Recent reviews by KiyomiNox

Fantastic

This game is fantastic!

This game has the best story since Witcher 3. It"s so easy to get attached to the characters (especially Hugo!) and genuinely care about what happens to them. I found myself laughing, near tears, and afraid alongside the characters. It is beautifully written and incredibly compelling, plus we get to explore a period you don"t often see portrayed even though it"s so well known (everyone knows about the black plague, but you don"t usually see it visualized). The choices each child makes are incredibly realistic, meaning I"d completely believe that each child would ask those questions or say things the way they do given their various ages and experiences. The music is also breathtaking. While not incredibly unique, it does have a distinct tone and emotion that suits the game to perfection.

Tech specs:
RTX 2080
Ryzen 5 2600
16GBs 3200MHz ram
installed on a Samsung 970 EVO 500Gb M.2 drive
Windows 10 Insiders Preview prerelease

The game played at anywhere from 45-60 FPS on 4K Ultra settings with draw distance on high, anti-aliasing on low, and depth of field on low (personal preference). I did, however, experience frequent micro stutters in the initial chapters but went away as I progressed through the story. After following some tutorials regarding Nvidia vsync and power vs performance settings, the micro stuttering has lessened but is still present. I am, however, hesitant to blame the game for this as I am using a beta version of Windows 10 and Windows bugs have caused this sort of problem in the past.

I don"t mind a generally linear game if it uses that focus to tell a fantastic story in a fun way, and this one does just that. It doesn"t have many pure invisible walls, and instead uses rats, guards, fences, and actual building walls which I appreciate. This all makes sense given that you"re usually running through claustrophobic and tightly packed french towns, or crawling through crypts and ruined castles. In those scenarios, you"d expect to find blocked paths. The puzzles did stump me a few times in the later chapters when you are required to figure out a sequence of actions or attacks instead of focusing on a single ability, but I was never stuck for long. Alchemy ingredients are plentiful so you can waste some ammo without worrying too much but crafting ingredients like leather and fabric (some of which are required to make the more high-powered alchemy abilities) are much rarer. This sometimes meant I had to weigh an alchemy creation against an equipment upgrade and more than once I wasted a bunch of the more common ammo to avoid having to make a big one. To be clear, you don"t have to play that way; I just grew up on games where resource management was essential, and it"s given me a need to horde rarer materials.

Overall I give this game a 9.5 or even a 10. I was never bored or uninterested with the story, and the gameplay always left me satisfied. If you like a good story or want to try something relatively short, you won"t regret picking this game up.

Such an amazing game!!