I’ve been revisiting anno 2205, infamously the ugly duckling of the Anno series of RTS games. I don’t mind so much the fact that it’s different, lacks customisation and random map generation - I’m bothered because the game is so slow to progress through on challenge settings, and it feels like a game designed just to artificially waste your time; in other anno games, you can always pull tricks to dig yourself out of economic crisis - selling off assets and surplus goods, completing quests for other parties, or taking loans. 2205 is very very confined in terms of what you can do to financially recover in the early game and forces you into a lot of military events.
Really deeply disappointed by Claire Obscura: Expedition 33
The combat is semi-turn based, so it feels unnaturally slow and clunky. But then it requires you to respond to the boss animations with twitchy reflex commands if you want to have any hope of beating even the first couple of levels. So, I’m supposed to strategize on offense but twitch-defend on defense? Bleh.
The game also took a hard turn into gratuitous gore very quickly. And the gore didn’t really add anything to the story or even the atmosphere. Especially when the opening scene is people turning into flower petals, implying the much more romantic melodrama. The scene on the beach is this sharply contrasted pile of mutilated corpses that took the game from sweetly sad to needlessly gross.
Like, if you want to do an Elden Ring knock off with some French flair, cool? But this got a zillion awards. It shouldn’t feel so derivative and hack.