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Disco Elysium



- The wind howls, the hair on your neck stands on end, and the frozen November earth crunches beneath your feet. A drizzle falls fussily from the sky. You look somewhere to the west, toward the horizon—the sun is nowhere to be seen, the sky is overcast with lead.
- What lies beyond the horizon?
- The city limits. A jumble of boxes, asphalt, and filth. Somewhere there, in the shabbiest and most cramped industrial zone, in an alley between buildings, near the trash cans, on the spat-upon and dirty asphalt, lies a beaten and exhausted outer worlds. A handful of people have gathered around it.

- Their eyes burn with an unkind light; their clenched fists tremble.
- One of them takes a step forward, unzips his fly, and begins to urinate on outer worlds. A few moments later, the others join him. They need no verbal invitation.

- "RPG of the year from the world's best developers" doesn't even try to hide its face. On the contrary—it welcomes even this kind of attention.
- You shiver from the November chill, blink, and shake off the vision. A long road to the factory lies ahead...
- Good luck.

I don't really like and almost never play RPGs or adventures. This is due to a certain set of gameplay markers which, combined with mediocre settings and plots, trigger a reaction of rejection in me. A solid portion of this set of unpleasant flags is present here: running clockwise while clicking through NPCs; mile-long dialogues heavily seasoned with setting-specific names and events; an incredibly long list of quests in the journal that makes your head spin; a complete absence of combat to somehow diversify this gloom.
However, as it turns out—one can design games well even with such elements! Who would have thought! It's enough to simply move away from the paradigm of a typical RPG for developmentally delayed people about containers, bandits, corridors, and MacGuffins.

It is enough just to:
- write some of the most, if not the most, brilliant dialogues in the entire history of role-playing games;
- simply create a world thought out to the smallest detail, while keeping it intimate enough so that scale doesn't turn into indifference and every single detail is felt closely;
- simply endow the world with life, from the tiniest environmental details to a realistic and relatable story, despite the fact that externally there is almost no trendy high-tech life simulation in it;
- simply gift it an atmosphere that initially feels hopeless and bleak, but subsequently becomes beautiful and melancholic, understandable on a sensory level to anyone who has lived in our reality; balancing, but not crossing the dangerous line from escapism to repulsive realism;
- simply populate it with several dozen characters, almost each of whom possesses not just some "character" or backstory dumped on the player for the sake of a checkbox, but is visibly written as humanly and soulfully as possible, imprinting itself in memory and making you believe in them, even if they are completely minor;
- simply come up with an interesting detective-style plot, but even here take a step aside and link the interest not so much to a "puzzle-catharsis" approach, which certainly has its advantages, but also well-known disadvantages, and overall represents a somewhat worn-out concept, but rather to a general system of story delivery—the notorious "content mastery"—which is based not on obsessing over specific plot details and piecing together the picture (despite the presence of these elements), but specifically on the enjoyment and experiences of the general aesthetic, the worldview and roleplay of the hero, the melancholic rocking in a boat on the leaden, sad, but beautiful waves of narrative and mise-en-scène;
- and yes, simply polish this with a protagonist written with no less love and feeling, and an amazing synthesis of both his fixed backstory—which, if you strip away all the fluff, fundamentally forces you to roleplay as the cop you are by plot—and simultaneously spreads a sea of freedom in roleplaying before you.

Personality traits serve as skills for leveling up here; you converse with them as if they were your own personalities, and the content you receive depends on their level: all sorts of details and additional lines in dialogues and interactions with the world. And if your specific skill is insufficient, you will never see that additional detail, interaction, or dialogue line. Furthermore, from time to time, when special conditions are met, "thoughts" become available—investigations that run automatically for a while and provide various bonuses as well as lines in dialogues/interactions. Perhaps such a description of the role-playing system sounds somewhat schizoid and amateurish, but in practice, it is implemented very atmospherically and conceptually, according to the plot and presentation. There are also the notorious stat checks (another one of my negative flags) with success chances (a negative flag for some other people); most of them can be replayed by putting a new point into the "skill" and trying again, plus there are ways to raise a skill or improve the chance of a specific stat check without direct leveling. For my part, I can say that you shouldn't sweat over stat checks violently—you will either complete them sooner or later, or most likely not complete them at all with your current build.
Alignments were also included; they are more for show here and affect almost nothing; they are divided into background, political, and personal. They were added mainly as a post-ironic joke about standard RPG templates, and in some places for a bit of flavor.
What else? You can dress like a hobo, collect and turn in bottles. You can shoot yourself. You can go insane, live under a bridge, and throw excrement at passersby. I can give two semi-important tips. First, the game has a time of day, which is not spent on ordinary running but is spent in dialogues and interactions; depending on it, most NPCs are either present at their spot or absent and unavailable until morning. Besides this, the story itself narratively nudges the player not to linger too long with the investigation. Despite this—esteemed OCD- sufferers who love clockwise loops should not panic; there is no time limit as such, and there's enough time for 100% of side content, or 90-95% if you are a complete autist. And second—it is absolutely not necessary to click through long secondary dialogues about the world's backstory at the first opportunity on the first day, reading text for an hour of real time, watching the game day turn into night and feeling the urge to drop it afterward. These stories are not mandatory, although desirable for a complete understanding of the plot, and they aren't going anywhere—it's better to pace it as is convenient for you.
Anyway—there's no real point in dwelling on the gameplay. Everything most important was described several paragraphs above: this is not so much an RPG or adventure, not so much a detective, police simulator, or a painfully ironizing tale filled with the suffering of an Eastern European developer about references to modernity, as it is a melancholic work of art, a most beautiful and conceptual masterpiece about the decay of the surrounding world, the unfathomable depths of consciousness, the miracle and horror of human existence.

I almost never give tens because I can always find something to nitpick "objectively," even if I enjoyed the content from start to finish, and I believe I should grade that way because it's "fair." If I continued to evaluate this way, I would have given a 9 or even an 8 here, because """objectively""" there is something to nitpick.
But recently I decided to revise this system and rely exclusively on my own feelings. And my feelings in this case laugh in my face at the mere thought of picking on some local trifles.

- 11/10 and RPG of the year; and separately, Nebo—you can play like you've never played before, without a shred of irony.

Interesting review, it really caught my attention. I'll add it to my list as number one. Maybe I'll even play it when I have time. And if I don't end up getting run over by a bridge.

Cool.

Surprisingly, it's actually very good. The plot, protagonist, dialogues, mechanics, humor – all of it is very nice. I almost burst out laughing a couple of times, and I also discovered a couple of new ideas that I will definitely use if I ever run games again.

Does it hurt? - Three



As a kid, I was disgusted by the first and second parts; they seemed like complete garbage because a gray, unremarkable character wanders through gray slums, shooting peas at gray thugs while jumping. The concept itself didn't seem very interesting to me, and it was poorly implemented.
In my youth, I tried it again, and it turned out to be playable, but nothing more. The best way to play turned out to be moving millimeter by millimeter from behind cover and shooting at the protruding pieces of pixelated bodies, and jumping like in the Matrix is a bait for a moron at a higher difficulty. Unfortunately, no other combat system was added.

What I saw here slightly upset me with its incredibly awful execution. It all started with the fact that I COULDN'T set a normal sensitivity for the aiming reticle. There were two extreme values: too slow and too fast. As a result, I had to play with the higher setting, and I think I should thank console gamers in general, as well as the terrible developers at Rockstar, for that.
Next. Did you like the gunfights in GTA 5? Conceptually, I'm not against a shooter with cover, it all looks better than aiming at millimeters of morons from behind cover like in the old parts, but here it's done very poorly. You walk down a corridor, watch a cutscene, then you're locked in an arena, and a herd of morons runs in. Your moron, whose model takes up half the screen, immediately sticks to the nearest fence or table, and if you had a rifle in your hands, after the cutscene, this jerk automatically starts with a pistol, and you have to switch back to the rifle - it's just incredibly annoying, I want to shit in the mouth of the person who came up with this. The morons, among other things, also blend in with the textures of the walls and interior, and attack in waves like in a serious shooter.
Then a very fun gameplay begins, which consists of turning the screen approximately towards the head of some enemy, pressing the right key so that he comes out of cover and starts aiming, and trying to blow off his head, while trying not to get a random shot in yourself at the same time. Sometimes, no matter how accurately and well you shoot, controlling the recoil, the enemy doesn't die immediately, and you either have to duck back, or get hit by one or two bullets for full damage. After that, you fall to the floor in slow motion, and they offer you to finish off this enemy, and if you finish him off, you automatically use a painkiller and get back up, and while you're getting up, morons are shooting at you, and you also get up very slowly, after which you need to press the button to stick to the cover again. The morons themselves also sit behind cover, sometimes for a minute, then pop out for a second, fire a burst, and duck back in. The fun gameplay is that you either wait a minute for them to pop out and give them a headshot, or immediately aim/come out of cover and get one-shotted. And sometimes you can JUST get one-shotted in the head because a piece of it is sticking out from behind cover, even when you're sitting calmly.
Out of five difficulties, three are available at the start, of which the third is medium and the maximum available for the first playthrough - hard. I almost didn't die except for a few frustrating places, but this gameplay tired me a lot - sit and twitch the reticle from behind the sofa, catch cheap shots, deal cheap shots yourself. If you get hit, fall in slow motion and take a pill. When you've killed all the morons at the moment, you crawl out, take five steps, climb behind another one, and a new herd runs in. Rinse, repeat, don't forget to wipe with a brush.
By the way, the slow motion is garbage if you jump like in the old parts. It's enough for one or two enemies, and it doesn't help against the bullets flying at you, after which the rest of his buddies shoot you, lying on the floor, like a bag of shit.
The plot is no better than the previous parts - a pathetic loser runs around, farts, and whines about how much of a loser he is. The only thing that's a little better is the atmosphere and the interiors of the levels, fortunately, most of them this time are not in gray New York slums, but in swampy-brown Brazilian ones. 6/10.

Furi



I liked it. There's not much else to say about it, and no one here would even theoretically play it.

Virgo versus Zodiac



I got a warning from my antivirus when I was buying Blu-ray discs with a 100% discount from a licensed store, so I bought it blindly on Steam before the new year, because I could and because it was cheap.
It started at 9/10, and I finished it with a feeling of 8.5/10 - but that's only because the gameplay hardly changed from the beginning of the game. I could have criticized myself for such a trivial complaint, considering that 90% of games are like that anyway.
Nevertheless, I could play for as many hours as I wanted in one sitting, which, as I mentioned before, for me personally indicates quality content, because I'm already old and my reserve of energy for continuous play in almost anything is small, and here you need truly content that resonates with the soul.
Apart from a few minor details, I liked everything: the art style, the characters, the plot, the psychedelic setting, the combat, the presentation, the role-playing system. The soundtrack is 9.5/10, I bought it separately on Steam because I can afford it. Not all 100% of the tracks are excellent, but about 70-80 of them are, and the ones that are excellent are simply divine.
The description says that it's similar to mother/earthbound from the old consoles, and from what I've seen about them on YouTube, yes, it really is. If someone doesn't like this style, they shouldn't even try it. But if you are a highly spiritually developed post-meta-modernist, capable of enjoying what is presented to you, and not disgusted by non-normative settings, then you might like it as much as I did, and all the others who gave it a 90+ percent rating on Steam. (And this doesn't mean that everything is ironic - well, maybe just half of it)

Octopath Traveler



An interesting approach to the JRPG genre: instead of one grand story about a shonen party, demons, dragons, and various powerful artifacts, there are eight storylines, each with several chapters, focusing on eight ordinary characters in a very pleasant setting. At first, this approach caused some discomfort because you open the world map, see a lot of unexplored territory, eight markers with characters, and essentially no overall plot – you just collect "Pokémon," complete their prologues, take on side quests in each city, and as you progress, complete them. Once you level up, you go for a second round, complete the next chapter for each character, and so on. All of this, of course, is accompanied by non-stop battles with monsters outside the cities. To be honest, it turned out to be not very comfortable at the start, even a bit heavy. But overcoming this feeling and getting past the initial barrier was helped by the feeling of getting used to the street battles and the peaceful city life, and then the stories themselves started to improve.

The downsides:
1. An obvious bias towards grinding. No one forces you to go somewhere specifically to level up, but there are a lot of battles. The combat itself is not particularly deep, but it's also not particularly challenging, and overall it's satisfactory. This is true for most of the time, but in the second half, it becomes more challenging (not enough to be frustrating, but enough that you'll find a use for many things you haven't used before).
2. Strangely, there is a relatively small amount of narrative compared to a standard JRPG. In particular, there is a lack of interactions between characters, and interactions with NPCs in side quests are also rudimentary.
3. Almost complete lack of progression in terms of mechanics for most of the game (haha, again about this – well, I was just spoiled by the Tales of series, where they easily give you new mechanics even after fifty hours).

The advantages:
1. Very pleasant graphics, design, and atmosphere, a flawless soundtrack.
2. The characters' stories, although they lack some grand twists, compared to standard JRPGs, are generally very warm and believable. And more often than I would like to admit, I found myself in a situation where I thought that the current event in the chapter wasn't particularly exciting, but something happened that made me change my mind – it was either beautiful or emotionally well-directed.


If you are a "normal" person who is uncomfortable with anything overly anime-like, but who doesn't mind a bias towards combat and is willing to spend fifty+ hours on heartwarming/drama content and a pleasant atmosphere, then you will like it.
If you are a fan of grand stories, various twists, and cartoonish humor, then you should not touch this game.

Eternal Doom



I really enjoyed Doom 2016 when I played it. It was brutal, stylish, dynamic, didn't get boring, and for almost the entire game, it offered some kind of progression, due to the large number of upgrades for weapons and the character; besides that, it was memorable for its good level design, especially for modern shooters, which are all corridor-like and rail-based; fortunately, the level design here was close to the original Dooms – a large map that you gradually explore. There was also a codex where you could read cool information about monsters, weapons, and various details. Overall, at that time, it was an attempt to make a brutal, old-school shooter, but incorporating all the best things that had been invented in modern shooters over the past couple of decades.

Doom Eternal initially seemed almost perfect to me – even more upgrades and collectibles, a hub, stylish levels, excellent graphics, and an awesome soundtrack. A couple of minor issues were that the progression was too slow at the beginning – for the first few levels, you run around with 2-3 weapons without upgrades for ammo capacity, you constantly run out of ammo, and you jump around like a monkey from enemy to enemy, spamming the chainsaw; also, the levels seemed too long to me.
By the middle, I realized that half of the levels were mystical ruins, temples of ancient civilizations, and hell, which made me want to puke; for Doom, I prefer cities or industrial bases.
I started on nightmare difficulty (4/4), and closer to the middle, I switched to the third difficulty because they started locking me in small arenas with a bunch of enemies that blocked my attacks and random explosions; I ran the last few levels on the easiest difficulty. Why? Because in the second half of the game, there's a boss that you kill, and subsequently, he spawns as a regular enemy from time to time. This mini-boss is supposed to be killed by catching him on his charge attacks; otherwise, he circles around you, putting up a shield. Sometimes his AI glitches, and he circles around, spams the shield/shoots at you endlessly, and you just can't attack him. Also, he has a lot of health, and zombies constantly spawn around him, which bother you (you're supposed to kill them for ammo when you run out). In general, this enemy completely breaks the fast-paced, dynamic gameplay of shooting and moving around aimlessly. He just comes out, and you have to kill him, spending several minutes on these dances with one mob, the meaning of which is not in shooting skill, movement, and assessing the situation, but in randomness – whether he will be vulnerable or not, and in testing your patience. I don't understand why they made him a regular enemy. They played with the mechanics once, let you kill him as a boss, and that's enough; they didn't need to make you get stuck in them like in a swamp. In general, I got annoyed and decided to speedrun it, especially since there are other games I can play right now.

Overall, the first impression was 86-88, but in the second half, it started to get repetitive, plus the problems described became noticeable. And the levels turned out to be quite linear-corridor-like, despite their apparent openness, which is a minus. Also, if you are bothered by excessive dynamics: jumping around like a monkey from enemy to enemy, switching between weapons and upgrades, using additional abilities, hitting enemies at weak points, moving horizontally and vertically around multi-level arenas while destroying waves of enemies, then the gameplay may overwhelm you at higher difficulties. In my opinion, the direction was very correct, but they went a little too far; sometimes, the frantic running around can be tiring.

a gloomy loser runs around, farts, and complains about how much of a loser he is.

Good description of a thread about mood.

A word to the Blizzard fans.



Well, there’s not much to say here. Being a top game for 20 years is something unreal these days. I don't play as much now, but I always find time to log in and admire my favorite heroes. Yes, maybe I'm not what I used to be; I might not be able to defeat Baal on Hell difficulty anymore, but it happened. Yes, there is something to be proud of and tell future generations about. It is unlikely that anyone will repeat Diablo's success in the foreseeable future, especially considering that various noobs still hang out on Battle.net. 10/10, real talk.



Yes, many people say that WoW isn't what it used to be. And they have been saying this for many years. They are literally graying, grinding away, and saying that WoW isn't what it used to be. I agree that a lot has changed, but the game continues to develop despite everything. I tried for a long time to find a player who has been playing since vanilla; rumors say that such players exist, and they are probably some dinosaurs in sweaters. No, I am not trying to offend or hurt anyone. I myself have been playing since Pandaria; I’m not exactly new, but sometimes I come across players that even make me speechless. Blizzard doesn't give them any slack; Shadowlands is coming soon. Let's play, comrades.

Well, okay. I'm not really a fan of Warcraft; I didn't play the second one, and even less so the first. So let's just say... My rating is 9/10, plus one point under the influence of public opinion.

And finally, I can't help but write about a person who is truly cool. This is Chris Metzen. He is a real giant figure who had a very strong impact on my worldview. One of the people who made Blizzard Entertainment. Tough, merciful, and all that. Well, basically, everything is like that. May God grant him health, as they say.

The storytelling in the game was masterful and the plot always kept me guessing. I remember gasping whenever a new twist came up and by the end, I was thoroughly convinced that it was one of the best visual novels I had ever played (and I've played many!)

It's funny because I actually liked it for the opposite reason – all the twists are predictable long before they are revealed, thanks to the many hints scattered throughout the plot. This meant that the storyline didn't rely on plot devices and was instead built very harmoniously, and it was also complemented by some great humor, which made the whole journey a very enjoyable experience. The localization, however, as always, lived up to its reputation, but all you can do is shrug it off.

When it was released, I was too lazy to grind, but now I've finished it.
The Souls series' strength lies in its exploration, and in this game, it aligns with the overall pacing and the feeling of controlling the character – a hollow shell with a toothpick, floating through mountains and guts, clumsily rolling around in a can, running out of breath after three seconds of sprinting, and meticulously measuring steps on narrow platforms. At first, it's annoying, but then you get used to it.
Now, remembering how it felt in the Souls games after playing this, I can't help but feel grateful to Sekiro for its movement. The hero runs fast, doesn't get tired, jumps well, and doesn't lose HP when falling from two meters – is this next-gen? The vast majority of locations are open, with many paths to explore, not only horizontally but also vertically. All this freedom, plus stealth kills, is definitely a plus for the game. You're not just walking from one gut to another, from one hall to another, managing stamina; instead, you have an open puzzle before you that you can solve however you want. Want to hack and slash mobs? Want to attack them from rooftops or from behind? Want to wave your hand, collect loot, and jump away? Want to simply walk down the street or move to the side under a cliff? In 99% of cases, you can run away from regular mobs or mini-bosses and regroup. When you get used to it, it becomes very convenient and interesting. This partially negates one of the drawbacks of the Souls series (in my opinion) – when you enter a new location with new enemies, new movesets, and new abilities, and you have to adjust to them and relearn for half an hour, or just tank with Estus, or they are so weak and insignificant that you don't care about them at all. Once, in Sekiro, I ran out of all healing items, and I was already far from the old bonfire, and a new one was about to appear. I didn't want to teleport home to save experience and money and then run back to that place; instead, I went forward as carefully as possible, sometimes fighting, sometimes sneaking, sometimes using the map's features to my advantage. Eventually, I reached the bonfire without dying, looted everything, and killed everyone, and in the process, I incredibly enjoyed the beauty, aesthetics, and lore of that location. In the Souls series, this was almost impossible for me.
In general, free movement and open locations are what was missing. Accordingly, the locations themselves, which in most cases (not always) look "poorer" compared to the Souls series because this isn't typical fantasy, but rather realism, were much more enjoyable to explore and, in a way, were very well-directed. Furthermore, despite the signature melancholic and depressing atmosphere, most of the locations are incredibly beautiful and atmospheric, unlike the Souls series, with its randomly placed biomes. And all of this is cemented by a coherent, atmospheric story with good characters, and you don't need to be a weeb to enjoy it.

The abundance of various gadgets and techniques, at first glance, seems to mock the Souls series directly, but we shouldn't forget that in the Souls series, you have a certain variety of weapons and builds, which somewhat negates this advantage of Sekiro. However, within a single standard playthrough of the Souls series, you will never experience this variety because you will always use one upgraded weapon with its moveset of two and a half hits, while Sekiro gradually offers you an ever-expanding range of options, so I refuse to acknowledge that it negates the advantage.
Otherwise, even the basic combat is quite dynamic. Some die-hard Souls fans criticize Sekiro for "relying too much on deflects," but that's not entirely true. You can't win with pure deflects without aggression because the enemy simply won't lose poise (and you will); not every hit can be deflected, and not every hit is best deflected, and almost every attack can be avoided in several ways. For almost every particularly tough boss fight that I couldn't beat head-on, I found and used several different strategies, including positioning relative to the boss and on the arena as a whole, dynamically changing the focus between aggression and defense several times during the fight, and what I want to see from the boss in the current fight and what I can offer from myself, and all of them were viable, and in the end, I could integrate them with each other or use any one of them separately. And all of this is with the basic tools, and in addition, there are many different abilities and minor things. Of course, you can say that all of this exists in the Souls series, and you would essentially be right. But considering the more dynamic and diverse combat, the depth and interest of the battles in Sekiro increase geometrically. When something kills you, you always understand that it's not the fault of hitboxes, randomness, or bullshit design, except in very rare cases, but rather a lack of your own skill, a failure of strategy, a weakness in assessing the situation, and an inability to react accordingly.
The bosses themselves, being 95% human-like, also play both offensively and defensively; some movesets even have feints, which they transition into from another attack, but not in a cheap way, but honestly. In general, the battles are very aesthetically pleasing. Watching something in the Souls series after Sekiro, observing how a character with a toothpick lazily circles a giant slug or another autistic knight, barely dodging his slow series of three wide attacks and dealing his two weak scratches before the next dodge, is simply funny.

The boss I liked the most was the father. It's a pretty difficult fight, but very interesting and without any bullshit.

Similarly, with the caveat that there I beat him in one session, although I died a few times, but without an excessive number of attempts and without the feeling of banging my head against an impenetrable wall, his alternative "secret" version, which is much stronger, gave me a good headache, made me hang out with him for a couple of evenings, and turned out to be the most difficult fight in the game, but at the same time, it was the peak of what Sekiro can offer in terms of "Sekiro-ness" of the combat and the setting-emotional component that it can allow the player to feel in battle.

***
In conclusion, I completed all the Souls games that I played first, and I dropped two others near the very end, simply because I lost the motivation to finish them. I played Sekiro from start to finish, even all the optional content, because I thought it deserved it both in itself and as part of the "series." I'm very happy that I was in the right mood, remembered, and decided to give it another chance, and it took that chance without hesitation.

I started playing a long time ago and would occasionally play for a bit. I conquered the entire world except for Africa and the British Isles, and then, after clicking through dozens (if not hundreds) of events, I realized that I no longer had the desire or the strength to continue. I enjoyed Sengoku Ransik much more, but it's hard to say whether it's the content itself or whether it's just me; it's been too long since I played it.
If I were to evaluate what I managed to play and see, I could find many advantages, but each of them also has certain disadvantages, which causes the scales to tip one way or the other.
- This is not just a visual novel, but a game with a full-fledged, albeit very limited, gameplay: in addition to conquest, there are battles with many classes of units, each with its own abilities, features, and items, which gives the player certain options in terms of tactics and strategy. However, this is balanced by the fact that the storytelling does not captivate, intrigue, or amuse, and the gameplay component quickly begins to feel like a routine.
- The huge number of characters also has a downside to each advantage. It is drawn in an anime style, which is good in itself, but the quality of the drawing is rather mediocre, which means there is not much joy for the eyes, and besides, the visual design itself becomes difficult to appreciate. Each character, despite their number, has their own events, but they also vary greatly, from generally good to tedious and rudimentary. The presence of H-scenes is good, but not when there is no emotional attachment to the characters due to the sluggish narrative, and not in this age, when you can find literary but professionally made content that is hundreds of times more stimulating to the mind and imagination at the click of a button.

If I didn't have any other alternatives, I would have finished it and even gotten some enjoyment out of it, but I didn't want to force myself to get a completion mark for the sake of it.

but it's hard to say whether the problem lies in the content itself or in me.

The problem lies in the content, I say this confidently and as an expert. Well, you explained it yourself - the narrative doesn't evoke much empathy, the characters are also presented in a very simplistic way, and the battles are very routine. I played it about a year or two ago, or maybe even longer, in any case, I played it very slowly, taking it in small doses, and finished it. I even got some enjoyment from both the content and the characters. And the ending even pleased me.

Added 4 minutes later
I checked the save files - no, it was "only" a year.

What’s the ending like? I’m not afraid of spoilers for this game, so go ahead… How much more did I have left to complete the game? I suspected that when I conquer everything, some event will trigger, and a bunch of territories will be taken away from me by the villains.