The Vale: Shadow of the Crown (2021)

Beat on Casual. I started off on Hard and was doing well enough through the early game until the bear fight. I died many times there and decided to drop the difficulty because I was not enjoying the combat. I did every side quest I found and stuck with short swords, light armor and shield for a more Rogue style. Normally I would try to be as tanky as possible but with her being blind I felt it was better to emphasize quick low stamina cost attacks as a way to compensate for not being able to see the enemies, and to be better at stealth. I did a lot of blind swings to feel out where enemies were, and focused mostly on interrupting power attacks and blocking following by countering. I rarely did power attacks myself. I improved the area blast magic again because it was not as affected by being blind, as opposed to the flaming weapon. I never did use the area magic though. The most annoying part was the repeatable hunting sidequest because it was very difficult to shoot a bow while blind. I had enough money to get by anyway, and did not bother to purchase the best bow given how infrequently I used it.

There was a lot good about this game. The story, characters and sound design were excellent. The progression from hub town full of sidequests to the next hub town was classic design, and even the sidequests and minor NPCs had a lot of character. Unfortunately, the actual game mechanics of forcing the player to be just as blind as the protagonist made the game barely enjoyable. I did not feel much incentive to come back and play this. Stumbling around navigating only by sound was a chore. The entirely sound based combat was interesting, but it was exceptionally difficult when there were multiple opponents at once, and extra noise. Even more so if that noise came from real life. This game is literally unplayable by the deaf/hard of hearing, or people who can't have a quiet gaming environment, or even people who don't have headphones or surround sound systems. It really should have had some visual cues, and with less tedious gameplay it would be fun to experience more of this setting.

5.5/10