Wow mister that's a gotta threes

Feels like the GOTY frontrunner at this point, as it seems to have edged out KCD2 in the press. Amazing achievement for a fresh studio.

Death Stranding 2 and Hades 2 (if it comes out this year) are other possibilities.

Last time a game was in the zeitgeist to this extent was BG3, and we all know how that went. Only thing going against E33 at this point is that the Game Awards are a long time off and recency bias/forgetting about it tends to have an impact.

I sincerely hope it does sweep the awards, not only is the game phenomenal but it would also send a very positive message to the industry.

Who knows though, people love Kojima and if Death Stranding 2 is slightly more approachable than the first it might put up a good fight.

Feels like the GOTY frontrunner at this point, as it seems to have edged out KCD2 in the press. Amazing achievement for a fresh studio.

Death Stranding 2 and Hades 2 (if it comes out this year) are other possibilities.

I’m not too worried about that, Elden Ring was a February game.

I’m not too worried about that, Elden Ring was a February game.

You know, a few weeks back i looked at all the GotY nominations by year, and as long as an RPG was nominated, it won. So Im thinking COE33 has it in the bag, going by the trend, unless a separate banger of an RPG comes out.

I think Astro Bot pokes a hole in that, unless you're talking about a specific award?

Been slowly going through the game over the last 3 weeks or so and my fucking god, this game is an absolute masterpiece.

I'm a huge fan of turn based RPGs so I'm biased, but everything about this game is just amazing. Music is insanely good (almost at Nier levels of good IMO) the combat is satisfying and challenging at the same time, the voice acting is extremely well done (Andy Serkis does one of the villains) and the graphics and cut scenes are gorgeous, I read that they used mo-cap and had the actors actually playing their scenes together so it feels much more natural as opposed to one person doing their part and then piecing it all together afterwards.

The story is really well done so far, I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere near the end of act 2 (level 40ish across my team) and the writing for the characters is top tier. Funny banter with your team and NPCs at times but lots of emotional moments, it's been a long time since something tugged on my heartstrings the way this game has been able to so far.

Everytime I play it, I have multiple moments of happiness, some sad moments and some laughs in a couple hour gaming session. I seriously can't recommend this game enough. Reading my post back makes me sound like a paid bot but I haven't been this excited about a new game since I found Factorio back in 2020. Before that would've been Fallout New Vegas back in 2010.

Masterpiece of a game and I both can't fucking wait to beat it and see how the story ends, while also dreading that moment at the same time. It's (hopefully) gonna be like finishing a really good TV or book series and realizing there's no more story in that universe. Bittersweet knowing you won't get more of the characters and world you came to love over time. (Just finished Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth books, 7 in total and I'm super sad there aren't any more stories to be told in that fascinating universe. I'm hoping to feel the same way after I beat this game)

Edit: Just to add some of my personal gripes so I'm not solely jerking the game off, some of the optional mini-bosses are annoying af, came across one that has a gimmick of needing to be parried constantly to kill it, and one of its attacks is an 8 hit combo. If you miss even one parry, then you don't get the counter attack at the end, which means you forfeit all damage for that turn.

Alternatively, you can cheese it by building your characters for speed or using a pictos (permanent buff that slightly alters how each character plays slightly essentially) that guarantees the equipped character gets a turn before the enemy does. If you just try to dodge, then the enemy always gets an extra turn, leaving you no opportunity to deal damage. Basically, you either find a way to guarantee your 3 teammates get to attack first and finish it off, or weaken it enough that you only need a couple of good parries, or you parry it to death from full health. You lose otherwise. The parry timing in this game is quite unforgiving (but satisfying af, ngl). I ended up skipping that mini-boss after 5 tries cause I felt myself getting mad and that just makes me play worse.

Some of the optional platforming sections and minigames for getting extra skins are also insanely frustrating and take a lot of repetition to figure out. You also can't manually restart a fight, which is really annoying when you're trying to grind out a boss/miniboss cause sometimes you just lose if you don't dodge/parry certain attacks from certain strong enemies. Forces you to just sit and wait until your whole team dies rather than being able to restart right away.

Been slowly going through the game over the last 3 weeks or so and my fucking god, this game is an absolute masterpiece.

I'm a huge fan of turn based RPGs so I'm biased, but everything about this game is just amazing. Music is insanely good (almost at Nier levels of good IMO) the combat is satisfying and challenging at the same time, the voice acting is extremely well done (Andy Serkis does one of the villains) and the graphics and cut scenes are gorgeous, I read that they used mo-cap and had the actors actually playing their scenes together so it feels much more natural as opposed to one person doing their part and then piecing it all together afterwards.

The story is really well done so far, I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere near the end of act 2 (level 40ish across my team) and the writing for the characters is top tier. Funny banter with your team and NPCs at times but lots of emotional moments, it's been a long time since something tugged on my heartstrings the way this game has been able to so far.

Everytime I play it, I have multiple moments of happiness, some sad moments and some laughs in a couple hour gaming session. I seriously can't recommend this game enough. Reading my post back makes me sound like a paid bot but I haven't been this excited about a new game since I found Factorio back in 2020. Before that would've been Fallout New Vegas back in 2010.

Masterpiece of a game and I both can't fucking wait to beat it and see how the story ends, while also dreading that moment at the same time. It's (hopefully) gonna be like finishing a really good TV or book series and realizing there's no more story in that universe. Bittersweet knowing you won't get more of the characters and world you came to love over time. (Just finished Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth books, 7 in total and I'm super sad there aren't any more stories to be told in that fascinating universe. I'm hoping to feel the same way after I beat this game)

Edit: Just to add some of my personal gripes so I'm not solely jerking the game off, some of the optional mini-bosses are annoying af, came across one that has a gimmick of needing to be parried constantly to kill it, and one of its attacks is an 8 hit combo. If you miss even one parry, then you don't get the counter attack at the end, which means you forfeit all damage for that turn.

Alternatively, you can cheese it by building your characters for speed or using a pictos (permanent buff that slightly alters how each character plays slightly essentially) that guarantees the equipped character gets a turn before the enemy does. If you just try to dodge, then the enemy always gets an extra turn, leaving you no opportunity to deal damage. Basically, you either find a way to guarantee your 3 teammates get to attack first and finish it off, or weaken it enough that you only need a couple of good parries, or you parry it to death from full health. You lose otherwise. The parry timing in this game is quite unforgiving (but satisfying af, ngl). I ended up skipping that mini-boss after 5 tries cause I felt myself getting mad and that just makes me play worse.

Some of the optional platforming sections and minigames for getting extra skins are also insanely frustrating and take a lot of repetition to figure out. You also can't manually restart a fight, which is really annoying when you're trying to grind out a boss/miniboss cause sometimes you just lose if you don't dodge/parry certain attacks from certain strong enemies. Forces you to just sit and wait until your whole team dies rather than being able to restart right away.

i just started streaming this game today after avoiding nearly everything about it, and WOW!! so good already! something this good only comes out once every 5 or 10 years, assuming it keeps up at the same quality of everything I've seen so far. I'm only 4 hours in but very impressed by basically every category you can look at a game. and the entire premise being a hyper focused allegory for mortality itself that we all face is very clever, even if very bleak. i can't wait to see where this game goes!
if you wanna watch me on the expedition, hit up https://www.youtube.com/@crustyoldhuman
https://www.twitch.tv/crustyoldhuman

Been slowly going through the game over the last 3 weeks or so and my fucking god, this game is an absolute masterpiece.

I'm a huge fan of turn based RPGs so I'm biased, but everything about this game is just amazing. Music is insanely good (almost at Nier levels of good IMO) the combat is satisfying and challenging at the same time, the voice acting is extremely well done (Andy Serkis does one of the villains) and the graphics and cut scenes are gorgeous, I read that they used mo-cap and had the actors actually playing their scenes together so it feels much more natural as opposed to one person doing their part and then piecing it all together afterwards.

The story is really well done so far, I'm pretty sure I'm somewhere near the end of act 2 (level 40ish across my team) and the writing for the characters is top tier. Funny banter with your team and NPCs at times but lots of emotional moments, it's been a long time since something tugged on my heartstrings the way this game has been able to so far.

Everytime I play it, I have multiple moments of happiness, some sad moments and some laughs in a couple hour gaming session. I seriously can't recommend this game enough. Reading my post back makes me sound like a paid bot but I haven't been this excited about a new game since I found Factorio back in 2020. Before that would've been Fallout New Vegas back in 2010.

Masterpiece of a game and I both can't fucking wait to beat it and see how the story ends, while also dreading that moment at the same time. It's (hopefully) gonna be like finishing a really good TV or book series and realizing there's no more story in that universe. Bittersweet knowing you won't get more of the characters and world you came to love over time. (Just finished Peter F Hamilton's Commonwealth books, 7 in total and I'm super sad there aren't any more stories to be told in that fascinating universe. I'm hoping to feel the same way after I beat this game)

Edit: Just to add some of my personal gripes so I'm not solely jerking the game off, some of the optional mini-bosses are annoying af, came across one that has a gimmick of needing to be parried constantly to kill it, and one of its attacks is an 8 hit combo. If you miss even one parry, then you don't get the counter attack at the end, which means you forfeit all damage for that turn.

Alternatively, you can cheese it by building your characters for speed or using a pictos (permanent buff that slightly alters how each character plays slightly essentially) that guarantees the equipped character gets a turn before the enemy does. If you just try to dodge, then the enemy always gets an extra turn, leaving you no opportunity to deal damage. Basically, you either find a way to guarantee your 3 teammates get to attack first and finish it off, or weaken it enough that you only need a couple of good parries, or you parry it to death from full health. You lose otherwise. The parry timing in this game is quite unforgiving (but satisfying af, ngl). I ended up skipping that mini-boss after 5 tries cause I felt myself getting mad and that just makes me play worse.

Some of the optional platforming sections and minigames for getting extra skins are also insanely frustrating and take a lot of repetition to figure out. You also can't manually restart a fight, which is really annoying when you're trying to grind out a boss/miniboss cause sometimes you just lose if you don't dodge/parry certain attacks from certain strong enemies. Forces you to just sit and wait until your whole team dies rather than being able to restart right away.

Same here, I am in love with that game and I can’t stop listening to the 8h soundtrack or watch YouTube reactions videos of streamers crying in front of it.

Being French probably doesn’t help me from loving it… I finished the story 4 days ago and instantly reloaded my save to explore everything in the end game, unlocking every picto, every skills and Steam achievements.

Those Gestral beach mini games are annoying on purpose as they are a reference to final fantasy mini games. The platform parts are hopefully not very present, and I feel lucky to have killed that chromatic boss you’re talking about on the third try with full parry/counter.

Some few/nice advices, spoiler free but I’ll tag them anyway:

::: spoiler Tap for spoiler
Grosse tête (Big head) is another boss with tons of attacks, but easier (psa: kill it with Monoco in your team).

Once you can, go see the dragon flying in the sky (the serpenphare, snake + light house) and try to do a "Zelda TOTK" by riding it.

Do not go to the final part of the story with a too strong party, around level 60 would be my maximum. And do not equip the picto you get for finishing act 2. Otherwise you’ll be too strong and miss very cool content on some story boss fights.

After the story is done you can load the auto save and build a totally broken team to destroy everything. This is also how you can access the NG+ option.
:::