
Thea: The Awakening
Rating: B+ Playing Time: Not shown, but probably 150-200 hours Well, this was an interesting impulse purchase. I got it a long time ago, and I didn't play much of it for most of that time (since Age of Wonders 3 had me covered for those times when I wanted to play a strategy game), but I decided to give it a whirl a few months ago, and it proved to be a pleasant surprise. The thing about Thea that caught my attention initially was that it was based on Slavic mythology. It's


Monster Hunter: World
Rating: A+
Playing Time: 180 hours to date, and ongoing Well, this was a game that seemed to come out of nowhere for me. As I've said before, I was a fan of Dragon's Dogma, which I'd heard had a lot of similarities to the Monster Hunter series, but I'd never actually played a Monster Hunter game before. When I found out that there was going to be a Monster Hunter game for a platform that I owned (which hadn't been the case since the series left the PS2), it was pretty high

Darkest Dungeon
Rating: B+ Playing Time: About 200 hours total Well, some time ago, I made a post talking about my thoughts on Darkest Dungeon and promising to give it a proper review after I got around to replaying it with the latest patches and Crimson Court DLC. Since I wanted something to break up how much I was playing Star Ocean 4, I decided to make good on that. Now, you might've noticed that I pointed out the Crimson Court DLC specifically, rather than just saying all of the DLC. T

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
Rating: B+ Playing Time: About 250 hours between the PS3 and PC releases, plus about 100 hours of the original Dragon's Dogma release on PS3 Now, admittedly, the vast majority of my experience with this game comes from about five years ago. I played the shit out of the original Dragon's Dogma after I'd first picked it up, and then I played the shit out of the Dark Arisen rerelease, and I kept going back to it every now and then as something to mess around in when I didn't ha

Hollow Knight
Rating: B+ Playing Time: 38 hours Well, I’ve been mentioning playing this off and on for a while now, so it’s high time that I finally finished it, right? Hollow Knight was one of the hot indie titles from this year, sporting a combination of Metroid and Dark Souls gameplay with a distinctive art style and a story about a kingdom of bugs. It all came together quite nicely, all told, though it wasn’t without some poor design decisions and a major case of overstaying its welc

Age of Wonders 3
Rating: A Playing Time: Not shown, but probably 70-100 hours If you've been reading all of my posts, you'll have noticed that I went from mentioning that I was playing Star Ocean 4 to playing Hollow Knight to now playing Age of Wonders 3. I'm typically better about sticking with one game until I've gotten all the way through it (just getting through galaxy mode on SO4 doesn't count for this, since the real game doesn't start until I get to chaos), but I guess I've just been

Baldur's Gate 2
Rating: A Playing Time: Estimated at about 250-300 hours, not including character generation, since the timer only measures in-game "days" Obviously, having reviewed Baldur's Gate, it's only fitting to review the sequel as well. There's a lot of overlap between the two games, so I'll try to stick to covering new ground in this review. I'll focus on the core game content (Shadows of Amn and the Throne of Bhaal expansion), but I'll speak briefly about the Ascension mod, since

Baldur's Gate + Tales of the Sword Coast
Rating: A- Playing Time: Estimated at about 200-250 hours, not including character generation, since the timer only measures in-game "days" Ah, yes, this quaint little game that Black Isle outsourced to some upstart Canadian developer called Bioware. While it's often overshadowed by its sequel (and for good reason), Baldur's Gate is a pretty notable game in its own right. Aside from laying the groundwork for the rest of the Infinity Engine games (and a slew of others) and b


Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness
Rating: B+ Playing Time: 229 hours (121 on galaxy, 10 on universe, 98 on chaos) Time can be a funny thing, sometimes. If I'd written a review of this game (henceforth referred to as SO5) straight away after playing it, I would've given it at least an A-, if not an A. Having had some time to digest it, though, that would've been too generous. It's still good, but the flaws that I was willing to overlook while playing it have grown more offensive to my senses from having sin

Assorted thoughts on Darkest Dungeon
I don't want to do an official review of Darkest Dungeon for two reasons. First, it's been a while since I played it, so my memories of it aren't sharp enough for me to trust them completely. Second, though somewhat related, I played it back before the release of the antiquarian class, let alone the Crimson Court DLC or various other changes, so whatever I might have to say about the game wouldn't be a fair reflection of its current state. However, I think it's still a gam