Slogging through Cronos: The New Dawn, probably around the 60% mark now, maybe a bit more? I’m at the Hospital area, which I think is the final main area out of three. I have a lot of things to say about this game, and not too many of them are positive sadly. I’m really on the verge of dropping it and have actually taken a break from it today playing other games.
And it’s a shame because Cronos does have its qualities. It’s beautiful to look at, both visually stunning and with environments displaying immaculate art direction. The atmosphere is on point, and both the alternate-reality Poland with its brutalist nightmare architecture and the sci-fi future tech is fantastically realized - with the caveat that the “Travellers” the protagonist belongs to might be a tad derivative of Bioshock Big Daddies.
Where the game falls flat, sadly is the gameplay. First of all it’s a survival horror with a heavy emphasis on survival and a very weak “horror”. The game is not really particularly scary, even accounting for the occasional cheap jump scare. Instead it’s an absolutely gruelling action slog where the real horror is inventory management and ammunition scarcity. And this would have been fine if the action gameplay was good, but it’s just… boring, stale and uninspired.
The enemies are just the blandest garden variety zombies you can imagine, the touted “merge” mechanic feels cosmetic at best and doesn’t factor in as much as you’d think and without a dodge button a lot of the fights are just running around kiting and waiting for a chance to charge up a shot and repeat. Most enemies are slow enough that it doesn’t even feel particularly thrilling, you’re not really in danger and are just waiting for them to go into an animation you can punish.
On top of that the ammo scarcity is so ridiculous that I often feel compelled to reload my last save if I miss more than two shots in a fight as I don’t want to risk getting soft locked. I know I’m not a god gamer and my aim isn’t the best, but it feels too harsh. And yes, I’m charging every shot to conserve ammo already.
On top of that the body-burning mechanic combined with the restrictions on flamethrower fuel dispensers leads to repeated situations of running back-and-forth between bodies and a dispenser for like 10 minutes straight, which feels like an enormously unfun waste of time and just adds to the endless tedium and frustration the game delivers constantly.
And it’s a shame because the story is actually kinda intriguing. It’s what’s kept me going this far. I do like the world building, the mysterious “Collective” you belong to has me interested still and when the story delves into some more philosophical musings occasionally I am enjoying myself. It could still all fall flat though, as this is a time travel story and those often devolve into timey-wimey messes full of plot holes that fall apart under close inspection. But so far I’m still wanting to see how it ends.
Yeah I agree. I never used Gamepass as I am not the target audience, but the value proposition made sense to me and I understood why some people paid for it.
This new pricing makes no sense at all, wouldn’t you rather just buy the games you want at that point? $360 a year gets you a lot of games, even accounting for a couple of AAA day one purchases every year.
Argo Tuulik along with Martin Luiga were players in Robert Kurvitz’s Elysium TTRPG sessions, perhaps less important than Robert in the creative process and world building but still definitely participating enough to be considered co-creators of the setting. Torson and Mcclane were characters created and played by Argo and Martin during the tabletop sessions, for example.
Argo Tuulik was also a writer for Disco Elysium who was hugely important to the game, and wrote several iconic parts of it like the Hardie Boys. His involvement in trusting the people who betrayed Robert is something he personally regrets, and has talked about in his extensive interviews with the 41st Precinct YouTube channel.
I’m not sure I understand the camera mechanic but it looks cool! Mannequins moving when you’re not looking reminds me of the weeping angels from Doctor Who.
For me that was the first ending I got, Rogue’s path followed by the Sun. I felt like absolute shit afterwards personally. I took Johnny’s offer because I was appealed by the idea of redemption, but instead he dragged Rogue down with him one last time. And then in Path Of Glory V had learned nothing, discarded all the character growth and ignored every lesson to instead let Night City consume her like it does everyone else that fails to realize it’s a festering swamp you must leave behind at all costs. That’s why the two endings that have a positive undertone - The Star and Temperance - involve the main character leaving Night City behind.
Reaching Room 46 the first time is the first of like three or four natural jumping-off points, I’d say. You can totally stop playing there if you’re satisfied, but if you want to keep digging you can go so much deeper.
Nothing has ever hit me harder than Disco Elysium, and I don’t think anything else ever will. Everything from its themes of failure and depression and addiction and clinging to the past to its surprising message of hope in the face of unrelenting nihilism resonated with me on a molecular level. And the Final Dream is just the single most impactful, emotional and heart-rending moment I’ve had in any game ever. The culmination of the entire game distilled into one scene, and even the whole pathos of that one scene concentrated into three closing words:
Spoiler tags aren’t working for me either, I don’t think they’re correct for Lemmy markdown. It should look like this:
::: spoiler Spoiler Title
Spoiler text body goes here
:::
And hopefully work like:
Spoiler TitleSpoiler text body goes here
Anyway for Cyberpunk endings I agree, and happy endings don’t really go with the setting. Personally the one I felt best about was doing the “Don’t Fear The Reaper” secret ending path into the Temperance ending, for me that was an awesome and fitting resolution. But I had grown quite close with Johnny over my playthrough. Caveat that I haven’t finished the DLC yet and I know it adds endings, so maybe I’ll like one of those better.
Finished Enotria: The Last Song and even did a quick NG+ run to get the secret ending and its achievement. Not going to bother with 100%-ing it, however. I really enjoyed my time with it overall. For a somewhat janky AA Soulslike it’s got a lot of charm and the Commedia Dell’Arte framing is great. Beautiful environments and some well designed levels, enough fun to be had with the skill tree, loadout switching, active abilities and elemental/status system. Not too hard (which is fine by me at this stage of my life) and short enough to not overstay its welcome. If you’re a Soulslike fan and can stomach AA games it’ll do the job if you’re done with the usual suspects. I still wouldn’t pay full price for it, but as part of the current €17 Humble Bundle it feels like good value and if you’re not interested in the other games in there then keep it in mind for a future deep sale.
Next I’m not sure. I started playing GRIME that I’ve had my eye on for a while and snagged recently when it was on an all-time low sale, but even though I can tell it’s really good it’s not grabbed me yet. Spooktober made me pirate Cronos: The New Dawn to try it and see if I like it, otherwise I have an impending Alan Wake 2 revisit planned. I still haven’t played the DLCs but I want to replay the Final Draft again first in preparation.
I think he’s talking about the second one, which I’ve heard mixed things about. I thought the first one was an excellent - albeit short - experience that knows what it tries to do and doesn’t do anything else.