Recent reviews by BasedSpectre

I had a decent time with this game but ultimately I don't feel comfortable recommending it.

Good:
-Some striking vistas and environments
-Music is nice
-Combat is above average (for an action game)
-Voice acting

Bad:
-Genre switch to generic action adventure from a more tactical RPG
-The dialogue is positively awful
-One dimensional companions
-Disney style art direction
-Watered down Marvel-like tone
-Very little agency with role playing main character + very few meaningful story choices until very end

Summary:
If you have no expectations beyond an engaging character driven action adventure narrative you can do a lot worse than this game. The story overall is serviceable and has the benefit of leveraging the rich lore of the Dragon Age universe. However as a long time fan who waited 10 years and felt obligated to finish this, I have to admit I was relieved to see the credits roll. I regret to have to leave a negative review but I hope Bioware/EA can take lessons from this and return the franchise to form in the future, rather than freeze the IP for good. Time will tell I suppose.

Is it ok to like the game again now?

I could honestly write a short novel with all of the things I could talk about with this game good and bad. However, to accommodate the average gamer's attention span and my own laziness I have instead opted to list the main points below:

Pros:
Great world design
Satisfying combat, physics and animation
Rewarding exploration and a great sense of adventure
Graphics
Sophisticated character creator
Pawns

Cons:
Disappointing story/side quests with many missed opportunities
Unbalanced and shallow classes (though extremely fun to experiment with)
A lack of enemy variety
Low replay value/hollow endgame
Unnecessary MTX
Pawns

Summary:
I have had a lot of fun with this game, for all its problems I find myself losing several hours at a time immersed in the world. It certainly is not for everyone, if you're looking for a great story driven RPG like Dragon Age, The Witcher or Bladur's Gate you will be dissapointed, if you're looking for a deep and fleshed out class builder like Elden Ring or Path of Exile you will be dissapointed, if you're looking for a total sense of freedom and a massive, completely open world like Skyrim you will (probably) be dissapointed. But I can't bring myself to say that this game is bad or even mediocre.

The game has a certain X-factor that I struggle to describe with words, the feeling of felling a cyclops by gouging out its eyes and knocking it off a cliff, the stress of a nighttime ambush in a pitch black forest with an almost maxed out loss gauge, the combo of a fighter's shield bash into a warrior's charged swing sending goblins flying or simply the treasure and hidden caves rewarding diligent exploration. It's small things like these that give me my sweet shots of dopamine and keep me engaged even now 150 hrs in. Perhaps the original game also had these qualities and perhaps it did them better, I don't know I've yet to play it, but I do know that is game can be a blast if you simply take your time in the world, fully explore your surroundings and don't shy away from changing your vocation often.

Oh and I echo all the complaints about the performance, it is absolute garbage and there is no excuse for any game to release in such a state.

A decent iteration of the souls-like genre for such a small development team, though sadly riddled with a myriad of issues.

Pros:
Compelling designs for most enemies and locations
Adequate variety of enemies
Well balanced classes and weapons
Hardening mechanic

Cons:
Slow, tedious and often times irresponsive combat
Clunky combo system caused me to confuse attacks irritatingly often
Abundance of glitches (stuck in environment and inability to dodge being the most frequent)
Very few bosses
Performance issues (especially bad when using RTX features)
Rather uninteresting setting and plot (more of a subjective gripe)

Summary:
I can recommend this game for core fans of the souls-like genre as I believe there is enough value here to justify the asking price, so long as you can look past the glaring shortcomings. For everyone else I would advise catching this on a sale before taking the plunge.

Do yourself a favour and stay away from reviews and guides, this is one you need to play blind. Incredible game.

People are pretty hard on this game, and not necessarily for the wrong reasons. The game is repetitive and generic in many areas. The game is littered with mundane missions like delivery runs and gang shootouts which is pretty much all you will be doing in the open world; even with all of its DLC's installed you will be hard pressed to find anything to do to break up the monotony of the main games district takeover system which is the same thing over and over again: talk to an informant, interrogate some mobsters, hit a few racket operations and the main base, talk to the operative AGAIN to learn where the boss is, go to the main base AGAIN to kill the boss and repeat 9 times until the last mission. Hardly riveting stuff. However if you're someone who can put up with you're average AAA open world grind then there is a lot to like in this game. Sure it is no Mafia II or even Mafia I when it comes to story telling, in fact I think the greatest crime this game commits is calling itself Mafia III, because it shares so little with the previous instalments in the series, however it does have its own charm and a surprisingly genuine social commentary on the racist and xenophobic culture of the south US in the 1960's. The characters are largely well written, Lincoln Clay most of all and it even brings back some familiar faces from the previous game. The opening and finale in this game is fantastic and there is a surprising amount of choice in how the game progresses thanks to the underboss storylines. The gameplay is solid and the driving appropriately feels like a 60's action film. The visuals are nothing to write home about and the sky box is positively hideous but the world is generously detailed with each district feeling unique and full of character. The game takes many inspirations for its characters, storylines and themes and does not shy away from the harsh reality facing ethnic minorities in that era. The licensed soundtrack is also fantastic so that is a bonus.

Overall this game is a missed opportunity and definitely would be five times as good if it did away with the pointless openworld antics, despite this it remains a good time for those interested in the era, action, or a decent character driven storyline.