Finally finished my first, and definitely not only, playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3. It's a remarkable achievement in the history of videogames. The scale of it, the production quality, the characters, the writing - amazing. I did have to use mods to make the combat more interesting and challenging, because there's so much OP stuff.

Some developers commented when the game was released that BG3 shouldn't be used a a benchmark for future RPGs. It's a reasonable point in some ways. BG3 was not created in isolation - it's the culmination of knowledge and technology (and money) Larian developed over the course of creating Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2. The long Early Access period also helped a lot. It's unreasonable to expect every RPG developer to be able to draw on the same resources. I do think though that it should raise the bar for AAA studios that churn out a tweaked version of the same game every year.

The Messenger

As someone who loves Metroidvanias I was really looking forward to playing this game based on all the positive things I heard.

The story/witty dialogue and soundtrack are probably the only things that kept me going.

Everything felt very repetitive, especially towards the latter half of the game. It just kind of dragged on for me. Practically no variety in enemies and every boss with easy to memorize patterns.

I don't know if this will make sense, but the deaths felt really cheap. Like dying in a game like Celeste just feels different than dying in this game.



6.5/10

I enjoyed it, but I agree it was a bit repetitive and didn't feel too rewarding at the end. And the concept of switching between time periods felt too forced at times, meaning you didn't get a choice, you had to be in one or the other, making it more linear than it appears as a concept.

And the free DLC wasn't fun. I got to a part that was a race and just lost interest in trying to perfect my speed.

I really loved the messenger, but, it was 85% due to the mentioned awesome story/witty dialogue and soundtrack, plus another 15% due coming-of-video-game-age in the late 80s playing NES games like Ninja Gaiden and getting a big nostalgia hug from the graphics and controls. I do think it drags at the end a bit, and, 100% agree the free DLC just isn't fun for some reason. But it's still a 8.5/10 for me overall.

FF7: Rebirth

Just beat the main story, and took about 108 hours total. This was pretty much the sole reason I purchased a PS5 and it was worth every penny.

I would be shocked if it doesn't win Game of the Year.

Slay the Spire (2019), PC / Switch

I originally bought StS on Switch in July 2019, and did not touch it at all. I actually didn't use my Switch much over a period of a couple years, but I eventually and unintentionally stumbled upon a couple YouTube channels of streamer runs (Baalorlord primarily) which gave me a bit of confidence to re-dive into it. This was just before Christmas in 2023 so I took my Switch back home with me to play while sitting around, and promptly got very addicted.

Fast forward to now, I've logged about 110 hours on Switch, and bought it on PC when I got back home after Christmas and currently have 577 hours on PC. Some of that is idling online of course but mostly gameplay. I definitely caught the itch in the last 4 months. The itch has died down a fair bit since taking vacation in April.

All the above is just prefacing that it's a very solid game. Has its own thread in the forum and tons of discussion. Not really much to be said about it, it is a deck building roguelike that when describing to others, I liken it to a single player version of a game like Dominion, and you're creating an deck engine to defeat increasingly difficult enemies.

Lots of interesting and fun ways to build decks, create combos, and plenty of variety in a roguelike sense with artifacts, rewards, randomness and difficulty scaling to keep the hours going by. Very much a "one more run" kind of game, easy to watch shows or movies while playing. Almost the perfect kind of game for me these days.

The negatives I can say are thematic with deck builders, once you find successful combos or styles of decks you want to emulate them over and over. However the game does a great job of not making it easy to do so with any regularity. And as there is no real story, you could play the game endlessly (and some people do). I think I'll take a break for a while, and maybe come back to it, but once you beat Heart in A20 with each character there's really nothing else to do other than chase achievements. At this point I'm far beyond the requirements I'd set for myself for reviewing the game.

Definitely in my top 20 games in terms of time played, for sure. Recommend.

8.5/10

There's a ton of mods that can be very hit-or-miss. Sequel also comes out next year.

I was just browsing a 'best Android games' thread and Slay the Spire popped up a few times, I've never played. I navigated to the Google Play page and almost pulled the trigger, but decided not to because I have never had a deck builder really grab me. (Only exception is Meteorfall which I got enjoyment out of for a week or two a year or two ago.)

Anyway I think I'm taking the timing of this post for a 5-year-old-game to be a sign of the heavens to give it a shot.

Also, I really wish I had a few hundred hours to invest in FFVII remakes + BG3. Work sucks.

I think it's a game where you will decide it's not for you, put it down, then realise you've played 5 hours straight. Then start playing again...

The only thing that broke my Slay the Spire addiction (500+ hours since buying it last year) was Balatro, which I'm currently up to 150 hours with since it came out a couple months ago. Both are great for when you have an hour or so here and there and want to complete a game in that amount of time.

Yes, +1 to all. The impending StS sequel also pushed me to pause for now, I don't want to burn out on it so bad that I don't enjoy the sequel. I also want to try and tackle a few games in the meantime before it and Hades 2 come.