Vampyr

Extra frustrating because it's SO close to being great but every individual component lacks the necessary refinement with the exception of the visuals/atmosphere. The combat is fun when it works, but it often doesn't work and is more often janky as all hell. Needed more time in the oven to work out the kinks all around. I had an obscene number of hard crashes (more than any other game I can recall) and there's only so much bullshit I'm willing to wade through

A great concept somewhat lessened by a not terribly great execution.

Great atmosphere slapped on a boring slog.

I'm so torn on what to rate this because I was really into it. It's a testament to the strengths that I was, but it's a bit messy as a whole. I like that the open world is smaller because they don't all need to be huge but a little more freedom in how I traverse it would have been welcome. Combat a little clunky, a little more stealth required to bite victims would have been good. But excellent choices and consequences, brilliant and moody music, good story. A lot to like here despite the flaws.

A decent game with a laudable focus on choices&consequences. Sadly, the central conceit of "choose which friendly NPCs to kill, then suffer the consequences" has been botched in execution. You're supposed to kill NPCs to gain extra levels for battle, but the battles are so easy that killing is never required. Worse, the game's best ending is locked behind a "zero kills" condition (!). As a result, a player who plays smartly and carefully will miss out on 95% of the game's reactivity >:(