Recent reviews by Kalimando

As with POE you are presented with the illusion of choice. The game is balanced around meta builds and maximization while punishing investment and re-specialization, thus you are required to know how to build your character before you even pick it. To actually progress look up a build, but don't look at the passive tree and think you can be creative with it.

The art and narrative are very good. The discussions between the characters are usually very interesting and usually are the focus over the visuals. The art and world design is very well executed retro-futurism, but the physicality of the things you interact with help keep things grounded. The story this game is based on is actually about what happens after the events of this game and I think its an interesting way to approach the story from another angle and perspective.

I was hoping an expansion based around bizarre phenomenon would have more variety to it. Most of the new research tree is devoted to new exciting ways of beating the tar out of things. It doesn't integrate well with the themes or game-play of the other expansions and mostly just offers you more things to shoot at. The themes of the expansion are fairly one-note which is a shame since its the perfect concept to offer you two clear paths (exploitation versus containment)

A good example of the limitation is an obelisk which duplicates your colonists. When it does so in a non-violent way it doesn't really change anything beside giving you a pawn whose organs are going to fail in a short time. Now consider that if a royal was duplicated it should cause a question of succession. If a religious leader is duplicated is should cause a schism. If they are in a relationship or have a lover their S/O should have to question which is the "real" one. Even you as the player don't need to question it because naturally new pawns are added to the end of the list.

Another issue is its once again a DLC where everything conveniently has to appear in the base tile you land on. Anomaly content isn't something you actually have to search for, its all just thrown at you from the start. It'd make for more interesting game-play if you actually had to set up research bases when you find obelisks out during quests and raids, but instead you just end up having 3-6 of the things appearing at your base in three hours or so.

All of the DLCs have had to be patched a few times before they hit their stride but I can't really recommend this one as it is now.

Its got some bugs but its pretty good so far.

A lot of people don't seem to understand how the progression system works to they could be a bit clearer that the acquisitions page requires objective completions to unlock new weapons and armor.

Highfleet is one of the most interesting and challenging games I have ever played. I am good to perfunctory at the ship combat but have absolutely no skill at the greater meta game and strategy aspects. I wish I was better at it!

The visuals need to be experienced first hand to truly be appreciated.

It adds an explosive Luger and has a cool credits sequence so it checks all my boxes

Its pretty good. More in the vein of the Ratchet & Clank from 2016. Its still comedic in tone but more action adventure. Managed to get all the collectibles and guns available without new game + in the 12 hours I played. Runs extremely well. Had no issues with framerate. Ran with FSR 2.1 at 4K with HDR enabled. Have the game on an M.2 SSD and only on few occasions was there a noticeable loading hitch.

The game did crash twice in that time for me but it didn't result in any lost progress.

This game still has an issue where it deletes all of your progress on a crash. Story elements, persistent unlocks, access to the second chapter and such. I managed to quickly speed through those areas again with the assistance of cheat engine but for this to have been a problem and even be a problem on the PS5 version for as long as this is not acceptable.

I played it for 9 hours and was not too keen on starting over with the potential for this to happen again in another ten hours. With cheat engine I was able to get back to the point I was at and complete the game from there, but at that point I was so angry I just left the cheats on and bypassed the mechanics entirely to see more story elements. Those bits also did not impress me by the end.

Its a beautiful game and manages to have some impressive effects and bosses but the second I finished the main plot I had no interest in ever launching it again.

TLDR: For the price its a good short little experience but it leaves you wanting more than you get, and has practically no replay value.

An important thing to understand right off the bat is that this is more of an adventure game than a puzzle game. You are presented with problems you need to solve. In Myst nothing exists by accident. Obduction depends on the player understanding how the various environment overlap on each-other, but still has myst-like puzzles which require reading and paying attention to the environment. Here in Firmament the hardest thing you have to do is possible to get through via trial and error.

In the fullness of time I think the game will stand as much like a monument; Its nice to look at but is ultimately just a construction. There isn't much to read or learn about in the game that isn't literally told to you. Much of the value one gets is from exploring the amazing environments, but again they are mostly static.

On the subject the game has very poor VR support, which at the moment means it is rife with bugs and issues, but in a broader sense nothing about the way the game plays or has been designed does much with the concept of VR. I was excited to try and play it in VR but with the bugs present in the opening minutes I ultimately decided to play it on desktop and I feel its a better experience there anyways as you get better rendering of the environments. The are no physics based interactions or tactile interactions with objects that you might expect of a VR title. In hindsight I feel its a bit sad that you could make a pretty compelling myst-like game with the Half-Life Alyx mod tools but here this game can't manage it very well at all.

For the price its a good short little experience but it leaves you wanting more than you get, and has practically no replay value.

Its just better