The Shrine

This is one of the games I'm looking forward to the most this year and it comes out in a few days (the 26th). I really don't know much about this game despite the fact that I went in early enough on the Kickstarter to get the Early Bird pledge, saving a whole $25 for a game I would have bought probably even if it got abysmal reviews. It has looked good during the design process though, and I'm watching the PC Gamer stream of it now and it looks like a bundle of fun. I'm 95% sure you can pause the combat (edit: yeah he's pausing, too) at will but the streamer is switching between a 'slow' mode and a 'fast' mode a lot - making movement between fights and conversations occur at the pace of an ARPG, but switching to slow during combat encounters. It seems REALLY smooth.

In any case - 11 classes, six races, I think I remember it having well over 100 hours of estimated gameplay (hopefully not the same way Dragon Age Inquisition got there). This is the game that will tide the RPG player in me over until Witcher 3. In fact, CD Projekt Red you should delay it some more if you want to. Wait, no, please no - don't do that.

I've been waiting for my next isometric RPG kick since I finished Divinity: Original Sin. This one has been on my radar for a while.

If it sucks, I'll just play BG:1 and BG:2 enhanced editions again

This game is amazing. I'm having a lot of trouble deciding which class to take with me for an entire playthrough, but at this point I've played through the first few hours of the game 5+ times and I'm not even remotely sick of it. Also surprisingly for a game like this (released by these particular developers), the game is remarkably polished in terms of bugs/glitches. Obsidian's testing team has just shamed the ever loving hell out of inXile's Wasteland 2.

The combat flows extremely well once you get used to it - enemies for the most part go for who they see first, so formation and positioning is VERY important. The stat system itself is actually done in a unique way that takes some getting used to, as well - namely that the stats do the same thing for everyone. Might, the stat that one would usually compare to Strength, for example, is necessary for any class looking to deal any kind of damage (Ranger? Wizard? Better double down on that might as if you were a Barbarian). Dexterity quickens attacks just the same as it does spell actions and reloading ranged weapons. Intelligence is mostly for AoE and skill duration, resolve/perception for defense (also very useful for conversations), and constitution for the same god damned thing it does for every game ever. Resolve probably has some of the most interesting character interactions, particularly in the tutorial when a survivor is being held hostage and if your resolve is high enough you can insistently suggest that the leader should just kill the hostage because by the time he's done with the killing blow you'll have advanced enough to kill the leader. Basically it's a good attribute to take if you want to go around with the biggest fucking balls in the world.

Every companion I've met so far is interesting in their own way and well written. Some guy was quoting some review that said that the companions were on par with anything Bioware did or the ones in Baldur's Gate (2), but weren't really comparable in quality to Planescape Torment, which is probably accurate.

The side quests are definitely involved, in fact there was one that was so well done that I was surprised at the end of it that it didn't have a single thing to do with the main storyline.

I haven't come across any choices that REALLY matter in the beginning yet (as I haven't gone far into the actual story at all yet), but at every turn the way you complete a quest is judged in terms of cruel, benevolent, clever (translation: smart ass(hole)), diplomatic, stoic, rational, or deceptive. At some point in the game people start reacting to you differently by how many points in each of these you've acquired.

So far there's only been one instance of a fight where I had to meta-game and take advantage of the games combat system, sending in my most expendable companion to initiate a conversation/fight when the other five members of my party huddled in an out of the way room. Then, I had to kite about a third of the fight at a time to my little out of the way room in order to survive. There were definitely more cowardly ways to handle the situation, though, or I could have (and probably will in the future) avoided the fight until I had a couple more levels under my belt. Considering the loot in the place more than quadrupled the amount of money I had, this is probably what I should have done.

More on how much I love this game when I eventually decide which class I want to play. They literally all (except fighters) seem fun.

I played it for about 45 min the other night. Created a little dog boy rogue duel wielding daggers.

Plays exactly like Baldur's Gate so far, just some interface differences.

I'm playing on hard, not super insano mode. I usually play most games on the hardest difficulties available, but just in case the difficulty spikes insanely at some point in time, I'd like the option to lower it. I'll do that mode on my second play-through.

My hopes are high.

My first couple characters were on hard but I got REALLY tired of having to redo combat against like three fucking small spiders because one thing went wrong and spiraled out of control.

Definitely a must for future playthroughs, though. But seriously, normal is challenging enough most of the time that I'm happy.

I tried a dual wielding rogue first time out and it was fun, I have since restarted with a rogue on normal with what I learned and it's obviously going better. The furthest I've gotten through the game is with my rogue. Second furthest was with a cipher which I really, really liked. The cipher companion has some cipher-only conversation bits and I really wanted to know what they were because she's by far the most interesting companion I've come across. Turns out it just simplified some memory-based (failure allowed) conversation stuff, albeit in a somewhat cool kind of way.

Not going with a cipher for my first playthrough but it's probably the most interesting class in the game. I plan on experimenting more with rangers (sweet, sweet single target damage with tank pets - if I go this route I may actually have to play the game on hard since an extra tank is basically playing the game on easy mode), chanters (chants are cool but no attack skills is kinda lame on player character), and paladins (damage is problematic, but if I forgo some defense it should be doable). Chanters and paladins can be built with two out of the three intelligence, perception, and resolve attributes which are oh-so-important for conversation triggers, so they're tempting despite the lowered damage.

Monks were my second choice after rogues but it sounds like they need some tweaking. The main reason to play a monk is enjoying going unarmed, but people say that with the weapon enchantment system, at a certain point in the game you're better off giving them weapons. Lame. Also their main mechanic is taking damage to fuel their attacks which isn't something I'm into.

POE2 is better in every way. The only complaint I have after playing a few hours is that you can't scroll up to see past dialogue when you're in a conversation. I guess also the way the mouse cursor changes when you're trying to equip certain items is trash. Fairly minor complaints.

Edit: There's a UI button to view past conversation, but a lot of us missed it so I guess the complaint is now "Make that button more visible, please."