Benny

Now I actually get it. I've just blearily finished C, D and E, and it's shot up from mediocre if enjoyable game with some silly character design, to possibly one of my games of the decade. Genuinely thought provoking stuff.

Just started C. I think now I get it.

Have you watched Babylon 5? Because now it's time to watch Babylon 5. (And I wouldn't bother with Altered Carbon, it's a bit shit)

All of the wonders of music in so many unrepresented genres, and yet they decided to include Kanye West four times.

There certainly isn't in Ted.

This has so many baffling design decisions. Like, the most backtracking time consuming main quest is obtained right before you get fast travel, which would have been nice to have right before doing it. Especially when fast travel is just locked off arbitrarily before that. And I had a chain quest which has a quest marker in a place I've not been directed to yet in the main story quests, but if you activate the main quest which asks you to go to the area, it removes the sub quest as soon as you go there. It's forcing going over the areas multiple times without logical progression and it's just wasting the player's time. Very conflicted about the game I have to say, despite loving other aspects of it.

Turns out I needn't have worried: it remembers the quests you completed previously

I took about 15 hours so far to complete it the first time. I was doing sub quests but then sort of dropped them once the story really picked up pace. I think more than that would be pushing it if I'm going explore more of the game. Trying to avoid too much busywork and go for the interesting bits.

Oh wait, never mind. I see what it's doing now I think.

I've just "finished" it, completing the A route apparently. Regarding sub quests, I did a few of them but are they really necessary? They felt like mostly pointless fetch quests and if I'm going to replay it again I'd rather not do loads of them again.

One thing I'm not enjoying, is when it asks you to backtrack over places you've been before, sometimes over the course of the story it will arbitrarily block off routes that you remember as a quick way to get to where you need to go, so you'll warp close to it then find the route you've been using is no longer allowed, so you have to remember which previously unintuitive route got you there. It's weird non-player friendly design. The boss fights are awesome though. As is the music.

Agreed. It even deconstructs anime itself.

That's what I went for in the end. It can be annoying to read subs in combat but it feels right for the weird Ghost in the Shell style atmosphere of the game. There's a lot of uneventful trekking about in this isn't there?

Good question. I would go with the date a game was first available to play in the UK. As it's about when most people on the forum would have been able to play it, so for them it could fall within that decade of gaming.

Is it a paid update? If it's a paid expansion it would be eligible, but if it's a free update it would only be eligible for the Best Supported Game category.