Guild Wars® Reforged

Pros:

Graphics are cool.

Level design. It's medieval, there are big gates, villages/counties, fields, guards, routes, rivers and mountains.

No handholding. Sure there are some indicators as to where to go but you can be fine with directions. I love directions rather than map indicators. They leave no room for imagination. My first adventure in this game was of course with adversity. I was meant to go the route but I decided to see what's up the hill. I found a lever there which I pulled on and gates opened so I moved through it. It closed before I reached it so I did it again and reached it this time. Then I went through and met stronger opponents that I couldn't easily beat. I learned how to use healing and what my abilities do. Then I found some NPC that joined me. I tried to go as far as I can but he died sacrificing himself for me to run away. I found county I was meant to go to and found some quest there while looking for second profession teacher. Emergent stories that came from not following the script are result of having vague directions or not following them.




Neutral/Interesting:

Dead enemies stay dead. I have my own copy of the world and state is being saved for me. While it is awesome for single player, it disables ability to play with everyone else and doesn't fit MMORPG.




Cons:

Guild Wars starts with very basic premise of "that's where everything goes wrong" but it doesn't show what went wrong right away.

We have character that is not hooked within the world. Intro doesn't give us this hook and connection from character to story. We are one of those "heroes" who are supposed to clean up the mess. No reason why it's us, who we really are, why we were chosen. Introduction to the story is extremally important. I prefer storyteller approach that hypes me up or hands on approach with no story at all.

First quests already bore me. Go from point A to point B. From point B to point C. From point C to point D and kill 1-3 weak monsters that can't hurt you. First game interactions should be surprising, fun and hook you.

You don't have ANY skills/abilities yet but you have equipment. When you do get skills, you don't get a chance to use them right away (Warrior, first skills). This makes game seem more boring than previous segments.

OST in first three hours was barely there. I think I heard two tracks, one in menu, one in first location.

Instant dialogues are uncanny. Lack of any voice (can be Undertale beeps or Hollow Knight one words) for characters make it feel fake. Immersion is non existent.

I couldn't be able to drop down by even a little from the hill to some path and be able to find any shortcuts. It kills immersion again. I can't jump, I can't go down. It's fake, there are obstacles that should not exist.

In order to hide those limitations, I would make them make sense, like there should be mountains blocking my path or deep chasms, valleys. It would make lack of jumping/being able to drop down, more believable.

Also so far atmosphere doesn't seem to change even once yet. Going from A to B to C doesn't feel different. There is county and village but it's still the same in a way.

Enemy that was meant to be a challenge with some kind of strategy prepared for him, died in three hits. He was supposed to be some kind of giant and I was ready to struggle learning how to beat him. It was very disappointing.

Fake NPCs. They either don't speak at all and are ignoring the player (and you can't kill them) or they speak nonsense, contradicting themselves with another sentence and action. Illusion is broken immediately.

Lore felt weak and boring for entire three hours of my gameplay.

I don't like an idea of receiving 3 abilities at once. I destroys progression. If I could earn them one by one, that would be more impactful.

Same attack stat weapons don't have different swing times/attack speed or penetration. Nothing except for the name and model.

I fought like 10 different enemies but they had little to no different abilities or strategies. Only difference so far was distance vs melee. Aloes monsters were healing or defending though. Fighting Earth Elemental didn't feel like fighting either Earth or Elemental. If it doesn't matter, why make it Earth Elemental instead of Grawl?

P2W slop since yesterday

I really tried to love it, but I can't ;w;

I bought it for nostalgia reasons. I played a bit of Nightfall as a kid, never finished it. Now I just finished all the campaigns, and the game is not at all what I remember. It's very hard, pretty much Darksouls. There is a hard mode, but the normal mode in itself is super hard in certain moments. If you just want to go through the story on your own with heroes/henchment, it will be a wipefest in later dungeons. In order to be good and enjoy the game, you need to know classes, skills, heroes etc very well. If you don't it will take you 5-10 runs to finish dungeon or kill a boss by mere luck mostly. Also, like Darksouls the game doesn't respect your time: ass through a zone full of hard mobs to reach the quest guy that you need to protect while he performs a ritual, then he dies if you fail, and now you have to reset quest and run all this way agin, and hopefully not fail this time. Sure maybe it's a skill issue, but a game is supposed to be fun, not frustrating. Also it's purely about managing skills and classes. There is a level 20 and gear ceiling. After that no more progression, no more better weapons or armour, no more attributes to make you more powerful. You can only rely on your knowledge of the game. All in all, not a bad game, just not for me.

Dobra gra