For the French company Spiders has always been easy to worry. This was facilitated by their commitment to single games in general, and classic Western role -playing games in particular. Each time, developing the game, they did not allow financial restrictions to block the path to their ambitions, at least when it came to the concept. But so far, the execution has always been several levels lower than what gamers expected. Nevertheless, in Greedfall, for some century developers managed to realize almost all their promises.
Attention! For the most lazy I leave the video. And everyone else, pleasant reading!
Basic mechanics.
In the niche of classic European role -playing games that BioWare temporarily left, free space has formed. Starting with Mars: War Logs published in 2013, Spiders tries to fill this space, strengthening its positions from year to year. With the release of Greedfall, the company took another firm step forward. The game has enough roughness, but in which of the last games there were no? So let’s go immediately to the strengths of the game.
GreedFall provides the player with a large selection in all directions. Whether it is an approach to the implementation of missions or pumping a character. Most quests can be completed in several ways. You need to get into the building? You can use stealth, get the form of the guard, find a hidden entrance, try to speak guard, or just break through with a battle. And although not all your decisions affect the world of the game and the plot, it is nice to have such a gameplay diversity.
Role elements in the game work according to the old principle "What is pumped, then I got".
To be able to speak teeth to the interlocutors, pump points into intuition. To bargate potions, pump a branch of science. When you choose the lines related to your charisma in the dialogue, the game is testing your skill. If the check passes, everything is fine. If not, please accept the consequences. I work classic mechanics in the game, and you see it on the screen. Sometimes, finding a hidden passage, you simply cannot use it, because in order to climb through something, or crawl under something, you may need to pump the skill “Balance”.
The pumping system in the game is quite flexible, but understandable. Everything works as you expect. And most importantly, there is no feeling of wasted points. So that you do not pump – it will be beneficial at various stages of the game. Such flexibility pushes you to experiments and various methods of passing.
Fighting is just one of the options for solving problems. In truth, this element in Greedfall is less successful than in others. This is not to say that the combat system is bad. The fighting consists of standard attacks, you can dodge strikes and fend them off, there is magic and shooting. The combat system functions soundly and can deliver a certain share of pleasure. But I, if possible, tried to avoid battles. Management seemed a little hard to me, and the camera is not the most convenient, which clearly influenced the battles in general.
Plot and quests.
Many basic quests are inherently similar to those that we saw in Witcher 3. You can take contracts for the murder of all kinds of creatures and bandits, or perform other small orders. The main third -party quests, in turn, are made in conscience. They are well spelled out and variable. Perhaps not all of them knock out 10 out of 10. But not one of the large quests seemed boring to me, and was not convicted by me in self -reproach.
Each of your satellites has its own quest. With the help of these quests, you have the opportunity to strengthen trust or worsen them, learn more about the characters themselves and their culture. Sometimes your comrades ask you about specific things. For example, one of the companions will give you an order to get into the building controlled by his family, but at the same time, he asks not to kill anyone. Remember, your decisions will have consequences. Also, your actions affect the reputation of certain fractions.
You need to understand that all quests and the main storyline can lead to a very limited number of results. In this game, I was interested not only what result I would come to, but also how I would do it. I was interested in the process itself.
The world of the game is inspired by the era of colonization of America (XV -XVII century) and fantasy is seasoned with elements. The latter makes the process of research on the world more interesting. Here the place is also old as the world of the conflict of alien people and indigenous inhabitants. Instead of a half -empty huge world (hello Assasin’s Creed and Andromeda) compact and various locations at our disposal. None of the locations are felt artificially stretched. They are full of various quests and points of interest. For convenience, all the most interesting, of course, is noted on your map. Nevertheless, I would like to mention the unsuccessful location of the points of fast movement. Sometimes these points are too far from each other. Therefore, sometimes jogging from a quest to the quest can be tired. There are problems and a technical nature, which is not surprising for playing a limited budget. Animation can be clumsy, the facial expressions of the characters leaves much to be desired. Also, some textures of objects and NPC are repeated more often than I would like. None of these problems are critical, but they are all noticeable. It is also not worth excluding that many shortcomings will be corrected by future patches, and possibly new DLCs.
Yes, the game is secondary. It is a mixture of the already known role -playing mechanic. But who said that secondaryness is always bad?
If you are a sophisticated figure, and spend your precious time only on extra-class games, in which case, you should probably pass by. But RPG lovers who regularly sit for several hours a day behind video games can close their eyes to all these shortcomings. The game will give you interesting experience. And if you take into account that nothing good in this genre came out this year, then the significance of the game only increases.
Recommendations for the acquisition of the game are addressed to fans of this genre, of which we have a lot in our country. Everyone else before making a decision should look at a couple more reviews, maybe a few flyers. And then, having weighed all the pros and cons, make a decision. After all, in general, if you consider all the genres, interesting games are enough, and perhaps you should spend your money on the game of another genre.
Addition from the author. Gambling and problems of modern game journalism.
So that you do not make, do not make a decision, starting from a review of the authorship of the authorship of all the well -known gambling. I once loved me. (approx. Yes, I am now signed in VK). Why? Everything is simple. The author of the review is biased, he criticizes the game, but does not consider it through the prism of the whole genre. Some of the claims seem strange, and even absurd. For clarity, I will give several examples:
1. The author writes that in Greedfall using saving loading, you can always find a painless solution to the problem. Seriously? So I can do such a trick in almost all role games. Original Sin? Easily. Witcher? Yes, easily? Dragon Age? This is the only way. Who wants to play a role, plays it. Who wants to go through the game without offending anyone, uses preservations. So it has been for centuries (there are exceptions, but these exceptions do not determine the genre).
2. The author does not like the strange weapon modification system. For example, in Greedfall, improving the cinheg’s guard, you get an increase in the damage. Let me remind you that in many games you can simply enchant a sword, and it will beat with a lightning of only your adversaries, but not you – this is called convention.
3. Here’s another pickup. The author writes that having stopped in front of the locked door, you do not need to rush to download the skills of hacking, as the door key can lie in the next room. What is the claim? Wasn’t it like that in Original Sin? Or there were no similar situations in Skyrim or Fallout? This is another common element in role -playing games. After all, we swing, including to make it easier to play. Not everyone wants to delve into garbage tanks and explore neighboring buildings.
4. There were also claims to stealth, namely the conventions. In what role -playing games did you see steel without conventions?!
5. “Wherever you are, you will definitely fall into a deficiency,” the author writes. Take it towards Greedfall and put any other RPG in its place, and now start to poke. You will probably constantly fall into the shortcomings.
Compare Dragon Age 3 from the rich BioWare and GreedFall. The difference is only in scale and in the script of the main storyline. (I admit, Bioware is still good in this component). Okay, I’ll take up the holy. Look at Witcher 3. Army of developers and a lot of money. Now read the review of gambling on Greedfall. Read? Yes, all the same can be applied to Witcher 3. These are the basic problems of all existing Western role -playing games, from Skyrim to Greedfall.
Very often I hear that the review is the subjective opinion of the author and you should not find fault because of this. I personally are already tired of this formulation. She is more like an excuse. To reluctance to take responsibility for content. There must be a sequence. Gambling puts only 8 points of the best game last year God of War (according to most critics). Then he puts 7.5 points to Detroit: Become Human only because the social and philosophical message, you see, did not go to a particular author. And this is a serious game journalism? Too much subjectivity. This leads to biased estimates in the style of "we are not like everyone else". (At the same time, I would like to note that the gambling has recovered a little, during the award of the best of the best for 2018).
That you can do it?
If the publication writes only one review of the game, then you need to remember that the process must be approached with the proper liability. You need to try to look at the game more objective. The viewer must understand the line, basic principles and standards that the magazine or site adheres to.
The second option is to reveal games, speak first of all about the strengths of the project and leave the final assessment of the player.
There is truth and the third option. Write one game at 5-6 reviews, as I do some other magazines and sites. Then the audience will at least have the opportunity to monitor specific authors whose interests they share.