Combat and world building is what I think DA:O does best. It is also very combat focused and is limited when it comes to choosing how to solve situations it presents. The stats system allows for some interesting decisions in character building, combat allows for things like flanking and spellcast interruption and spells have some tactical usage as well. It is quite satisfying to block the doorway and torch entire room of enemies with inferno. The world created here cought my interest. There is quite a bit of lore to find during the game and while you can find things in there similar to other fictional worlds when looking at it from far enough, it still put an interesting spin on it. Unortunately there is just too much combat in this game. Places like deep roads were especially tedious. Game starts a bit hard since on low level you don't have many abilities and you can't afford to buy any worthwhile equipment. Later it gets better until you start to wonder how many more things you still need to kill. Overall there just isn't enough variety in items and abilities (with exception to spells). Also game loves to force you into ambushes, which implies focusing build on survivability. Story and characters were fine and there were some interesting moments. However, too often I found myself unable to convince characters because game didn't offer me any good arguments. Of course developers can't think of and implement everything but in case of the landsmeet I am convinced the game does not provide you with good dialogue options in order to force you into making a choice. I'm not saying player should be able to talk down anyone, sometimes people just don't listen, but at least let me try and fail, don't just ignore the obvious. You can also often hear the exact same response for multiple different dialogue options. And you can forget about being clever, like dispelling magical ward on a door with glyph of neutralization.
Combining rhytm game with a dungeon crawler is an interesting idea to me and I think this game pulls it off well. There is a good variety of different things to find or kill in the crypt including items and traps which interact with the rhytm aspect of the game. Despite what some my tell you, this game is not that hard as long as you avoid the characters who die on missed beat. I rarely if ever died because of game's randomness and you can get through with minimal equipment if you are good enough. My only criticism would go towards the music. Though I really like the soundtrack, I found it often difficult to distinguish the rhytm from it thanks to other sound layers on top of the background drums which were used to determine the in-game beats. That makes it very hard for me to not miss beats unless I would make custom soundtrack. Given that the rhytm part is what makes this game stand out, I think it is a major flaw.
The premise of the story is good and you can see some similarities to Lovecraft's stories. Unfortunately instead of terrifying me the game managed to irritate me constantly. It starts right at the beginning using a sanity system with a character who is scared of basicaly everything, including the dark. Doesn't help that what counts as dark seems inconsistent, so your character sometimes gets drunk vision and hears annoying sounds even in half well lit room. It also doesn't help that this is combined with finite supply of lightsources and a few tricky to find items. Monsters barely feel like being part of the game, they can appear from nowhere in scripted events and then, after checking the room you are in once, will disappear, never to be found again. Instead of being an obstacle player has to navigate around or outsmart, they are mostly a stop sign forcing you to stop playing and hide for a minute. Being forced to go through the red tissue which hits you randomly also didn't add much to the experience. It's not all bad, there are few good moments, but unless you really like these games I would read the story notes somewhere and skip the game itself.
