Content is a good thing. Blind pursuit of it, not so much. I’m not talking about Stories: Path Of Destinies. Yet.
The WeekEndGame End
I admit that I’ve been a sloppy fuck and, inadvertently, let The WeekEndGame slip into something it shouldn’t be. Wannabe-reviews putting quantity before quality is that thing I’m talking about The WeekEndGame shouldn’t be.
A couple of changes then await as a result of my attempt to put it back on track; to talk casually (coz I ain’t a fucking pro) about a weekend-long experience with a particular game. Yep, singular. Change numero un.
To maintain image sizes within reason whilst keeping their “glorious (fucking) 4K” resolution, I have gradually drifted towards greater and greater compression. Quality suffered and I’m sorry. It’s properly downsampled 1080p from here on out, no sharpening, no compression artifacts. Change numero deux.
Stories Of (Not So) Old
Stories: Path Of Destinies (god, that title is shit innit?) was released last year, an event that has managed to completely circumvent my grabby fingers. But the Universe, it seems, had a plan.
As of now, the game’s a free gift on GOG.com when you preorder Hob. That on top of a 10% discount. And since I tremble in anticipation of what Runic have cooked up since their superb Torchlight, I couldn’t not pounce on the deal like a hungry tiger.
Yeah I know, issues like long loading times, inexplicable frame rate drops, input lag, and occassinally screwed-up hitboxes sound horrible, but none stopped me from enjoying this little game to the fullest. I promise.
Stories: Path Of Destinies (uuugh!) combat borrows cleverly from both the Diablo clickfest and Arkham fluid parrying system. I enjoyed it a great deal!
Given the narrative flow that works almost as an excuse to recycle whole environments, I can't say I wasn't worried about repetition. But it never managed to hit me hard.
It sure looks pretty... but not pretty enough to justify, thankfully rare, drops to ~40 fps on a Titan X rig. Also, the loading times, on a PCIe SSD RAID0 array, are fucking ridiculous.
The whole game is narrated by a single person, and splendidly so I must say. In a little Bastion-style, the narrator comments on certain situation with wit and humour.
The 'stealth' sections are really nothing to write home about. At least they're not insta-fail. That'd just piss me off.
Stories: Path Of Destinies (just rolls off your tongue doesn't it) didn't exactly blow me away with the might of UE4, but it's pleasant to look at nonetheless.
This was by far my favourite environment, a joy to look at and play in.
Stories: Path Of Destinies, despite the concentrated awfulness in its title, is actually what it says on the tin - it's a series of stories repeating towards an ending in the player-chosen manner. Each ending uncovers a different truth and each path is very much different. It really caught me unprepared as my first impressions were that of just another little fun ARPG. Or a Diablo clone if you will.
On top of minor frame rate drops and excruciatingly long loading times, the game suffers from input lag most noticeable when playing with a mouse and keyboard. I highly recommend an Xbox pad for this one!
Kind of reminiscent of the aforementioned Torchlight (among them other things), Stories: Path Of Destinies turned out to be quite a blast. Be it not for the mild technical annoyances, I wouldn’t hesitate a second to call it a hidden gem.
