Wow mister that’s a gotta threes
Feels like the GOTY frontrunner at this point, as it seems to have edged out KCD2 in the press. Amazing achievement for a fresh studio.
Death Stranding 2 and Hades 2 (if it comes out this year) are other possibilities.
You know, a few weeks back i looked at all the GotY nominations by year, and as long as an RPG was nominated, it won. So Im thinking COE33 has it in the bag, going by the trend, unless a separate banger of an RPG comes out.
I think Astro Bot pokes a hole in that, unless you’re talking about a specific award?
Hmm, i guess i did miss ReFantazio from those nominations, youre right. I dont think ive seen anything of that game, so possibly thats why i glossed over it.
Also I refuse to acknowledge the Elden Ring DLC as a nomination. Also the FF remake is a bit of an odd situation as I also refuse to acknowledge that as a new game as well, but it very clearly is.
Been slowly going through the game over the last 3 weeks or so and my fucking god, this game is an absolute masterpiece.
I’m a huge fan of turn based RPGs so I’m biased, but everything about this game is just amazing. Music is insanely good (almost at Nier levels of good IMO) the combat is satisfying and challenging at the same time, the voice acting is extremely well done (Andy Serkis does one of the villains) and the graphics and cut scenes are gorgeous, I read that they used mo-cap and had the actors actually playing their scenes together so it feels much more natural as opposed to one person doing their part and then piecing it all together afterwards.
The story is really well done so far, I’m pretty sure I’m somewhere near the end of act 2 (level 40ish across my team) and the writing for the characters is top tier. Funny banter with your team and NPCs at times but lots of emotional moments, it’s been a long time since something tugged on my heartstrings the way this game has been able to so far.
Everytime I play it, I have multiple moments of happiness, some sad moments and some laughs in a couple hour gaming session. I seriously can’t recommend this game enough. Reading my post back makes me sound like a paid bot but I haven’t been this excited about a new game since I found Factorio back in 2020. Before that would’ve been Fallout New Vegas back in 2010.
Masterpiece of a game and I both can’t fucking wait to beat it and see how the story ends, while also dreading that moment at the same time. It’s (hopefully) gonna be like finishing a really good TV or book series and realizing there’s no more story in that universe. Bittersweet knowing you won’t get more of the characters and world you came to love over time. (Just finished Peter F Hamilton’s Commonwealth books, 7 in total and I’m super sad there aren’t any more stories to be told in that fascinating universe. I’m hoping to feel the same way after I beat this game)
Edit: Just to add some of my personal gripes so I’m not solely jerking the game off, some of the optional mini-bosses are annoying af, came across one that has a gimmick of needing to be parried constantly to kill it, and one of its attacks is an 8 hit combo. If you miss even one parry, then you don’t get the counter attack at the end, which means you forfeit all damage for that turn.
Alternatively, you can cheese it by building your characters for speed or using a pictos (permanent buff that slightly alters how each character plays slightly essentially) that guarantees the equipped character gets a turn before the enemy does. If you just try to dodge, then the enemy always gets an extra turn, leaving you no opportunity to deal damage. Basically, you either find a way to guarantee your 3 teammates get to attack first and finish it off, or weaken it enough that you only need a couple of good parries, or you parry it to death from full health. You lose otherwise. The parry timing in this game is quite unforgiving (but satisfying af, ngl). I ended up skipping that mini-boss after 5 tries cause I felt myself getting mad and that just makes me play worse.
Some of the optional platforming sections and minigames for getting extra skins are also insanely frustrating and take a lot of repetition to figure out. You also can’t manually restart a fight, which is really annoying when you’re trying to grind out a boss/miniboss cause sometimes you just lose if you don’t dodge/parry certain attacks from certain strong enemies. Forces you to just sit and wait until your whole team dies rather than being able to restart right away.
And from ex-ubisoft devs no less; the undisputed king of mediocrity. It’s a testament to how utterly crushing the weight of shareholder influence and middle management bloat is on the people working there. Creativity cannot flourish within a publicly owned company that only seeks profit and nothing more.
Whenever I hear the Ubisoft narrative I feel nothing but boiling wrath for all the people who chose to not play the two Prince of Persia 2D platformers they made. I am thoroughly bored of their open world fare, but it’s astonishing how reliably their most creative, better games are their worst performers.
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.
Hands down best action adventure ever.
That combat was soo smooth and satisfying.
I want to replay it every year, but it hangs shortly after start on my Steam Deck.
3 weeks and ~90 hours in. Currently speedrunning new game+ to get that level 99 achievement. After 90 ish it’s pretty slow.
I feel the same! The music in particular is outstanding. It’s a truly beautiful game
It’s a safe bet for GOTY.
Probably my favorite game, and I’ve played a lot of games
Narratively it goes off the rails and it has some pacing and balance issues as well, but it’s still a great game.
And how refreshing is it to see a great looking RPG that doesn’t feel the need to be an action game? Maybe they can convince Square to stop making crappy button mashers and go back to making good to great turn based games for all those cool combat animations.
–cries in french–
i just started streaming this game today after avoiding nearly everything about it, and WOW!! so good already! something this good only comes out once every 5 or 10 years, assuming it keeps up at the same quality of everything I’ve seen so far. I’m only 4 hours in but very impressed by basically every category you can look at a game. and the entire premise being a hyper focused allegory for mortality itself that we all face is very clever, even if very bleak. i can’t wait to see where this game goes! if you wanna watch me on the expedition, hit up https://www.youtube.com/@crustyoldhuman https://www.twitch.tv/crustyoldhuman
Hey Baldur’s Gate 3 only came out 2 years ago! I know what you mean though. It’s rare when you play something that feels effortless and you want to keep playing it because it’s that good. This game definitely had that! I luckily saw the trailer last fall and fell for it then. I didn’t want to get my hopes up with how things are these days but I gave it a shot and was my first day one release game in over a year I think. Took the day off and I was soo happy I did.
i wasn’t interested in baldurs gate. I’m very picky about fantasy settings, but expedition 33 has such a great premise I was all in from the intro onward
I can’t wait to play, but I refuse to buy a digital copy. Physical copies are impossible to find!
