Overall, I was very pleased with Stranger of Sword City and go back to it when long periods of time (and an insatiable desire to work towards max’ing my party) are available to me. If you have a craving for the type of gridder where you change classes five times, grind for hours, and obsess over gear, then you just found your next purchase.
Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness is an RPG that is built specifically for the PlayStation 2 crowd who still pine away for the mid-2000s and the days when Japanese developers hadn’t yet played Skyrim. Those who want another JRPG from that era that is unashamed to be Asian (complete with Fiore’s bouncing breasts, which might make up for Miki’s “diapers”) and delivers on the promise of taking Star Ocean into the current generation shouldn’t be disappointed.
Sure, it mainly relies on nostalgia – which may make people who never played the original a bit harder to win over – but the sheer amount of content available on disc and the intriguing story that ties it all together does an admirable job of making up for its lack of modern features.
What it all comes down to is this: if you enjoy your RPGs as challenging as possible without being so difficult they are impossible, then Blackguards was made especially for you. If you have the patience to work hard at finding the correct strategy to win each battle and enjoy obsessing over character builds, you may have just found the gaming equivalent of the Holy Grail.
Sure, there is the typical Fallout aesthetic and the goofy music and that joy of seeing deathclaws rip the occasional NPC to death, but with much of the core roleplaying aspects torn out of the game, it isn't the New Vegas (or even Fallout 3) inspired heir that many hoped it would be. Still, it is fun to engage in, if you don't mind being an early adopter and paying full price for a loot hauling ARPG. If you're fine with that, hit the trigger on the game and spend the next 60 hours killing mutants with missile launchers.
That being said, if you enjoy a well-written book that happens to have a few dungeons and some evenly-leveled combat thrown in every ten minutes or so, you really can’t go wrong with Obsidian’s wordy magnum opus. Just get a good pair of reading glasses first.
For me, Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet was a great game that scratched that same "I want to blow things up and gain power" itch that Borderlands and PSO did for me, and while I wouldn't want anyone to pay full price for such a game, I'd highly recommend it to bored ARPG fans that catch it on sale and need something to get them through a lean gaming period.
What's so sad about Pathfinder: Kingmaker is that the combat, spells, classes, and actual gameplay are all so solid, but everything else is mired in poor planning and design.
Essentially just a new coat of paint, a rookie soundtrack remastering, and a few voice actors.
Those who are used to the slick action RPG combat of Diablo, Titan Quest or Sacred will probably come away with the same assessment I did, while those who are more interested in Planescape-style questing will find the patience necessary to trudge through the combat to get to the game's tasty dialog-saturated center. Since I am firmly in the former of those two categories, I walked away feeling very disappointed with Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms, and wish more than anything that I could be a member of the latter group.
I would only recommend Victor Vran to people who despise the complexity in those games and want something a bit more "introductory" in design.
It's a pity that the failings of this game will probably discourage any real development on future hardcore D&D CRPGs. Other than Trent Oster & Beamdog's upcoming Baldur's Gate "1.5" sequel, there isn't likely to be much in the way of good news for fans of the license.
If you want to play a Baldur’s Gate expansion, I would suggest getting the original un-enhanced editions and installing both games along with the BGtutu mod. After that, you can download the fan-made Dark Side of the Sword Coast, which is infinitely better than what Beamdog has created here with Siege of Dragonspear.