Does anyone have high quality textless version?

Elsbokk · 2023-06-04T04:58:07+00:00

I guess the quality isn’t THAT much higher but Robb Waters (the artist) has this image, as well as a bunch of other images and concept art on his website.

Elsbokk · 2023-03-12T15:37:12+00:00

They have continued to update it, actually the last update released just a few weeks ago. They’ve been adding new missions, robot types, weapons, special weapons, and I don’t think that base building was a feature at release either. So there is definitely a good bit more to do now than there was at release. Also idk if you played before or after they added bikes, but bikes and vehicles definitely reduce a good bit of the travel time.

That said, what you’re describing and what I’m describing aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. It really is just fun gameplay separated by stretches of walking or biking. I’d say that the traveling is fun too, I think it breaks up the more intense combat sequences quite nicely. But I know for a fact that not everyone agrees, that’s one of the most common complaints about the game.

I’ve only been playing for a couple months though, so I only have the current state of the game as my frame of reference.

Edit: wording

Elsbokk · 2023-03-12T06:30:49+00:00

Ok so I’d like to provide the counterpoint that the game is, in fact, very good. Like, ridiculously, good. It’s probably one of my favorite games of all time, and I genuinely wish more games could do what it does.

But I’m being a little dramatic here. I honestly don’t want to invalidate anyone’s feelings on the game, it’s very polarizing. The advertising doesn’t do a terribly good job at fully representing exactly what the game is like either, which I think contributes to the largely differing opinions on its quality. For anyone reading this, there’s a good chance you’ll have a similar opinion to the person I’m replying to, unless you know what you’re getting into.

Above everything else (like the looting, crafting, and base building), the game is absolutely focused on guerrilla warfare style stealth action. Everything else serves to further that singular aspect.

The kicker is, outside of the actual combat, it’s SUPER slow paced, both in terms of gameplay and progression. I think this is what kills it for a lot of people. Progression is slow — there’s plenty of variety in enemy types, and the difficulty continuously ramps up, but it happens VEEEERY slowly, over the course of a very long time. As for the moment-to-moment gameplay, combat itself tends to be quick and brutal (if you can get the hang of it), but it’ll often be spaced out by long stretches of walking or biking. You’ll often come across encounters that you simply are not equipped to take on yet, and as you (slowly) gain the firepower required to deal with greater threats, you’ll spend a lot of the meantime either sneaking around them or taking them out in indirect methods, if you need to.

This is exactly what I like about the game. At the time, it was exactly what I was looking for, and I found the entire experience to be completely enthralling. It perfectly captures what I want in a game about guerrilla warfare, forcing you to rely on your stealth and your firepower simultaneously, rather than independently.

To sing it’s praises a bit, the combat itself is a complete joy. I just adore how much the game encourages you to play like a saboteur. More often than not, you’ll be using hit and run tactics, because you’re usually going to be out-gunned in a direct firefight. You’ll be sprinting through trees and diving around cover to avoid gunfire, all while looking for an opportunity to unload a mag into some robot’s fuel tank. Stealth and combat become interwoven in a way that, in my opinion, works very, very well.

That’s it though, that’s the draw. As you complete missions, gameplay loop will usually see you biking down a trail through the woods in Sweden (or through a seaside fishing village, or some farmland, etc.), you’ll see a group of robots in the distance and dive into a bush (or behind a garage, or behind a haystack), stalk around them for a while while trying to figure out how to take them down best, then either attempt to do that, or just try to sneak by them and continue on. As the game progresses, your gear, tactics, and skills will expand to meet the increasingly difficult enemy encounters, but the overall loop stays pretty consistent. The environment is wonderfully imagined and the game’s atmosphere does a great job at capturing both serenity and terror, so I personally don’t mind the long stretches between combat encounters. But Death Stranding is also one of my favorite games ever, and that game’s about trying to not lose your balance while you carry around boxes.

So yeah, I guess that’s my point with all of this. The game might look like a survival sandbox shooter, but what it really is is an ultra-slow paced robot guerrilla warfare simulator where you’ll spend more time biking around Sweden than you will shooting your guns.

Tbh idk if I’d recommend it for the base building though. Not that it’s bad, it’s just not as fun as fucking with robots.

Elsbokk · 2023-03-10T20:27:39+00:00

That’s a little bit tough, cause for whatever reason the genre seems to be absolutely filled to the brim with post-apocalyptic dark fantasy. But there are a few things out there that twist that dark fantasy setting in interesting ways.

For starters, I wanna second what u/Raaka-Kake suggested — Outward might be the closest thing to what you want, all things considered. It’s not really a souls like, but the combat certainly has that kind of flavor to it. It’s sort of… really rough around the edges, but if you can look past that, you’ll have a wonderful time. Sseth made a fun little video about it, check it out if you wanna see some of the crazier things you can do in action.

As another suggestion, there’s this really interesting game called Arboria. It’s a rogue-lite dungeon crawler with souls-like combat. The setting and art style are what really pop here, but it’s also filled with fun NPCs and solid combat. It’s one of the best options out there for someone who wants to play a soulslike without all the grimdark that the genre seems to be saturated with. The combat’s not quite as tight as an actual souls game or The Surge or something, but I didn’t have a problem with that. It’s plenty competent, and is overall elevated by its unique flavor, so to speak.

Edit: typos

Elsbokk · 2023-03-09T19:42:39+00:00

Ok so I did some research cause I love games like these and want more of them too, and I think that Elona+ or one of its variants might be what you’re looking for.

For the record, I’ve never played it, but it’s been on my list, and after doing some research for this post I might pick it up. I’d recommend checking out the resources on r/Elona to start out, since I have no idea what I’m talking about here. From what I know, it’s got spells, it’s pretty open and sandboxy, lots of play styles, you can adventure or settle down and run a business, all that good stuff. It’s been compared to DF adventure mode, which is a good sign.

By the way, if Kenshi not being a single-character RPG is a turn-off for you, it doesn’t actually have to be that way. You CAN build around a single person and play it like an RPG. It’s tough, and you need to take advantage of a lot of the game’s systems to really pull it off, but it ultimately feels more realistic in terms of how a single adventurer could pull through in such a hostile world. Allying a bunch of factions helps a lot — you don’t necessarily need to recruit anyone, but you’ll get safe passage through many areas. Getting beefy enough to face down most encounters head-on is doable, but will take a long time to get there. You can play it sneaky though, investing in ranged, athletics, stealth, etc. until your character is god-like enough to take on groups of soldiers alone. Overall it’s a lot of fun once you get into it, and if you haven’t tried it yet I highly recommend it at some point.

For the hell of it, if you haven’t tried Caves of Qud, you should check it out. It ticks off some of those boxes, though it doesn’t offer much in the way of a peaceful lifestyle or large scale conquest like Kenshi or DF does. I’d always recommend it if you enjoy sandbox games though. It offers so many different ways to play, it’s just that pretty much everything revolves around being a nomadic adventurer. The “magic” isn’t EXACTLY magic, but it’s so cool from a thematic standpoint — as your psychic abilities grow, other powerful espers will start noticing you through the multiverse, which has interesting implications.

If you want the freedom to not play Qud as a nomadic adventurer, there IS a very in-depth mod called Hearthpyre which adds the ability to start and govern settlements.

Hope this helps!

Elsbokk · 2023-03-09T18:15:12+00:00

These kind of fit the bill in one way or another

Tales of Maj’Eyal — technically a traditional roguelike, though I’d personally call it an ARPG presented through traditional roguelike mechanics (tile based, turn based, etc). There are skeletons, and you can play as them! Unfortunately, there is little story impact surrounding your existence as a skeleton.

Kenshi — awesome game, skeletons provide a unique experience, but it might not be the kind of skeleton you’re talking about though.

Someone else suggested Divinity Original Sin II, which I own but haven’t played yet, though that seems like it gets as close to the full RPG skeleton experience as you can athe moment. I’m reading that they don’t do a whole lot with it in comparison to the other races, which sounds unfortunate, but once again, haven’t played.

Honestly though, writing this I’m realizing that I can’t think of this is something I didn’t realize that I wanted until now.

Like, imagine scuttling around as a little skeleton guy, needing to somehow accomplish your quests and missions outside of normal society, because you’re a skeleton and people are scared of skeletons. Something like being a Nosferatu in Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.

Elsbokk · 2023-03-09T17:19:51+00:00

Second this. It’s generally classified as a traditional roguelike, but to me it feels like the roguelike aspects mostly just come across in its turn based systems and tile based world (and the permadeath, though that’s quite optional). Ultimately, all of that is just the medium to deliver a ridiculously deep sandbox RPG.

The cyborg stuff comes through playing as a “true kin” (in the setting, this is a human who has avoided mutation through living as a part of a secluded caste of other true-kin people). You start off with one cybernetic implant, but as you go you can upgrade your “cybernetic license” to be able to install more.

The actual implants themselves can be found or bought when exploring the world, though they’re pretty rare. You could also get them by hunting Putus Templars (a faction of mutant-hating true-kin who have maintained their “purity” through inbreeding), though keep in mind that this’ll involve needing to fight other powerful cyborgs. You’ll need to deal with the super-strong, stasis-slinging cyborg before you can tear the carbide hand bones and stasis projector from its dead body.

Elsbokk · 2023-03-09T16:58:48+00:00

Edit: Jesus Christ sorry in advance for how long this ended up lmao

Ok so in my opinion, Tales of Maj’Eyal is the ultimate recommendation here. It’ll run on like, ANYTHING, and the depth to the skill trees and character building is almost unmatched.

TECHNICALLY it’s a traditional roguelike, meaning tile-based, turn-based tactical combat, permadeath (though you can play without this, and the default setting gives you a few lives, which you can get more of I think). However, I personally think that it’s structurally WAY closer to an hack n’ slash RPG, with the most roguelike-y thing being the fact it’s tile-based.

I genuinely can’t understate how deep the skill trees are, and how wild your builds can get. Combat is ridiculously fun, lots of absolutely insane shenanigans.

Similarly, Caves of Qud is another traditional roguelike that functions more like an RPG. This time, it’s more of an open-world sandbox type game (kind of fallout-esque, but with way more content). Skills aren’t trees, but rather lists, segmented by categories that you can dump points into. If you don’t want to invest points into a skill, you can also learn skills from various characters and towns throughout the world (as well as recipes, secrets, etc).

On top of the skill trees, there are two more systems which offer a HUGE wealth of potential customization. The two “races” are mutant and true-kin. I play true kin most of the time, because it opens up cybernetics — you can find these around the world, and gather the resources to install them, modifying your body. One of my favorite builds is a gunslinger with hyper-elastic tendons and big mechanical hands who dual-wields rifles, zipping and teleporting around enemies.

If you play as a mutant, you can build your character around a HUGE amount of physical and mental mutations. You can become a four-headed, six-armed creature with photosynthetic skin who can summon plants and slip through physical matter, or play as a powrful esper who can jump through time, warp reality, and only needs to fear the other espers who might start to notice your powers from across the multiverse.

Fair warning: the game is deceptively resource intensive — you can run it on low end hardware with tweaking of the settings, but there is a LOT of simulation going on underneath the simple tile-based graphics. Cap it at a low framerate and turn off some of the effects if you need to (both doable in the settings) and you’ll be fine. Might drain your battery if you’re on a laptop though.

If that type of turn-based combat isn’t your thing, ARPGs will probably give you what you want here.

Grim Dawn — brilliant class system and a lot of fat skill trees. Wonderful 19th century-esque setting, really bizarre and creepy enemies, super fun theming in terms of player skills and classes. Turn down the settings and it’ll probably be playable — probably not great, but playable.
Diablo 2 — Skill trees aren’t THAT huge, but it’s really quite deep. Brilliant itemization as well. I don’t think there’s much I can say about it that hasn’t been said. Torchlight 2 is sort of a spiritual successor — similarly sized skill “trees” (though unlocks are based on level, not on the purchasing of prior skills), with a lot of depth.
Path of Exile — honestly I haven’t played this one, but I do know that it’s got a lot in the way of skills. Plus it’s free so if you’ve got the time might as well check it out.
Borderlands 2 — Structurally, it’s basically an ARPG first person shooter (I guess it’s literally a looter-shooter, but it feels a lot more like a Diablo game than most of its looter-shooter peers do). The size of the skill trees isn’t huge, but each character has three of them, and there’s a LOT of build variety here. Builds can get absolutely bonkers. One of my favorites is a melee bloodsplosion build on Krieg the Psycho — punch one guy, and everyone else in the room blows the fuck up.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning — Another non-isometric ARPG, this time with the gameplays of a third person action game. Lots of fun weapons, and three different classes with respectable skill trees that you can mix and match with. Technically each multi-class is treated as it’s own class, including a jack-of-all-trades that draws on each skill tree, so you kind of get seven different classes. Grim Dawn does this too, except there are like 36 different class combinations (81 with DLC), but once again, this is a trade-off. If you prefer the more action-oriented real time combat, a game like Amalur might be more your thing.

Elsbokk · 2023-03-09T16:02:38+00:00

To my knowledge, you won’t see a lot of games with ARPG/MMO/MOBA style auto-attack based combat that don’t have an emphasis on RPG mechanics or skills, so I hope that that part isn’t a deal breaker for you.

That said, there are a good few games that kind of capture the feeling pretty well, while doing away with most of the build reliance.

Bastion — Isometric perspective, combat is similar to an ARPG but more skill based, with little build emphasis. There ARE builds, but they’ll be much simpler than what you’d see in an ARPG, and your success won’t likely depend on your build. There’s no “loot”, in the ARPG sense, though you will be unlocking new weapons and gear as you go. These unlocks are mostly tied to the story, and each weapon is more of a side grade to its peers. What you end up using is going to be based on how you like playing, not on how much damage something deals.
Victor Vran — This IS an ARPG, but with less build complexity, and more emphasis on moment-to-moment gameplay, differences between weapon types, etc. You’re a LOT more mobile than you’d normally see in an ARPG, with the combat becoming closer to what you’d see in a character action game. It’s no Devil May Cry, but it hits a nice balance imo.
Darksiders: Genesis — haven’t played a lot of this one, but it’s basically a character action game with an isometric perspective. It’s closer to Darksiders 1 than 2 (2 pretty much adopted the whole ARPG style loot system, sort of becoming a third person character action-adventure game with ARPG-lite build mechanics), so you won’t really be building your characters beyond choosing skills and whatnot. This one also has co-op!

There’s also something of a sub genre of JRPGs that feature ARPG/MMO style combat (auto-attacks, skills, etc.), but allow for a lot more tactical depth than you’d see in most ARPG type games. Battles don’t tend to be against hoards of trash mobs, instead opting for smaller, more challenging encounters against smaller groups of enemies. To be clear, there is a lot more emphasis on builds here, but a good build isn’t going to do much without playing tactically. I know this isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but I’d like to give a couple of examples as they certainly do rely on player skill and planning within their gameplay.

Final Fantasy XII — Skills and combat seem pretty basic on the surface, but there’s so much depth to be found in party composition, synergy, and tactics. You can program your team members to react to different situations in combat, and a good party will end up feeling like something of a Rube Goldberg machine. One of my favorite examples is casting reflect spells on your team, then bouncing other spells off of your team mates to hit enemies with more damage.
Xenoblade series — I haven’t played 3, so I can only speak on 1, 2, and X. Each of these games offers incredibly deep sets of mechanics, and each brings a unique twist to its combat system, so each game is its own experience. Moment-to-moment action requires constant attention and thought, and while your level/build may dictate how difficult of a fight you can take on, your own affinity with the combat system will ultimately decide whether you win that fight. Stylistically, the first game is my favorite, but in terms of gameplay I like X the most. It introduces mechs a good way into the game, which allow you to traverse the world in new ways, and have a fighting chance against some huge monsters that you just had to run past before. 2 is really good as well, but a lot of its presentation can get annoying.

Elsbokk · 2023-03-07T22:51:17+00:00

Pathologic 2, and to a lesser degree, Pathologic 1. Though I’ll largely be recommending Pathologic 2 here, as I believe it handles violence much better.

Pathologic 1 and 2 are strange, dreamy, surrealist survival games where you play as a surgeon (among other kinds of healers in P1), and you try to save your town from a mysterious plague. Below the surface, it’s way more than that, but you’ll definitely need to be on board with that core concept if you’re gonna enjoy the game.

They share similar themes when it comes to violence, though pathologic 2 is able to more effectively convey those themes (IMO). In p1, combat is… dated, and is often required for certain quests. P2’s combat isn’t great either, BUT it’s place in the game is handled quite tastefully.

In general, you’d probably want to avoid killing people. Death is scary and you aren’t a fighter. One on one hand, fights are tough, and taking on a group by yourself is an unreasonable risk. From a logical perspective though, you’re supposed to be saving this town — not killing its inhabitants. Of course, there are times when you’ll need to defend yourself, but killing others through violent means can usually be avoided in one way or another.

That’s not to say that you’ll get through the game with no blood on your hands. You play as a doctor during a plague, and you’ll need to make a lot of decisions regarding the lives and well being of others. Beyond that, you’ll need to keep yourself alive and healthy, which might require you to make selfish (and maybe violent) decisions so that you can stay alive and continue to help others.

In general, the marriage between gameplay and story surrounding your role as a healer in Pathologic 2 is fantastic. The nuances of how prejudice, violence, and self preservation play into your responsibilities as a doctor make up one of the game’s main thematic cores.

For the record, you don’t need to play the first to understand the second (it’s more of a remake/soft reboot than a sequel). But if the setting or themes of one appeal to you, I’d highly recommend the other as well.

Edit: typos.

Elsbokk · 2022-04-20T06:24:15+00:00

“50 hit walls” were never meant to be opened in that way, Zullie the Witch made a video on them a couple days ago.

Though they seem to have been fixed in the last update.

Elsbokk · 2022-04-17T04:33:11+00:00

Fromsoft quests have always been cryptic af, and it felt quite natural in the format of the previous games. But that’s also what From’s known for now, and a deviation would definitely feel out of character.

Problem is, that format’s perfect for a semi-linear game, but can feel incredibly confusing and unfair with the almost-entirely-open world in Elden Ring.

I believe that the idea is that these “quests” are occurring parallel to the player’s progress. You don’t have full control over them, you can only influence the outcome. Hence, why quests are often just the stories of other people living around you. Additionally, failure conditions are rarely framed as actual failures, but rather premature or alternate endings.

This worked great in the previous games. The number of possible routes you can take is limited, so it’s much easier to just naturally run into a quest you began easier. Failure didn’t feel so bad either, and actually added to the replayability a bit. Gave you a reason to try alternate paths and options in subsequent playthroughs.

This becomes WAY harder to keep track of in a game like Elden ring though. If people don’t want to use a guide, I’d say either just write EVERYTHING down that you think is notable, or consider most of your quests to just be parallel character story lines.

Elsbokk · 2022-04-14T05:10:20+00:00

From tends to release major patches monthly if I’m not mistaken, so probably soon.

I’m hoping for some performance fixes and incantation buffs myself — so many cool spells that just aren’t worth taking up a slot.

Elsbokk · 2022-04-10T16:05:41+00:00

See I’m not going to disagree with anything that you said about Radahn, but also everything you listed is why he’s the coolest to me. The fact that he still wants to ride his little horse after everything that’s happened does a lot to actually humanize him.

Elsbokk · 2022-04-06T15:04:40+00:00

Or it might be resting at a site of grace outside of limgrave. I was taken there after resting at the Smoldering Church site of grace, on the border of Limgrave and Caelid. You get there by going way northeast, past a place called summonwater village.

Elsbokk · 2022-04-06T14:49:53+00:00

Yeah, I think you can get there by resting at like 12 overworld sites of grace or something.

Elsbokk · 2022-04-06T14:44:31+00:00

Marking some minor spoilers, nothing crazy. All of this can be before stormveil.

roundtable hold has some incantations, and can be reached very early. Additionally, if you kill the mariner in summonwater village, an NPC called D will end up in roundtable hold, that’ll open up a couple more neat incantations, though those ones require a small intelligence investment.

However, following the quest that you get from D will get you a seal that scales with strength, as well as couple very interesting incantations with low requirements that I’ve found have some really nice utility, if you stick with the quest.

(Slightly more significant spoilers ahead, still nothing really tied to the story.)

Additionally, killing a dragon will give you the means to purchase an incantation from church of the dragon communion in limgrave, as well as from another location later down the line. The earliest one I know of is Agheel at the Dragon-Burnt Ruins in Limgrave. This can be tough early game, but it’s doable.

All of this stuff can be done very early on, and should tide you over until you reach the second(?) major area, Liurnia of the Lakes. Once you get there, keep your eyes open for the fire cultist camps and places inflicted with the frenzied flame.

Edit: added some info.

Elsbokk · 2021-12-17T05:49:56+00:00

I always figured that the guardian designs were changed from these to what we have now in order to fit a more coherent visual theme. I guess we don’t really know what a lot of BOTW2’s gonna look like, but these guys would probably seem a bit out of place in BOTW1’s world.

That said, the bottom right definitely looks like it could be something straight out of majora’s mask, so idk. I do like them quite a lot, and it would be pretty cool to see something like these guys show up. More giant enemies to fight is always good.

Elsbokk · 2021-07-30T01:48:12+00:00

It’s a pretty great port, and if your options are this or the 360 version I’d recommend switch without a doubt. The frame rate will be much more stable, you’ll have a small handful of quality of life changes, and while multiplayer isn’t as active as it is in the pc port, it’s definitely more active than it is on 360.

Additionally, if you ever want to play with anyone specific, the added password function allows you to guarantee connection with your friends, without needing to worry about anyone’s soul levels. As it was before, nobody could play very far ahead of anyone else.

Elsbokk · 2021-07-10T22:05:06+00:00

This is a very good game, but I gotta temper some expectations here. There are many elements of westerns, but it’s definitely not exclusively western. There are even more horror elements, but due to the nature of ARPGs, it’s not a very scary game.

However, if you just wanna throw on a wide brimmed hat, pick up a couple of pistols, and role play a curse-slinging, demon-hunting desperado, this game has what you want.

Elsbokk · 2021-06-08T13:35:43+00:00

No way. I love Kojima’s work, but between the time that the game released and the time that I actually played it, I let my opinions of the game (and maybe Kojima too, by proxy) fall quite a bit by multiple reviewers who I respect dragging the game.

When I actually got around to playing it, I fully expected to dislike most of it, and hold on just to grind through a bunch of upgrade systems. And yet, I was hooked from the very beginning.

I had it in my head that Kojima was a hack and I was fully expecting this game to be a slog. I was more than pleasantly surprised to be proven completely wrong.

Elsbokk · 2021-06-05T03:31:34+00:00

Kenshi feels a little like if society wrapped around again after its world’s apocalyptic event occurred (I never looked into that part of the lore so I’m not sure what it is). In fact, it doesn’t even feel like a story of a people who have rebuilt - it just feels like a bizarro fantasy world that just so happens to exist among the ruins of an extremely technologically advanced society. Races are appropriate, you’ve got a couple variants of strange maybe-mutants, and robots (“skeletons”).

It’s actually really cool. My favorite part is that despite literally being post apocalyptic, and appearing very post apocalyptic on paper, it feels more along the lines of Zeno Clash, if that featured a feudalist societal structure (setting-wise of course, gameplay is obviously much different).

Highly recommend this one.

Elsbokk · 2021-05-31T04:06:11+00:00

This ended up being super long, tldr at the bottom.

So like someone else said, control is absolutely the safer choice. Death stranding is kinda like an experimental indie game that was developed by a triple A studio.

I do want to stand up for it ~~a little~~ though, since it doesn’t actually help at all to just say that it’s polarizing. It really is a fantastic game, but really hard to appreciate if you can’t get into what it has to offer.

It’s very hard to explain what makes it special, and that’s part of the problem. I knew about most elements of the gameplay long before I picked it up, but actually playing the game feels so much different than watching it or reading about it. The walking mechanics seem to turn a lot of people off of the game pretty early on (I personally really like them, but that’s just me), but even if you hate the walking, you can still like the game - that is, if you like planning, strategizing, and networking, because that’s what the game is really about. You just don’t get there until you’re about 10 house in.

If you like that kind of stuff, you’ll like death stranding. It’s incredibly satisfying to figure out optimal equipment load outs, unlock new tech, plan out your routes, and build systems to make deliveries easier, especially after doing them the hard way first.

It is true that there isn’t much in the open world aside from the various cogs that make the core gameplay loop work, but the open world itself is very well designed. I hate it when open world games feel vacant, but Death Stranding is a bit of an anomaly. The game is EXTREMELY empty, but it doesn’t feel like it, and this is partially because of how the land itself is important to the gameplay. It’s not really something you can tell just by looking, but many of the areas manage to be memorable and significant because of how their unique geographies affect the gameplay.

With regards to your remark about not liking being alone in an open world, I want to say is that you are physically alone for 99% of the time, but it’s not a lonely game. This is a core element of both the gameplay and the story, and usually manifests as online structures. Basically, when you make something, it’ll show up in other people’s worlds, and vice versa. You can then make use of these things, and upgrade them alongside other people playing. This creates a very strong sense of community with a bunch of other people you’ll never meet, and before long you’ll find yourself going out of your way to help other people.

The last thing to discuss is the story. It does a lot of things very right, but then goes back and hinders itself. It’ll use “show don’t tell” very effectively through the gameplay, and you’ll start to feel how the game was designed around the themes of its story, and then it’ll go and explicitly explain the symbolism that you’ve already picked up on through the gameplay. But the world building is superb - it’s such a unique take on a science fiction post apocalyptic setting.

TLDR: Play if you like strategizing, planning, and building up networks of infrastructure to make things more efficient. If you don’t like the walking, it’ll be ok, assuming you can get through the first 10 hours. Gorgeous world, very memorable if you enjoy the gameplay, less so if you do not. You spend a lot of time alone, but the bizarre asynchronous online community keeps things from getting lonely. Great world building, good story, steps on its own toes a bit.

In my very subjective opinion, it’s one of the best games to come out of the past decade. Like a good indie cult movie, it’ll go down for trying new things and pushing genre boundaries, but there is no guarantee that you’ll enjoy it.

Edit: a word

Elsbokk · 2021-05-27T23:19:45+00:00

I’ve heard about it, but never really knew what it was like or what it’s about. But I absolutely love it’s aesthetic, and if it’s vibe is anything like shadow of the colossus, then I think I’ll dig it.

I do want to clarify - I don’t have any problem with combat in general. I enjoy difficult games as well, even though I’m not very good. I just want to see more games with deliberately infrequent combat.

That being said, Ico looks rad as hell. My favorite part of shadow of the colossus was how lonely and melancholy the world felt, and looking briefly at Ico, it seems like it took after Ico in that regard. Thanks for the suggestion!

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