This game pretends to give you options, but doesnt. No matter what you do the game will correct your attempts at influencing the story and evironnement. The devs deliberatly put the checks very high so you cannot pass them to give you the illusion that something interesting could have happened if only you put all your stats into Strength for example. Well I put all my stats into Strength and reloaded a million times to see what happens. And nothing happens. You will talk in circles for a bit while the game hopes you will miss a skill check and give up on reloading. If you have the mental fortitude to push thru, the game will decide for you that what you wanted to do is a "bad idea" and will refuse to give you any options! If you dont like the political ideas in this game, the game will refuse to let you go against them. If you max your stats and are ready to reload 100 times to challenge those ideas. The game wil try to manipulate you into feeling bad about trying, make your character talk in the most appologetic way possible and ultimatly forcing you to agree without giving you any other options. This game is overhyped, but if you play it mroe than once or have a certain character you want to rolyplay as, you willr ealize that this game is just like reading a book.
I wanted immersion, exploration and great biomechanical design. I got it. 5/5 because it offered what I got it for. It also has some fun gameplay and challenging combat. Puzzles sometimes give you options. First big puzzle can give you a companion. I recommend if you like this style. It did give me Starcraft 1 zerg vibes at times. 10/10 design.
This game needs multiplayer and hot-seat please add. I love the graphics and the art work, Allow me to zoom in more. I never played the original. The most similar to this is Age of Wonders 2, and I prefer this 1. I like all the cool stuff this game allows me to do. Like turn my units into werevolves. Summon a flying island and fly my units around. Turn my dark elves into flying fire breathing elves. Every faction plays differently. You can mix units from different factions like you are playing a Heroes of might and magic game. You can summon units and never use your faction if you want. If you think this game is slow, you need to change your strategy. Try starting with 3 spearmen into houses for 10 turns. Use the 1 swordsman you get at the start + the 3 new spearmen to capture every neutral town you see. The houses you build will allow you to get more workers faster. So you dont slowly build buildings. 10 turns per building should be the max you wait. Use the magic summons to bolster your army and keep up the conquest. Use the magic spirits to scout, they will find extra resources on the map. Or use them as soldiers, they are good for it too. If you are having a hard time, stay with the game. Try different things. Like I said, never played the original, but managed to figure a lot of it.
I got this game because of the anime hype. The game would probably be a 4.5/5 if the bugs were fixed. But to this day, its a buggy mess. I cant believe it. People T pose, cars vanish into the ground. I expected a smooth experience after 1 year. yet it still isnt fixed.
This game is not for everyone. You need to love first person rpgs. I am too young to have existed when these sort of games were at their peak, so no nostalgia here. I find this game to be fun. Yes it doesnt help you at all, yes you will run around farming random encounters to level up. Yes if you know the secrets and mechanics you can skip the farming. This game allows you to smash your head against it until it lets you pass to the next area. But you can also just learn tricks and secrets to progress faster. There are plenty of secret areas with puzzles and items that will give you a boost. The game is flexible. This game is hard. Until you learn where the secret doors and items are, you will get crushed (unless you farm levels). Dont go in expecting the game to play itself. The game has beautiful art and customizable UI, the creatures and effects looks great for this kind of game. I think 1 guy made this. Very impressive to make this many high quality sprites. In short, if you want a hard first person dungeon rpg that rewards exploration and finding secrets as well as knoledge about its mechanics and enemies, this game is the best. I played Might and Magic series from 5 to X. And I still like this game more.