У моих отзывов на игры есть большой минус - они никак, вообще никак не влезают в стимовскую форму для ревью. Так что раз уж их все равно пришлось переписывать в более короткий формат, я решила “да какого черта” и написала их заодно и на английском. Хоть какая практика, которой у меня, как у переехавшей, не очень много, раз я почти все время сижу дома и общаюсь с русскими друзьями, русскими клиентами и русскими родственниками :)
Комментировать громатегу, пунктуацию и, конечно, содержимое очень можно.

Divinity: Original Sin 2
Though having a steep learning curve in terms of game mechanics, D:OS 2 has survived a couple of rage-quits on my part and ended up being my favorite RPG of all time. And when I say ‘all time’ I mean almost 25 years of gaming and well established relationships with all the golden classics (baldur's gate, planetscape, witcher, etc.)

D:OS 2 gets a huge part of its unique charm from its grimdark and edgy setting. You even start the game as a prisoner in a magic concentration camp, ironically called ‘Fort Joy’. This endearing facility provides all sorts of torture and suffering for your kind - folks who can wield uncanny and evil source-magic. And as such, you are also inevitably a bad person to begin with, and your adventures are going to be delightfully ambiguous and morally gray.You can play as a custom character or as a character of origin - already established in a narrative sense, who has a unique worldview, perspective and agenda. And awesome characters of origin they are! Very lovable and alive, they make an immersion in a game world smooth and easy. It is nice to play someone who is not brand new in a game world, but rather has a complex history in it. I had the hardest justice-boner ever while playing as Ifan ben Mezd and slapping a barrel of Death Fog right in [Spoiler’s] face :)
By the way, please-please don't play as Fane or Losa on your first playthrough, those are marvelously unique. This narrative device kinda reminded me of VtM: Bloodlines, where your game experience was shaped by the starting clan of your choice, or about Tyranny, where you pre-shape the game world, locking out entire locations and opening others. This undoubtedly adds a great amount of replayability to the game, especially for all my fellow completionists out there.

As for the downsides - quality of game content starts to dramatically decrease somewhere around the midpoint of the game. And if ‘Fort Joy’ is the best location in the entire game, the last location, the ancient city of Arx, is a sad and unpolished clusterf**k. And the final battle is just a meh, anticlimatic to a point of being stupid. Makes my heart bleed for all the lost potential this story of one's Divinity would have if it has been properly developed and told.

Game ends abruptly leaving you eagerly craving for more of it, and it is a huge pain point for me - there is no more, I have scooped every bit and piece of content during my five full playthroughs and somehow I am still hungry.

But otherwise it is an astonishing game. Great core mechanics, deep lore, beautiful visuals, fantastic music and you can rip-out people's faces and wear them as masks while playing badass undead lizard-wizard. Or eat pieces of dead flesh for new knowledge as an elf-cannibal. Or just collect dirty undies for your spells, yes, they are definitely 100% for spells. What other rpg would let you do that?

Dragon Age™ Inquisition
Let's just get it out of the system - yes, I've romanced Solas and it was one of the best and simultaneously worst romantic experiences I've had not only in video games, but in my entire life. It is a Shakespearean-level drama, pure agony of trying to save someone, who you hold near and dear to your heart, from themselves and miserably failing in the process. Relatable unhealthy relationship pattern with which I've struggled all my life.

I felt genuinely depressed after the final credits of the game. I had to drink a lot of scotch to cope with all the grief and helplessness and it tasted salty from my tears. Spent a couple of months like that, and it got better over time, but still hurts. A lot.
10\10 would strongly recommend, best magnificent bald heartbreaking elf in the history of video games.

And still… this game has all the other aspects of an RPG gem. And I just love all of them. From the balanced, challenging, tactical and complex combat system to the amazing castle which you have as your crafting, resting, drinking, shopping, lore reading, party members banging hub. From difficult and ambiguous moral choices to the open-world's beautiful locations. From little cute and dramatic war table mini quests to the astonishing art style, carefully woven in every detail like game difficulty choice or your standing with party members (styled as Art Nouveau tarot cards). From the great soundtrack to the impressive voice acting (I've been a fan of Gareth David-Lloyd’s voice since his role in “Torchwood” around fifteen years now, wow!).I am not a fan of this particular game series. I was not really impressed by DA1, felt rather okay-ish with DA2, but DA3 has completely and utterly won me over with its amazing narratives and magnificent, although tragic plot revolving, this time, around elves, being not so great (again), and true freedom being very elusive or even unattainable. No matter if you are an actual slave in Tevinter, or bounded by indoctrination from cradle to grave Qunari zealot, or an ancient entity, chained with guilt, and unsuccessfully trying to right its past wrongs.

As for the downsides… guess repeatable and grindy ‘kick demons and close all the green holes in the sky’ fights is not everyone's cup of tea. I've enjoyed them as an opportunity to play with party composition and tactics in a somewhat predictable environment, min-maxing my damage.
The same goes for the dragon hunts - there are ten of them, if I remember correctly, and although every dragon is different in terms of resistance, behavior and tactics, they all are just gigantic aggressive one-shooting damage sponges after all, and novelty wears off fast.
And yes, it is a really huge game with a lot of unnecessary stuff, sometimes half baked - some people love it, and some don’t. As a completionist, I was typically over-leveled up to ten levels to the moment of final fight on both of my playthroughs.
I’ve also find ‘Nightmare mode’ way, way to easy - I’ve actually managed to die there only once (trying to fight cold daemons with my party, build around cryo-cc) and I am in no mean die-hard hardcore gamer, more ‘tell me a story’ difficulty setting type of person.

https://julia-denisova.livejournal.com/1217647.html