NieR: Automata (PS4)

It’s 11945 AD. An alien attack has driven the remnants of humanity to the moon, where they send their android soldiers to fight the alien’s machine lifeforms. You control one of those androids, because war is hell.

[Note: I spoil all sorts of things from both this game and the previous ones in the series.]

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Overall: This entire series has a recurring problem with brilliant backstory and dark, character-driven angst in a world where terrible things just don’t stop happening…coupled with gameplay that is often deeply flawed and gets torturously difficult if you want to unlock all of the lore. Which means I end up with three pages of thoughts on it, and will never, ever buy the DLC.

Fanatical (formerly BundleStars) – Part Sixty-Two: Lore Bundle

Forward to the Sky – For some reason, I’d got it into my head that this was an rpg. It’s not, it’s a 3D action-platformer. There are five stages (plus a boss fight) and each stage has 100 crystals to find to unlock the story. It’s short and relatively simple, and I’m not a big fan or 3D platformers in general.

Songbringer - This is a Zelda-alike done in a heavily-pixelated “abstract alien world” style. That works because it does, in fact, take place on an alien world—a crewman from the starship Songbringer gets his speederbike downed by a bolt of lightning, happens upon a magic humming sword, and sets out to explore. The overworld design and eight dungeons are very reminiscent of the original Legend of Zelda, but the exact layout is randomly generated by the seed you enter at the beginning. It would likely appeal to someone into Zelda 1 randomizers because they liked the action and exploration; it scratches the wrong itch for me.

Wurm Unlimited - First-person, MMO-style rpg clearly designed for free exploration and manipulating a zillion items. Or more specifically, designed for MMO players. (There are several video guides for setting up your own server and getting started as a player, but none on how to actually find or advance a plot. Which tells me everything I need to know.)

Windward - A sailing game, or more properly, a quest-based navigation game. You accept commissions, buy and sell cargo, fight pirates, and generally tool around a series of island getting stuff done. It’s got the feel of “rpg sidequests without the main plot or combat”, which is mildly appealing, but I wasn’t wild about the sailing controls and I feel like other games do that sort of thing better.

The Gate of Firmament is apparently part of a popular Chinese rpg series, but the screenshots give me very little hope for the quality of the translation, and it weights in at a massive 24 gigs to download. Unless I get a “You really should try this! It’s great!” recommendation, I think I’ll give it a miss.

Overall: This bundle was kind of a bust. To be fair, I’m not sure how much slack I was willing to give any of these games, but none of them really won me at the first go, and I have a long backlog.