This is the closest I've ever come to not recommending a Supergiant game. And it was close. If there were a neutral thumb, I'd have picked it in a heartbeat.

The combat is fun (but also feels a lot easier than Hades, though that might just be because I'm better at it now), and there are a lot of minor but welcome QoL improvements. The music, where it's new, may be even better than the first game's. But the characters and the writing...

In Hades, I was always excited to get a new conversation or deepen a relationship. Now, it's mostly tedious, shallow chatter with characters who are boring, or insufferable, or actively cruel to the protagonist (which includes multiple love interests?!!). And that's before you reach the first, credits-roll ending of the game, at which point all narrative agency is stripped from your character, and the justification you're given for the game to continue past that point is the most ham-fisted, frustrating option I could imagine.

I was surprised when Supergiant decided to make a sequel for the first time, and I trusted that it was because they were genuinely enthusiastic to tell another story in this setting. But the ending (and much of the other writing) of Hades II is so bad that it's making me wonder how much they just wanted to keep riding the wave of profit from the first game. And if that's the motivation, I certainly can't blame them for it, given that they're a small, independent studio. But I do hope they take the money and go back to making unique games with characters and stories we can actually care about.

Could maybe be a little tighter, but you mostly won't notice thanks to the creative gameplay, engaging story, and excellent soundtrack. Does a decent job of not shying away from the negative side of tourism while acknowledging the many reasons people travel to visit a place.

Update: 160 hours, not counting whatever time I spent tabbed out—call it 120 hours of play, conservatively—with 100% of achievements coincidentally along the way. And it continued to be a giant, steaming pile of ♥♥♥♥ through the entire game. Occasional, extremely rare glimmers of the old BioWare, but mostly just heaps of embarrassingly bad writing, Mass Effect-ripoff music where there was more than a single sustained "atmospheric" note, derivative combat, "puzzles" that aren't puzzles and are also immediately explained, utter and obvious disdain for most previously established worlbuilding and characterization, zero trust in teh player to pay attention to anything, almost nothing that remotely qualifies as "woke," and a ton of stuff that is the opposite. (I am begging you, PLEASE, make an ACTUALLY woke game.)

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As a generic fantasy action game: 6/10
As a Dragon Age game: 2/10
As a sequel to Inquisition and Trespasser, specifically: -20/10

I'd been eagerly awaiting this game for nearly a decade—and tentatively hopeful even after many long-time DA team members left or were inexcusably cut loose—but now that I'm actually playing it, I just want it to be over.

I would characterize Veilguard as enthusiastic but aggressively mediocre fanfiction, except by existing it removes any possibility of the original authors being able to continue the story. I'd drop it entirely except I know I'd regret seeing spoilers, so instead I'm joylessly slogging through. Maybe it'll pleasantly surprise me as I get further into the story, but given the embarrassingly amateurish dialogue, the inexplicable combination of frequent disregard for the established worldbuilding and tedious exposition that only exists for totally new players, and the utter dearth of likeable characters, I'm not holding my breath. (I can't even focus on combat, since that's somehow been simultaneously dumbed down and turned into an obnoxious grind. And I can't enjoy the visuals, either, since it's yet another inexplicable combination of cartoonish in some ways and overly detailed in others, with the bonus of previously innovative art lifted wholesale from previous games with no thought as to context.)

I want to love this game, and it has a lot of promise. But:

• Nearly a year after release, there are still too many bugs (check the Tech Support section of the game's Steam forum)
  
• The controls are extremely clunky and awkward (the vehicle will make you long for the days of Mass Effect's Mako)
  
• The pacing feels like the worst of both worlds; some segments drag on too long, while the ending feels extremely rushed

I'll probably eventually revisit The Invincible after they've, I hope, cleaned up more of the bugs. But for now, it's just too frustrating an experience.

This is one of those times where I really wish there were a neutral rating option. But since I'm forced to choose, it's a thumb-down from me.

Everything good about Diablo 4 is just a retread of something from a previous game with QOL improvements. As for the most game-defining new elements, making D4 open-world, having enemies scale to match your level, and forcing you to always have other players present in your game were all huge mistakes. Because there's so much space, and you can access any of it at any time, and everything scales, nothing matters and nothing makes an impression. It's all just mush.

It's like they turned the whole game into the most boring, bland possible version of the Diablo franchise grind. I would much rather that they'd just applied the QOL improvements to D3. (Or, you know, made a D4 with a vision other than just moving units with an incremented number and cashing in on microtransaction money.)

Background: I've played a lot of casual D2 for 20+ years; I 100%ed multiple seasons in D3; I 100%ed S4 in D4.

In Stars and Time gave me not only everything I wanted but also everything I didn't realize I needed from a time-loop narrative.