Recent reviews by astromedia.only

The game was decent, first exploration of Hogwarts great and announced official mod support was just awesome but then latest updated brought undeclinable "we will sell your data" screen :/

At the moment I cant recomend but hopefully they will tweak some stuff during EA.

What I do like compared to POE1:
- Its not as fast
- Introduction of classic gold currency
- Detaching skills from gear (except weapons which is a bit weird but fine I guess)
- Introduction of active dodge
- Visuals and map design is great + I do love those interesting "optional" poi on map like treasures, events and minibosses
- MTX being ported from first to second game (love you guys :) )

What I do find problematic:
- Dodge has no iframes (saw something in recent patch about size tho, maybe that will make it better) and overall movement is probably same speed as walking and cancels casting so its kinda detremental to use as automatic reaction to danger. Also it does not roll trough enemies which would have been good usecase as enemies can easily pin you between them and from first bosses it seemed like if their AOE is placed on center of you the dodge distance is like 1mm shorter than you need to get properly out of harms way.
- Enemies bully you into movement too much by constantly placing something under you that is very hard to see and very deadly which makes you try to use dodge instinctively but its not that helpful as previous point
- Very scarce loot which is kinda problematic for loot game - I did found my self several times in a situation where I can clear the trash no problem but cant beat boss and need serious gear upgrade but nothing realy drops so Im returing back and farming but you cant realy farm if there is not enough drops (even boss can drop like 2 blues and thats all)
- Game seems way harder way sooner (I would prefer if the story part difficulty was not that harsh like in previous game and graduated more into the end game content)
- Lighting sorc skills (atlest in first act) feels very underwhelming and overall basic attacks seems to have more power than skills (wtf?) ... basic fire bolt from staff felt compared to that very powerfull but I dont like fire
- There seems to be lack of movement skills and those togglable auras that were also helpfull in previous title (as I dont think I need 5 active skills - I would love to but its nonsense to manage them in current gameplay pace and they were not that great utility wise so far)

If they fix/tweak some of those concerns it will be great game tho.
Lot of it will be probably subjective - Im not that hard core player - I just want to turn off, relax, kill some monsters and get something interesting from it. Im also not that great at figuring out what optimal stats and passives I need but I doubt most ppl do (skill tree is still as awesome but very daunting as before) - there should be some slack for working stuff and experimentation (atleast in first few acts of game).

This one is hard to review. On one side I would usually not touch anyone or anything involving pronouns in any way (game has selection in char creation which is first red flag) but as DA/ME are my most favorite series I did grinded my teeth and did an exception.

Character creation overall is not ideal but compared to previous games decent upgrade with lot more options and better visuals than for example Inquisition - those ugly elves were haunting me for long time :)

Another issue is no world state import which is real downer. You can customize like 3 decisions from inquisition + your inquisitor and thats all :/ ... and that led to some questions not being answered and lot of stuff from previous games not mattering. The justification it happened in different part of the world is cool I guess but as we are used to transfering choices bad design in first place and its obvious lot of corners were cut there and not to the better.

Game combat is different than in previous games and more akin to Mass Effect which can deter some DA fans but me personally - Im fine with that as I was never "top down pause" guy and after testing it it feels quite good in my opinion + skill selection and progress is weird at first but gradual power level upgrade, increase in options and effects is great. What is less great are how enemies react - they seems to be scripted to attack you as much as possible despite two other characters being there which if you play ranged is extremly anoying. Second anoying thing are enemies (quite a few) who have like 4 heavy attacks in row pattern you have to dodge from and then few normal ones - it tends to conceeding to be dodging the whole fight and letting companions deal with them instead which is not a fun gameplay.

Also enemies are visually weird - darkspawn is looking like reaper minions from ME, demons from fade look differrent than original - like if they ate neon signs somewhere :D ... I do understand the redesign of darkspawn because blight changed a bit but atleast demons should have been mostly intact - the original design was in my opinion much better.

Overall pacing between combat, cutscenes and dialogs is also way better than Inquisition partially because its not as huge but empty open world as there which is hard to say for me as I like open worlds but if they cant make them alive and full of content the return to more corridor approach DA1/DA2 had is probably for better and levels have multiple paths and can be quite large too so its not as claustrophobic as before.

Lot of times it feels somebody was thinking when making things which is great. Having pause everywhere, transmog system, no cost for respecing skills, quick travel, base customization and so (lot of nice details) is quite nice and much appretiated. Loot system is weird but usable - my biggest complain here would be that companions have their own loot items and skill system - I would much rather return to them being whole characters like mine is like in DA2 for exmaple.

Speaking about companions most of them dont feel simpathic to me but thats very subjective. The only one I have real issue with is Tash - most of the time she speaks about being non-binary or whatever is this modern nonsense and wanting to be "they" and even that can be written well but this one was not - it was very forced to player's face, no I dont care option or atleast one not "thats great, go with it" (there were basically 3 of those "options") option and as mostly all her banter is also about that you have to leave here out of party or you are forced to listen to it. It was supposed to satisfy some woke minority I get it but seeing it done like that I would be even more angry being them - not including it at all is in my opinion better option than portraiting those people in such blunt unrealistic and cringy way. (And she is not the only one such character and considering those ppl are like 1 in 100k in real life (?) and you meet like 20 characters here and 2-3 of them are those? its another thing about it that does not feel right. (I have no problem with such ppl, just with this portrayal) That also resulted in her main option of choosing culture at the end of her story arc being like "whatever" instead of being gradually described to player how those two sides would change here future and what the consequences be to have some weight on the final decision you feel nothing because her story was not her story just "I want to be they" gimmic which is shame. Rant over :)

Going to story and writing overall - its very inconsistent and sometimes very bad. It has its moments like funny banter or nice parts of main story but lot of stuff in middle is weird and lot of times it felt to me like they are like teenagers on school trip and they dont take lot of those "postapocaliptic" events arround them seriously enough or so ... its hard to describe properly.

I can see why people were talking about this game not being as dark as they wanted it and as some previous games aspects were. On the other side the final part of the game was in my opinion dark too much - one companion has to die and it could be your romance even - thats not right - previous titles were teaching that if you work hard and do all the stuff your team will survive.

Visuals and music are great tho.

Last thing I miss is New Game + ... you get some of those cosmetics kinda late in game and they dont get too much use then - it would be nice to wear all the stuff in new game after first playtrough.

EDIT: as end of content and further "non-critical" development was announced and lot of things is still not in shape it could have been it tipped the scale from "recommended" to "not recommended" on my review

I could play original without PSN account, this one makes it mandatory so its downgrade and not remaster. Also without launch option suggested on forum it (atleast first launch) failed to start something PSN account related (error dialog) altogether and borked it self in the process ... quality experience ...

This had potential but was killed by greed and mismanagment/devs being out of touch from community.
Main points I cant recomend this for:
- Mounts are gatekeeped behind DLC purchase because its the only feature ppl were interested in from start and they are trying to abuse that instead of making good content people want to buy
- Now they are re-releasing it invalidating all the work players did on their characters (which is huge NONO for MMO game) making them start from scratch on new type of server and they dont even have the decency to compensate them with that DLC or something if they dont let them transfer progress ... they are allowing transfers from new to legacy tho - WHY would anybody do THAT?? ... sigh

The game is solid - its worth experiencing at least once and it has its moments. Personally I think it has too much of key Star Trek events in it at once if something - I would probably wanted more smaller episodes that are more grounded - its sometimes thrilling too much I would say.

What are problematic parts is optimalization (works on SteamDeck but its best to put on low especially if using external monitor 1920x1080 in my case else it stutters a lot which degrades visuals but I was fine with that), some options not developed enough (the core story is very much set in its path and most branching seems only temporary or not really having effect on key ending events. Some slight spoilers: Bedrosian acts like nuts and against several key Federation values - I do understand what they wanted to do but in its current state its very unrealistic that character would even reach its rank in Federation., I do also not appretiate the only romance present in the game is huge intended calculated trap for player to feel even more miserable about some unchangable outcomes later and nothing else and I find it a bit offensive game leans heavily into trying for you to pick that option. Some other stuff is sometimes also a bit weird and sometimes it feels like devs run out of resources before doing everything they wanted with this game.

Considering all the subsequent playtroughts are not that enjoyable at least for me (especially as there is no skip dialog button sadly) which is also a bit sad because you want to experience different paths in games like that usually.

Hopefully we will get more one day with some of those problems learned from and fixed. Overall Im happy this exists - I would like to see remaster of that old interactive movie with Q and borgs to this format also thinking about it (it came in wrong age for me and I saw only YT videos from that).

Jako fanousek RPG jsem chtel hru vyzkouset ale bohuzel musim konstatovat, ze pro cloveka, ktery prichazi z vice konvencnich RPG jako je Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls nebo Baldur's Gate je tato hra v mnoha aspektech nehratelna. Questy - ty jsou delany zvlastnim zpusobem - zda se, ze jich ma hodne casove limity takze postupne sbirat questy moc nejde jak je clovek zvykly z jinych RPG, pak se nektere asi necekane ovlivnuji a jine zas naopak jsou tak hloupe, ze v jednom questu v diskuzi s fararem ho clovek presvedsi, aby se vratil domu a hned v druhe diskuzi z vedlejsiho questu mu oznamuje ze ma rici kucharce, ze uz se nikdy nevrati. Clovek si porad pripada v casove tisni a hra hraci netelegrafuje prilis dobre, ktera casova tisen je umela a ktera skutecna protoze nevi co bude mit vliv mechanicky a kde to jen zni dulezite ale muze clovek prijit jakykoliv den v danou hodinu a situace se bude opakovat - hra se snazi v jedne casti v tomhle smeru dat vic na realismus (ktery zni zajimave ale realne neni v podobne hre po vyzkouseni zabavny dle mne) ale nedela to tak dusledne, aby se clovek mohl na to spolehnout vzdycky. Cestovani, udrzba, strava - vse to taky zere cas a dal cloveka stresuje jiz tak v narocnem rozvrhu. Pak je tu combat - v pripade 1v1 by i mohl fungovat i kdyz je otravne zdlouhavy ale jak prijde na vice protivniku, zacne automaticke zamykani cile prekazet az do bodu, kdy to vypada, ze hra umyslne strida protivniky ktery je zrovna k hraci nejbliz aby clovek nemohl ten zamek pouzit a usikanovali ho k smrti (lze utocit jen na cloveka ktery je zamknuty jako cil takze kdyz je nekdo pred nim, tak nedostava damage i kdyz by mel). Takze i kdyz by protivnici po jednom nebyli tak tezci, hra mu haze ve vetsim poctu klacky pod nohy az nerealistickym zpusobem (samo o sobe je realne ze vice lidi ma vyhodu protoze se clovek nemuze otocit vsude najednou ale ten lock tomu hodne ublizuje navic). Situaci nepomaha ani ukladani, ktere je zavisle na vlastnictvi itemu (ten jde koupit/uvarit ale ne v moc velkem poctu) a ma jen jednu pozici coz zabranuje jakemukoliv vetsimu experimentovani s pribehem. Celkove jsem pomerne zklaman - chtel jsem si uzit pribeh ale valcim s hrou tak casto, ze to asi nebudu dohravat. Aspon, ze jsem pockal na vyraznou slevu. Treba casem vzniknout mody, ktere to umozni hrat i tem, prichazejicim z jineho druhu RPG her.

Interesting game and Ghostbusters theme take on games like Witchit and it fits well. I wish tho it had better solo campain without the bot (with weird behavior) filled grind in between. Also I think VR mode would be great for this game and probably easier to control :)

I dont like Dark Souls games neither Survival games but so far this works for me despite being somehow their combination. I guess its because its not that harsh on me (atleast yet :) ). It could use better variety in armor/weapons and better magic system / some active skills but overall its decent game - world is good, exploration seems to work, everything is uderstandable enough. It feels like Zelda with house building and I do even find this world more interesting than was the Zelda's so far. It has some quirks but thats why its early access - for one seems also quite polished considering how that usually is.

Also it works quite nicely on SteamDeck (controls could be a bit more streamlined I guess and I did not found how to switch arrows yet but those are details).

I did really wanted to like it but that hard stealth forced play style with weird controls is not for me. I did tried it on SteamDeck, it works there but with how controlling is designed it was unbearable. Moved to PC but still it does not feel right to me. Also not seeing/controlling ingame any stargate in SG game is really weird design choice if really not present in further levels.

If you like hard stealth gameplay and are OK with its control setup it can work for you but if you are like me and many others who wanted RPG, Strategy or XCOM you will be probably also disappointed. Hopefully we will get one day the game we are waiting for but this sadly isnt it. As SG themed games are slowly starting to appear maybe there is still hope tho (there is also DnD E5 RPG Rulebook released last year if I remember right for example). It seems like there is still something happening with this IP after all.

The starting cinematic was nice tho :)