Glad to see Jeff checking out Dreams again! Jeff, and others, might be interested in my game "Take That, Dragon!" Its a loving recreation of the pointed stick duel from Beach Head II, which I made after watching Jeff play the game (complete with scoreboard!):
I enjoyed the contrast of Brad trying to play even the least bit stealthy and Vinny going loud. These are two valid ways to play the game and its very amusing seeing them in direct comparison. I would also like to point out that the elevator shaft in Dubai is only open after completed one of the missions stories on that map on a previous playthrough, so Vinny had an unfair advantage from having previously completed that mission story, and neither of them realized this.
Congrats Alex on finishing the trilogy! I lost steam on the Mass Effect games mid-way through Mass Effect 2, so I've enjoyed watching you play through them to see what I missed, especially this infamous ending. Thanks so much for the ME content over the last 2 years, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you play next!
The quick look ends just about where imo the game becomes repetitive and tedious. It repeats these same objectives over and over all the way until the end. I finished the game in 12 hours, and never felt like I was encouraged to make use of the learning mechanic. In fact, I'd say "learn" is a very strong word for what is happening here. Echoes randomly choose actions you performed in the previous cycle when applicable, that's it. Their actual behavior remains the same, they just have a player-controllable set of verbs at their disposal. I fell into a routine of sprinting around, avoiding echoes, just long enough for the next blackout (about a minute), and then stealth killing the closest echo and hiding on reboot. The palace environments change a bit as you progress, but every corner looks the same, so there is no value in exploration. All that said, I really dug the look of the game, the design of Em, the giant fractal palace, and the voice-acting. I stuck with it because I felt compelled to find out where it is going, but I can't recommend it.
Lokno's comments