Nearly 5 stars - if days were longer
Brace yourselves for a longer one, friends! And yes, this is just how I write my reviews. :)
I think after 20 hours, I can finally give a first little verdict.
Let's start with the good stuff: the graphics, sound, and voice acting are incredibly good. Of course, I can only judge the German dub at the moment, but I really like it. The dialogue is wonderfully written and, for me, belongs among the best I have heard in an RPG.
I am also really glad that I can still play the game at 1440p on Medium settings on my somewhat aging PC with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, RTX 2070 Super, and 32 GB of RAM. And quite honestly, I think it looks fantastic. Thank you to the development team!
The main protagonist, Coen, is a really well-written character. I like him a lot. But other characters such as Anca, Brencis, and many others have also grown on me by now.
The soundtrack is some of the best music I have heard since The Witcher 3 and its expansions. I think it is great that you can even play it from the main menu. It would have been even nicer if the soundtrack had been included as a download with the Eclipse Edition, especially considering how expensive that edition already was - at least for someone like me who does not exactly have money to burn. Everyone who worked on this soundtrack deserves a medal. :)
A few words about the opening:
I really liked the somewhat slower start in the village. You get enough time to get to know the people, take a good look around, and yes, of course, help yourself to a few things here and there. giggles
I like the open world too. The forests, ruins, and small villages all have a really nice atmosphere, and I genuinely enjoy exploring them.
I do have one small criticism, though. The snow-covered ground in some areas does not always look particularly convincing to me. Some of the snow textures can look a little rough or flat. When it actually starts snowing lightly in those areas, though, the whole scene looks much better and really beautiful.
And now we get to the part that really bothers me:
Of course, you CAN take your time and simply walk around the world. Nobody is constantly chasing you. But who wants to spend their entire playtime just wandering around and looking at landscapes? You also want to complete quests.
And that is exactly where the problem is for me: the days and nights are unbelievably short once you get into a proper quest flow.
The 30 days themselves do not bother me anymore. I actually think the system is pretty cool now. What bothers me is that almost everything costs time. Really, everything. Every tiny action and every little quest. Then skill points come into play too. If you have saved up a few points, friends, two days can disappear very quickly.
Then I turn in three quests - and suddenly it is night again. Good grief, where did the entire day go? After that I spend my skill points, and suddenly it is past midnight. Quickly finish two small quests, and now it is daytime again.
It just keeps going like that. Over and over!
It honestly feels like I can go from day to night and back to day again within ten minutes. And that is slowly driving me crazy, because THIS is really not how I imagined this system working, friends. Not like this.
Dear developers, how does this not eventually get on your nerves too? You built this beautiful open world, yet day and night practically fly by. You barely get a chance to actually experience a certain time of day and let it sink in.
Keep your 30 days and nights. I have made peace with that system by now. But please make the individual days longer, or at least reconsider how much time some quests consume.
Three hours to free someone from a dungeon when all I basically do is unlock a door and escort them out? Friends... that is rough.
And please do not tell me, "Then just pick quests that cost less time." Sorry, folks, but that does not work for me. There are only so many grandmas and grandpas standing by the roadside who need my help and only cost me one hour. And honestly, how boring would that be?
I paid 80 EUR for this game. I want to play quests, explore, and lose myself in this world - not constantly think about which task is going to eat another three hours of my day.
If you absolutely want to stick with the eight-hour system, then at least rework some of these time costs. There are simply too many quests that, in my opinion, consume a completely unreasonable amount of the available time.
Okay, you can probably tell by now that this really matters to me.
But I will calm down again. My complaining probably will not change anything anyway. The developers clearly made a conscious decision to design the system this way, and I doubt it will fundamentally change.
As I already said, the main characters are wonderful. Some of them won me over immediately, while others I learned to hate just as quickly. :D
For example, I really like Brencis' estate, especially when I get to annoy his lackeys. I genuinely enjoy that entire system.
I would love to give the game 5 stars. And yes, maybe I still will. I have done that with games in the past, and I think both the game and the developers deserve it.
If it were not for this one pretty major issue - at least in my eyes - that I already mentioned.
Dear developers: I have absolutely nothing against your 30-day system. Please do not take my earlier complaining as criticism of the 30-day limit itself. What I am really talking about is how quickly individual days and nights disappear because of certain actions and quests.
Finally, I also think it is a shame that you cannot customize the controller layout.
Blocking with LB while also trying to move the left stick? That becomes a real hand cramp after a while. And even the alternative control scheme does not change that. For me, block belongs on RB.
And why can I not simply open the map by holding down the View button? Good grief, getting to the map is unnecessarily awkward.
Despite all my criticism, I am really happy to own this game. I truly hope the developers find success, continue on their path, and maybe one day even give us a second and third game.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And thank you as well for thinking about players who do not own a high-end PC and still giving us the chance to play this truly wonderful game.
Thank you!
All the best!
Is this helpful to you?
Yes
(51 )
No
(2 )
Report abuse