Recent reviews by Son of a Kiełbasa

It's fun and beautiful, but not that deep. It's definitely more of an action RPG. Even more so than The Outer Words. I'm glad I waited a year for it to get all the patches and extra stuff before playing it.

Graphically it's a really beautiful game. The lighting and art direction is really well done. The facial animations can be stiff, but nothing intolerable.

Combat, movement and exploration are the main aspects of the game and they are done well. Though the combat can start to feel samey, but the game is not that long, so for me that wasn't that big of an issue. Exploration is good, with some treasure hidden almost everywhere. The loot system is also pretty simple with straightforward upgrades of most equipment. I basically only ever switched equipment because it looked cooler.

The actual RPG mechanics are mainly felt in dialogue checks. I think I got only two proper companion quests, but all of them had a pretty big roles in the main story. The main story is also pretty simple. Although there was only one big moment ( burning of Fior ), there were a lot a small moments of good writing.

The worldbuilding is great, with the heavy lifting done by Pillars of Eternity. It takes place some time after those game. I only played the first one (long time ago), so all the Deadfire stuff was new to me. The in-dialogue lore explanations were really nice for that.

I hoped the world would be more reactive, once anything major happens in a region, the game basically moves to the next one, with almost no direct consequences. I'm not even sure the game has that many branching options.

I encountered some technical issues (even after the latest 2.1 patch). Sometimes the audio would get stuck in slow-motion mode, and be very quiet and distant. Only a full game restart would fix that. Sometimes the enemies could not be looted. The game froze a few times, mostly a minute or two after loading to a map. Once it crashed with a proper error message box. The performance can be CPU heavy -- my GPU was not always fully used. Maxed out with FSR3 Quality, I had a range of 30-80 fps, with the average being about 60.

Overall it's pretty good. I'd recommend it on sale, even with the new base price.

Awesome atmospheric game with enjoyable driving and survival mechanics. It got me hooked in a way games don't often do. Mechanically it's a survival game split in two parts - scavenging and preparation - with some light rouge-lite elements. Story-wise it's a mystery, with great voice acting. Overall it's a easy recommend.

The game's zone looks gorgeous. The use of color and fog makes for some great looking screenshots. Lighting, rain, and other effects also look great. Sound effects, particularly rain and storms sound good and really elevate the atmosphere. The pitch-black regions look especially good on an OLED screen.

STALKER's zone is an obvious inspiration. It feels like Half-Life 2 vehicle sections were too, particularly the latter part of Ep2. Firewatch too, partly in artstyle, and in voice-work.

The save system mentioned elsewhere was never a problem for me, since the trips are short enough, and whole runs rarely take more than a hour.

My only real gripe with the game is it's technical state. Sometimes mouse cursor gets stuck on screen, sometimes the journal menu cannot be closed or UI element for available actions gets scaled down and looks terrible.

Optimisation is also not good. I played on Ultra, with 7900 XT at 1440p native, in Linux. Most of the time it's fine, about 70-ish FPS, but in garage the averages get to low 40s. Few times while on mission, some effect somewhere got probably stuck, and when looking in its direction, FPS got hammered to almost 20. As always in UE, new effects or locations can introduce momentary stutter, but it's rare and not really an issue.

Liked the first part, loved the second part, hurt my brain on the third part. Easy recommend for everyone who loved the main game and wants more puzzles.

Awesome puzzle game and great sequel. It has another thought provoking story with well written and voiced characters. Puzzles are fun, but on the simpler side. Soundtrack is not as memorable as in the first game, but it's still good. Visuals are absolutely breathtaking. I binged through the game in 10 days and really enjoyed it. I hope for DLC with more difficult puzzles, bit like Road to Gehenna DLC for the original game.

Awesome game

Better game than original DiRT Rally. It handles better, looks better and plays better. Can recommend.

Having to create Bethesda account to be able to get to the main menu when the base game and the DLC didn't need that is stupid.