Outward: The Three Brothers Review (Riful)
Absolutely enjoying this DLC so far. Stepping into The Eldest Brother was breathtaking in a way few games ever are. The enemies such as the giant snails and scarlet emissaries provide new challenges. Gargoyles have been done 1000 times before but Nine Dots kept it fresh by giving them an utterly unique movement pattern.
The craftsmenship of the zone is just incredible, they went above and beyond creating the lava flows and terrain. The story so far is entertaining, nothing quite like watching the drug lord upper class and traitorous middle management chucked straight into lava, and rebuilding the city fits right in thematically with who the player character actually is, just some girl/guy who had to learn to fight to survive in a harsh world.
Combat is both the most fun and most frustrating it's ever been. The enemies in Three Brothers hit hard, fast, and they're smarter than ever. Or, at least, more cautious. Trap cheesing is not viable against many enemies who rely on ranged attacks until you close the gap, and the status' they inflict force you to master dodging or equip yourself well and carry the right potions. Starting this DLC really feels like starting the game from the start again, where enemies are a real threat and you need to prepare for them appropriately. This is much appreciated.
However, the lack of polish in the combat system is really apparent now. The lock on targeting inevitably interferes with dodging when enemies dance around you quickly, or in tight areas, and long animations and long cooldowns make things feel somewhat unresponsive. Equipment breaks every dungeon and buffs run out during combat, forcing players to open their spellbook or inventory to refresh mid fight. Having to stop and rest is a cool feature of outward but not being able to rely on your equipment and buffs for even a single full fight, now that they're so long, ruins the pacing.
Resting felt like a core feature of the gameplay, part of the calculation when considering quest timers and a risk for being ambushed. It helped Outward maintain its survival elements. It feels more like a chore and a disruption to gameplay when it has to be done frequently mid dungeon, however, as the damage and health scales but equipment durability does not.
In the end, this DLC is a lot of fun and I absolutely recommend it to anyone who enjoys outward. But I do hope that in Outward 2 they polish the core game a bit more so that the endgame DLC feels smoother!
Edit: Having now completed this DLC I loved the quest but I must say the pacing is atrocious. The DLC changes dramatically after you've finished the last dungeon/area in it and you still have half the quest to do, but you can't progress the quest without the RNG based rare items drops from the unidentified resources. This means the most exciting elements of the quest are pushed behind anywhere from a few minutes to tens of hours of clearing the same dungeons and running around the same areas in search of unidentified roots, or minerals, or molepig dens. I still absolutely recommend this DLC but use the time skip button in new sirroco, and if farming isn't your thing, use the cheat system to drop the RNG resources in manually. It's just more fun if you can continue the quest to finish without running around the zone hunting for rodents for 4 hours.