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Beautiful Desolation

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Joined 2018-12-01

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It looks like people had a lot more to say before the game was released than after.

That’s not a good sign…

     
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Total Posts: 681

Joined 2015-02-06

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Or maybe they are busy playing it! Wink I’m about 12 hours in and loving every second of it. Soooo much involved, so many choices and paths. Not to mention optional quests and paths as well. There is no way to see and do everything in a single play through so there’s definitely some great replay value here!

     

This message will self destruct in 3… 2… 1… BOOM!!!

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Total Posts: 2653

Joined 2013-03-14

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Desolation is the kind of a game that can be properly discussed only after a more people have played it through because of the choice and consequence system it has. Many of your actions have an effect on the game world, so for a good conversation, it would be nice to hear how other people have tackled the problems and whom they sided with and what happened because of it.

     
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Total Posts: 8720

Joined 2012-01-02

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it wasn’t really that high after 6 hours spent playing it or so, it has a very low key in interactions and dialogue unless it thru cinematics, i wish i had more dialogue with Pooch, all the time or maybe most instead of it being occasionally, I d give a rate of 3.5/5, and that is good

     
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Total Posts: 387

Joined 2013-02-17

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I`m already pretty sure that Beautiful Desolation is going to be in my best adventure games top 5 list for 2020. Just don`t have time to play it just yet Smile

     

Playing: 1) Broken Sword 5 2) Road 96

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Total Posts: 36

Joined 2006-03-14

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Vehelon - 08 March 2020 10:42 AM

It looks like people had a lot more to say before the game was released than after.

That’s not a good sign…

it does get a tad confusing after a point, and forces you to backtracking, pixelhunting and a good amount of guesswork as it is quite unclear what to do and where to go.

I think the major fault is a lack of a proper quest log. You have a PDA with many useless items and information on it, but it doesn’t have a simple quest log in, to keep track of the quests you have on and even give some hints on the procedure. I had to actively take notes (with pen and paper, I’ve been doing that since the Zork days Tongue ) of everything that “felt” like a quest or that it could potentially be used down the road to make sense of everything. Otherwise, what is a 20h game, can become 40h.

There are many, MANY great things about this game. And you simply need to enjoy its world and atmosphere, the afropunk aesthetic is amazing. But even with the added (and veeery basic) hint system on the map, the game is channeling some of those frustrating open world Sierra games, with little control over the flow of the story and gameplay.

     
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Total Posts: 2653

Joined 2013-03-14

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As I just completed the game, I can say I agree with what Skywalker333 said. The game is good, but especially after you’ve open multiple areas, it begins to feel a bit aimless. A quest log of some kind could have helped quite a bit with that.

I was for the longest time stuck on one puzzle, as I had missed an item of importance in one location which I had not explored as fully as I originally thought. That was the only moment I had to check out a walkthrough as I already had combed through locations ad nauseum

There definitely is a lot good about the game, I loved the exploration aspect of it and your choices have consequences and it allows you to tackle things in different manners, but as a whole, the gameplay could do with some finetuning.

I’d give it a solid 3 out of 5, all in all.

     
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Total Posts: 8720

Joined 2012-01-02

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i agree with what tomimt said, however the game a step below Stasis and Cyane, i was very enthusiastic in my first approach to the game, but the prob is i early (long before) time i have had dicovered what i really like about adventure game are interaction esp, NPCs, and completely new areas and places that expose different artwork and this game lacks both. the site was really generous with 4/5 rating. but the doesn’t mean i have less respect for The Brotherhood, i believe like Chris has said its an ‘experimental’ clear as the daylight. we still to witness greatness from the Brotherhood hands downs

     

Total Posts: 310

Joined 2018-12-01

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I really admire the level of effort and artistry The Brotherhood takes with their games. It must be really time-consuming to create such detailed environments. However, I had difficulty enjoying Stasis and Cayne because of the puzzles, minimal character interaction and darkness of it all. I thought my opinion might change with Beautiful Desolation, but it took me less than 2 hours to realize that I still feel that way. So I got a Steam refund. Glad to hear others are enjoying the game but I don’t think they are for me.

     

Total Posts: 1891

Joined 2010-11-16

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So there’s a lot of interesting things about this game. And i will say i noticed people talking about the lack of a quest log and im thinking “but there is a quest log” I learned it was just added a few weeks ago. Despite that…. I’ve hit a point probably not that far in the game where i am lost.. and the quest log is not helping. Further, i tried to look at a walkthrough by the devs which was a mess, and i am still lost as i really dont want to read the whole thing to sort it out. Im pretty sure im missing something dumb thats stopping me from visiting more locations. (i just have zozo, saxonwold and vesta) It has a great aesthetic.. interesting strange story.. and it is soooo all over the place.

     
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Total Posts: 2653

Joined 2013-03-14

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I was stuck as well for the longest time until I finally discovered it was because I hadn’t found one item that was hidden on a location I had already visited and had thought I had fully combed.

     

Total Posts: 1891

Joined 2010-11-16

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I became unstuck and dont have a good answer for it, i think it may be buggy. I knew one of the likely things i needed to progress was by growing seeds soaked in milk. I presented them to the maiden at kettle, and she told me she would cultivate them IF i help her find her sisters.. i still have this in the dialogue log, and it would not let me present to her further.. so it seemed very clear i needed to find the other maidens.. Well… present the seeds again to her now… and she just plants them.. no mention of the other maidens.

     

Total Posts: 130

Joined 2010-12-09

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If anyone wants to check the game out before making a purchase - you can get the demo on GOG!

https://www.gog.com/game/beautiful_desolation_demo

     
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Total Posts: 2060

Joined 2013-08-25

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Finished Beautiful Desolation, and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. It’s a very professionally made game, one of the best-looking adventure games for sure. You got sucked into this imaginable biotech world with conflicting nations and races that want to destroy each other (similar to our world in this regard). There are choices, there are (mostly) fetch quests which vary from straightforward to multistep quests, plenty of locations and landscapes and yet… almost nothing to do.

I didn’t like the interface in STASIS, and it’s even worse here. There are 1-3 hotspots to locate at each screen to continue. The rest are either those dull descriptions which just hang in the air (“This is a tree typical for this area”), without any feel of accomplishment as you just point a mouse at them to read, or a couple of characters you can talk to to progress. You can also manually navigate your ship, but there is no point in it - you can only explore the locations already marked on the map. It’s like they were making an RPG and then ripped it off everything that makes it an RPG.

And it gets boring pretty quick. Despite the multiple conflicts and a great universe, the game is so sterile. There are very few memorable characters. Even the main characters are a letdown. It starts like a very, I don’t know if it’s the right word, masculine game: there are those two tough brothers who don’t give a crap about anything - they just want to return to their Africa of the 1970s, accompanied by a robot dog with an intellect of a very smart woman and (later on) a flying robopet.

But after awhile it becomes obvious that there is only one protagonist. You gain control of the dog for a short period of time only twice per game (the second encounter is a very irritating timed action/puzzle), plus you play as a robopet and a couple of robots, also very briefly. That’s it. The rest of the time you just listen to their useless comments and reactions (like the dog starts laughing for no reason) or get engaged into some sentimental pre-programmed discussions about the childhood or the poor fate of a robot.

Near the end I discovered some turn-based fighting game which is optional and which had to be completed 5 times in a row. You choose three fighters from 1-4 races (depending on the number of tokens you gained from each race). I’m not sure if I got the rules right since I easily beat 4 bosses using three “best” fighters and got stuck on the last boss before I checked the hints at the official website and discovered that I already had the item that could be gained be defeating her. Then the game ended.

And the ending was bad, really bad story-wise. There are multiple endings apparently, but I have no interest in replaying the game. I didn’t hate it or anything, it has an epic feel and leaves you with a lot to consider. A great accomplishment for an indie company, but also such a wasted opportunity. I’m sure it could’ve been made into a great RPG. OR they could’ve cut out half of those locations to make it more engaging. OR follow a Disco Elysium path and made it into an awesome text-heavy adventure. But it’s plain boring at its currents state and there’s no way around.

     

PC means personal computer

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Total Posts: 355

Joined 2017-03-09

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Doom - 06 September 2020 07:27 PM

It starts like a very, I don’t know if it’s the right word, masculine game: there are those two tough brothers who don’t give a crap about anything - they just want to return to their America of the 1970s, accompanied by a robot dog with an intellect of a very smart woman and (later on) a flying robopet.

This is a very astute observation. I didn’t feel any connection to what I was tasked with doing. It reminded me of the 80s gaming era, where it was accepted by everyone that rescuing the princess or saving the world was the thing to do, and that was deemed enough. Today’s gamers ask for more connection, and no matter how many pretty things you fill the gameworld with doesn’t fill that gap.

     

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