Recent reviews by JingleWithNoBell

Man... I really wanted to like this game. It's visually impressive and the concept is pretty great. You're just a realistic cat going on an adventure in a cyberpunk dystopia. The opening hour was solid. You start out with your posse where you get used to walking around as a cat, I was really able to appreciate the work that went into animating your feline hero and his friends. You get separated, you enter an abandoned city, and get this eerie feeling something's not right; but you let the neon signs slowly guide you hoping to get some answers. Once you get to the first city and can actually speak to the robots, the game's awe quickly fades away. All that artful design and wonderfully crafted "show don't tell" environmental storytelling gets thrown out the window for robots that just talk at you. I understand that would've been really difficult to do throughout the entire game, if would've been okay if the writing was any good.

The story felt like an afterthought. It starts straight-forward enough, you're a cat separated from your friends and need to get back. It quickly warps into this grand heroes quest to save a race of sentient robots. I never once felt connected because... I'm a cat? Why would I care about any of this? The game certainly never gave a reason. The writing never really attempted to make the robot characters that engaging. It's more about telling a story at you with some funny cat reference rather than You quickly realize you don't have freedom of movement. You walk a very linear path, interact with specific objects, and can only jump at specific points. I can understand why they made this choice, but that doesn't make the game feel less rigid. It feels like it was done more in service to have the game look good in trailers rather than what feels fun to play.

The game felt like an amusement park ride. Pretty to look at, but I never once felt like I was a participant in the world, just that I was being taken on a guided tour. I didn't really love this game when I first played it years ago, wanted to try to give this game another go during holiday but I got bored. Don't get me wrong, this game's presentation is fantastic! There's a lot of talent at that studio and I hope B12 keeps at it, but when I playing something I want to feel like I'm interacting with a game's systems and mechanics in a fun way. Not being pushed across on a conveyor belt from activity to activity. I just didn't have fun playing this game to the end.

One of my favorite games of all time! I've played through it countless times, 100%'d it plus all it's sequels, and still find myself quoting lines all these years later. The characters and writing are just that timeless. The platforming is a bit wonky, you can tell it's the studio's first attempt at the genre. Some objectives are a little bit unclear at times. The entirety of the meat circus is still pretty messy too, even if it was measurably worse in it's original Xbox release. There's one specific point as you're climbing up a spinning fence you need to jump then quickly use levitation to float right away or else the camera whips around causing you to fall and you have to do the whole section over. Even still; all the levels are so incredibly imaginative, the narrative is wonderful, the ending is sweet, and it's just so much fun to play. I love this game!

My first Larian game and my first full CRPG! I had this on my wishlist for years but ironically it was BG3 that finally got me to pull the trigger. I knew I would want to play this and it's sequel first before diving in to BG3 instead of going backwards. I wasn't sure how well it aged but I had a pretty good time. The game starts off really slow but once the story and quests picked up, I was engaged. I had a few instances where I felt like I was lost or wasn't sure where to go. At one point I went to the Lucalla Mines fighting higher level enemies before finding the White Witch in Hiberheim and solving that questline. I had to consult a guide a few times but it was still a very manageable experience. The combat felt surprisingly fun; and there were loads of combination to be made with spells, elements, and summons that kept the encounters fresh. Though I wish I was able to speed up the enemies turn so I could get back to playing sooner. I wasn't sure what to expect but left feeling pretty satisfied, playing this first will no doubt give me greater appreciation for Divinity 2 and BG3. Whether you've never played a CRPG before or itching for a game to play after beating BG3, I definitely recommend giving this a try!

Fantastic game from top to bottom. The gameplay was incredibly satisfying throughout and the writing/VA performance was so engaging it can go toe-to-toe with any big budget AAA from the last 10 years. Play this!

VRChat was one of the first games I played when I got my Valve Index. I had a hard time getting into it when I was starting out because of how bad the frame rate was, the constant neck pain, and getting easily motion sick. However I met some incredibly kind people who taught me about accessibility mods like Advanced Safety and ComfyVR menus that made the game actually playable for me. I probably wouldn't have many hours in the game if it wasn't for them/the mods creators giving me a better experience. Despite how awful 2020 was, the friends I made on VRChat and the memories shared I wouldn't want to trade for anything. So I can't begin to explain how extremely disappointed I was to hear that the devs thought the best course of action was to add EAC and completely undermine the hard work of modders that have been making game playable for a large amount of people.

This update won't stop hackers, cheaters, or crashers. They *will* find a way around EAC and continue to make the game a bad experience for everyone. The only ones that will be punished are legitimate users who use EMMvrc, ComfyVR, and a handful of other helpful mods that make the game more accessible. Instead of whitelisting accessibility mods and working with community modders like they promised, they just completely cut them off with very little warning. The devs promised accessibility features will be a top priority, but who knows how long that will be? For god sake the games been out for years and they can't even be bother to add a simple clock to the menu, why should I trust they add feature as complicated as a sophisticated TTS system that doesn't have such limited usability?

I'm really struggling to figure out if this move was due to pressure from management/investors to make the game appear more profitable or if it was ego driven because modders are better at making the game a more enjoyable than the devs are. I will leave my review up until the devs remove EAC or have a comprehensive plan to work with the modding community, I'm constantly baffled just how out of touch the developers are with their community.

thumbs up and copy+ paste in every

this is the best game every :)

Great evolution of the DAC mod

The most fun you could have with your PC, phones, and friends. Can make any gathering a (Jackbox) party!

While Dropsy's apperance may be off-putting at first, it takes no time for him at all to charm you. Quirky, weird, and excellent adventure game for old and new fans to the genre alike. This game definately has a l ot of heart and I recommend it with arms open for another damp hug!

A game that will truly make you... Believe.