and certain resources can be gathered from there.

Some resources, though, can only be gathered once you build a particular building. But once you do that, you have to go to, and select the building in order to gather the resource. And by that, I mean with your cursor within the build menu. Walking up to the buildings actually does nothing.

And the most confusing part? They’re the same types of materials that have to be gathered in different ways. If you want to gather ore — like copper, stone, or iron — you have to check different places. Copper, for example, can be found in the left-hand menu while in build mode; but Stone can only be gathered from the Quarry which you have to go to and select with your mouse cursor.

I understand needing different buildings and different upgrades in order to gather the various resources as I progress through the game, but make it make sense. Why do I need a quarry to get some of the ore, but I didn’t need a quarry to get the others? Why, once I do build the quarry, can’t I just select the Stones from the same menu as selecting the Copper? They’re the same type!

Other Strange Quirks

Ladders aren’t real/aren’t usable. They’re in places that makes sense for a ladder to be — In some cases seemingly required — but you can’t use it. If you have to get up on something, the ledge is low enough to climb, or it’s a small hop up. And for the most part, if you can climb on it, it’s got yellow markings. Sometimes you have to make longer jumps which can be frustrating with the previously-mentioned movement issues, but no climbing ladders.

Resource harvesting is just weird; but I guess it’s not horrible. You have to be in a pretty precise position for it to register what you’re trying to chop/mine, which can be very frustrating. It’s mostly fine once you’re lined up correctly, just make sure not to move again. It’s the worst with Copper, Stone, Iron etc. nodes because they break apart and you often have to reposition yourself in order to actually register hits again.

When you are in the right spot and are consistently hitting the thing you’re trying to harvest, you get a bit of a minigame, which is cool. There’s a little popup that happens at the point of impact, and if you press the trigger to hit again right as that popup happens, you’ll swing your tool faster, while using less stamina.

When you go to use any materials you’ve gathered/mined/logged etc. you just have to wait until whatever you’re crafting completes before you can do anything else. You go to the building where you’re able to make whatever it is your’e trying to craft (yes, these ones you actually walk up to and interact with), and once you select what you want to make, you just have to stay in that menu until it’s done.

I haven’t timed it, but some things feel like they take a couple of minutes, time where you can’t do anything else. There’s no way to have my Ingot’s being made while I run over and cook some Hare. I just have to wait.

Here’s the thing…

But the crazy thing is, I can’t stop playing! I don’t know if it’s the vague familiarity or maybe because of some weird parallels to today’s political climate, I’m really enjoying playing this game.

Reputation

In the beginning, as you see people walking around, when you’re prompted to talk to them, they’re largely dismissive. But as you build up the town and complete quests for the people in the world, you become more well-known. And when you go back and talk to people, they thank you for what you’ve done.

When you start missions, they say “you’re robin hood, I’ve heard what you’ve been doing around here” and I even had an enemy say he heard of me and wondered if it would’ve been different had I shown up earlier.

Other games will give you “reputation points” for completing missions, but rarely do I ever feel like the characters reputation actually improved. Or, it’s forced, like after a particular cutscene that didn’t actually change anything as far as the “public” is aware, but the NPC’s dialogue is different afterward. But so far, I haven’t felt either of those things, and it feels well-executed. It’s pretty obviously percentage-based (occasionally, cutscenes about the main story jut in in the middle of after-mission conversations as soon as the percentage is reached, but before the conversation is over), but I think that’s a very good thing.

As Robin gains more and more reputation, he also becomes more and more wanted by the King. Nearly everywhere there’s wanted posters calling for the capture of Hood, and a really cool detail is that the amount has been steadily increasing as I’ve been playing.

Something that takes me out of it a little is the fact that nobody seems to care about me being wanted, though. I’ll have conversations with people directly next to a Wanted sign with my name on it.

I mean, I understand that I’m helping them out and that they’re against the king, too; but you’d think there’d be a couple of opportunists that would try to turn me in for the reward money (it’s at a point where it’s more than I’ve ever had at any one time), or at the very least in fear of defying the king. But nobody seems to care, and that’s kind of weird.

Reactions, Other Than Dialogue

In some instances, you’re tasked with sneaking around an area that’s occupied by both enemies and regular people. I mentioned earlier that things can be done stealthily, but you can also just kill all the guards in the area and find what you need.

While you’re doing this, though — the “regular” people are simply going about their business around you. It’s strange. I understand not liking the rule that the one is under, but it’s weird that there’s literally no reaction to killing guards right in front of people. That would be a crazy thing to watch! Are the times that bad that they’re this desensitized to death?

Also, I do wish that your reputation instilled fear in lower-level enemies. Given that you’re supposed to be becoming well known, and it’s talked about how you’ve gained reputation frequently, you’d think that some enemies wouldn’t want the smoke.

Even something like having a lower-level enemy run away after you’ve taken out a couple of his comrades would be better than nothing. But so far, there’s none of that. Even if you’re 10+ levels ahead, and have a high percentage of reputation in the area, they still charge on.

Other than those couple of small things, it seems as though each character was deliberately made, and that’s refreshing. Instead of towns populated by randomly generated filler-people. Each person has a name, and with a couple of exceptions, I could talk to everyone. They’re talked about and referenced as though they’re real people, too. And you might see a person you helped pop up back at the homestead.

Overall, while there’s room for improvement, I think the choices that they made with the NPCs and how they react to you were great. I’m looking forward to continuing my adventure and meeting new people, and honestly a lot of the kinks could be ironed out with an update.

…Something Keeps Pulling Me Back

I mentioned earlier that some of the movement complications that I have could potentially be solved with unlocking skills in the skill tree, and I think that’s another thing that’s pulling me back. Eventually, I’ll be the ultimate assassin, invisible in the bushes, attacking from above, not missing any shots, and just feeling like an all-around badass with the people backing me up. Not quite being there yet, though, but seeing the path is keeping me locked in to the grind.

Speaking of, I’m also enjoying saving the townsfolk and fighting against the tyranny plaguing this land. I was awed when I found myself in a new town and found a woman about to be hanged. I had to save her by shooting the rope with my bow, and taking out the people trying to kill her. It was awesome, and I actually felt like I was making a difference in this world.

Funny side story — the first time I completed this mission was early-enough on that I hadn’t quite figured out when and how the game saved. I died shortly after and unfortunately it had saved at a point before I saved this woman. So I had to do it again. The second time, though, I missed and accidentally hit her and failed! I wasn’t sure if the game would allow that because the spot where you have to hit the rope is pretty tight; but it did, and I appreciated the realism. Of course, I reloaded the save, I couldn’t kill that poor woman.

Another pleasant surprise in this game was when I came across my first puzzle. Sprinkled throughout the world are various puzzles that you can solve for some pretty rare rewards. There’s not explanations for the puzzles, you just have to figure them out. Though, there’s often clues nearby to help you solve them.

There’s a few different types of puzzle types, too. From pressing buttons in a certain sequence, to finding which symbols go in the correct places. There’s even a music-based puzzle, which is pretty cool and unique. I never expected these types of puzzles when I first started the game, and it’s another thing that’s keeping this game fun, refreshing and keeping me playing.

Overall, despite the quite frustrating mechanics, I’m genuinely enjoying Robin Hood: Sherwood Builders. I really feel like I’m helping the people, and I can’t wait to see what else is in store. There’s posters about some sort of arena, and I came across a Blood Cairn where apparently I’ll be fighting for money. And who knows what else is out there that I haven’t come across yet!

Have any of you played it? Let me know in the comments what you think about it, and if you’re enjoying it as much as I am. Peace out, I’m about to go play right now.

The post Robin Hood: Sherwood Builders | A Frustrating Experience That I Can’t Put Down appeared first on I Talk Games.

The Diablo series has been around forever, so I don’t really plan on doing a full commentary or review of this game. Truthfully, I’m not super into Diablo overall. Truthfully, I only started playing with III, and even then I just liked making new builds and seeing what type of move-sets I could put together.

I don’t pay attention to any of the storyline or lore at all, really. I just like playing different classes and playstyles, and seeing how strong I can get by stacking multipliers. So, really, you probably won’t find me to be the best source of information for this game any way.

Instead, this post is largely about my build, my girlfriends build, and a bit about the thought processes behind them. Typically, I like to play a magic build, where I can keep enemies at bay and attack from a distance. Knowing that, I try to force myself to play differently from time-to-time. Which is what I was attempting here.

Thought Process

Since the Druid is the new class in this game, I gave it a shot. And, being incredibly creative, I named him Dru. My girlfriend is playing a sorceress — I can’t tell you why; she’s a fairly new gamer so she doesn’t really have a “typical” playstyle. I probably convinced her with my fondness of the sorcerer/ess class.

Sticking with the theme of creatively naming our characters, we named her Sorcia.

In this clip, I’m playing largely as a werebear with some ravens that fly around and assist. It would be dope if there was a bear companion along with the wolves companion — especially given the fact that both wolves and poison creeper somewhat favor the werewolf build, and there’s nothing really that leans werebear imo — but there’s not, so I went with Ravens.

Since you have to start out at level 1, with minimal equipment, It tends to take a while to get to a place with your character where you’re actually able to decide on a build type. There’s several things you need to consider such as:

• The equipment you plan on using and whether it boosts or hinders the skills in your build
• Whether you’ve reached a high enough level that the skills you want are unlocked
• The skill points required to equip the skills you want
• And more, like making you have the resources to unlock or make anything you don’t have from above.

So, typically, what I do is not even really think about it until I’m roughly at the point where my character has all legendary items and I’m selling/salvaging everything rare or below. I guess technically I do try to follow one build/style as I’m unlocking skills the first time through. It’s almost impossible not to. But I don’t do so to the extent where I’m trying to find out how to coordinate my gear or set passives.

Once I am at that level though (32 I believe in Diablo IV to have each section on the skill tree unlocked) I see what bonuses the items that I already have provide, and try to build my character around that. Since the items you pick up in the wild have randomized stats and bonuses, I try to create my build around them, rather than creating a build and hoping my equipment works out. So in this case, the werebear made the most sense.

Druid Skills

On thing that I noticed is that a lot of the werebear attacks and defensive moves gave you fortify, so I tried to also include passives that increased fortify as well. That said, I don’t really know how to use fortify, and can’t say I really felt any benefits using it. Maybe if I find a piece of armor, or an armor set, that boosts the effect of fortify even further, I might be into it more; but as of right now, I’m not sure I see the value.

I touched on this earlier, but I had to think a bit about the companion skill for this build, too. Given the options — wolves, ravens, and vine creeper — only ravens seemed to make sense. Wolves, obviously, would be best suited in a werewolf build. Not much more to say about that. But the vines, they primarily inflict poison on enemies, which would be nice except it doesn’t benefit any other werebear skills (such as fortify) and there are werewolf skills that poison.

So it seems to me that the vines would make the most sense as a poison-inflicting-werewolf build instead of werebear. Maybe, given a future werebear playthrough, I’ll forego a companion for another, more “werebear” compatible option.

In all honesty, I thought the werebear build was a bit slow and difficult to use. Maybe I just don’t understand how to use Fortify; but either way, this wasn’t my favorite build in this character. I’m wondering if there are any armor sets that would make that skill even better; and make this build much stronger, but I’ll have to keep crawling through those dungeons to get there.

Sorceress Skills

I, honestly, don’t have a ton to say about this build. I could see what she was doing while we played, and saw some moves that definite looked cool; but not playing it myself, I was never 100% sure what was going on. Make sure to check out the full video to see what the ice sorceress can do.

Conclusion

Overall, I’d say this build was okay. It didn’t really excite me or devastate enemies, but it was serviceable. As of right now, I’ve already switched it up, and have made a different build; but maybe if I get some better armor that makes the werebear skills more effective (or if I get some tips on how to use fortify (leave them in the comments)), I’ll return to this type of build.

Thanks for reading!

The post Fun Diablo IV Gameplay | Werebear Druid & Ice Sorceress Builds appeared first on I Talk Games.