I just realized that I’ve been playing on Hard. I started the game when it released and only played a couple chapters. I didn’t remember that I had bumped the difficulty level up. Maybe normal is a better fit as long as it doesn’t get to be too easy without any pushback. I think I’ll try normal.
This game is relentless. I’m on Chapter 12 now. I definitely prefer the first game. It felt more focused and not so sprawling. I don’t need to light so many fires, jump down so many ledges, snuff out so many torches.
I really like the character I met a few chapters back, Sophia. I’m curious to see how this ends, but I’m just finding the game play so tiring at this point. Apparently a lot of other people did too because on Gamepass / Microsoft Store 55% of people finished chapter 1, while only 19% finished chapter 11 - and it’s been out a while. On Steam it’s 87% finished Chapter 1 and 50% finished Chapter 11 - about the same 36% difference.
For those of you who made it to the end, how did you muster up the endurance to do it? It looks like @divedivedive , according to posts above finished it in several days - I’m not sure how you did it. I must suck and be really slow.
Not totally sure I follow you, so my answer may not be relevant, but I can’t really say I found the game to be all that draining. I have played games that I found draining, mind you, usually horror like Alien Isolation or Dead Space. This game felt more like an immersive sim to me, with its different approaches you could take to play through levels. So that’s how I went, going the mostly stealthy/low conflict approach like I did in the Thief and Dishonored and Deus Ex games. I really enjoyed that there were multiple ways to play and you could kind of work out what was going to be best for you.
I may just not be very good at the game, and also not very patient. I intend to be stealthy, but end up killing most of the enemies by putting out their torches or whatnot. There were some areas where I just didn’t see how I’d get through without causing much death. In any case, each level feels like it takes so long - again, I may just suck. Gamepass says I’ve played 28 hours so far - probably closer to 23-25 without idling.
For the first 6 or 7 chapters I had it on Hard, which probably slowed me down somewhat, but I’ve had it on Normal since then. Seems like I’ve averaged a couple hours per chapter or so.
Looking back on Stealth / Action games I’ve played I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve always had trouble being stealthy, but some games have quicker combat where I can just shoot the enemy dead directly instead of needing to indirectly kill them when my plan goes to hell :-)
I finished this up today and thought the ending was pretty good. I’m glad I didn’t quit in Chapter 12, so I get to see it through to the end, but I think if I knew what my thoughts would be about the game before i played it, I would have passed. If my play time matched HLTB’s Main Story Time of 17 hours I would have been good with that. I took about 28 hours or so and I was far from a completionist. I’m not sure why I took that long - I didn’t try and explore everything, I died but I don’t think I died that much, I did get into a lot of fights due to my sub par stealth ability.
It did wrap up the story nicely. I enjoyed the characters - although I didn’t find Amicia as likeable as the first game, and I was never a huge fan on Hugo. The side characters and at least one of the villans were very good. It did make me a bit uncomfortable playing Amicia, who must be a teenager, and see her get tormented time after time. It was like a less over the top version of the Tomb Raider Reboot. I don’t mind when games make me feel uncomfortable though - because I think it’s pretty cool when a game can make me feel and care about the characters, even when that feeling is discomfort.
Looking over prior posts it seems like there was a decent split between people who loved the game and people who weren’t as keen on it.