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Ratings of this game proved to me that the Dark Souls community will lap up anything with a tag 'souls-like'. The good: soundtrack is probably the best thing about this game (but, at the time of writing, isn't available on GOG for some reason). The environments, likewise, are very nice. Worldbuilding, and the associated lore leaves you hungry for more. The combination of JRPG combat style and Dark Souls style character builds works well. The bad: Worldbuilding essentially peaks in prologue, and then giving you a carefully measured dose that may be just enough to keep you playing. Instead of the world, the story concerns itself with common tragic drama about uninteresting companions (before it turns into a Pathologic remake). Which is a shame because interesting worldbuilding and lore was a major selling point for me. It got so bad I started skipping cutscenes when a specific companion started to cry, which is like half of them. Non-voice acted dialogs are poorly executed, automatic dialogue progression you can activate feels off. Game has a problem with key registry, which is a major problem for a game with QTE combat mechanics. At least it does on keyboard. And while the game tells you it's best played with a gamepad, it's not really an excuse for not registering keyboard presses, is it. At least one side-event is basically broken due to your character's animation speed. The game crashes every two hours. Performance wise it's what you'd expect from an Unreal 5 game. Mandatory DLSS for borderless windowed mode is just mindboggling. This game isn't really the ticket I paid for. With all that being said, I do not plan on refunding it and *might* give it another go in the future.
Great DLCs, each with loads of content seamlessly integrated into the main game. What I find funny though is that after all this time GOG still doesn't give you this season pass when you buy the Voidfarer edition, even though it gives you the DLCs, and I can still buy it for some reason. Same with the in-game menu, where it shows I own the DLCs, but not this season pass.
or at least that's how I feel when I compare Rogue Trader to Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous. Owlcat has abandoned the traditional "real-time with pause" combat style for a turn-based combat with a grid system, which I get to appreciate more and more as I get older. Action economy is in my opinion even better than in Baldur's Gate 3, because you have a simple pool of action points you can draw from, and therefore aren't restricted based on whether the ability costs a full action or a bonus one (or both). You are motivated to unleash the character's full potential each turn! Space combat is a bit different, you *have* to combine utilizing your skills and move in the same round. It's different, but I definitely prefer it over the fake HOMAM3 combat from Wrath of the Righteous. Colony management is quite simple, easily accessible and can be rather impactful in the long run. Voidfarer DLC is well integrated into the main game, and if I hadn't known that a certain class was added in it, I wouldn't even be able to tell what content comes from the DLC. Just how I like it. Like Voidfarer, Lex Imperialis is rather well integrated in the game. It is good, but definitely the worse of the two, since Voidfarer set the bar really, really high. New combat encounters and bosses are a great addition, as is both the newly added class and equipment (namely shields!), and story wise explores a part of the Imperial machine you would kind of expect in the Rogue Trader setting: tithe. Most of the gear, while progressively getting better, has a gimmick to it which makes you think about its potential use in your build. Likewise, many passive bonuses you can choose as you level up aren't a simple "get +X of Y", but rather "if you fullfill this condition, you gain this bonus", so your builds can get quite complex and synergies become very powerful. Now onto the bad and the ugly: building like 10-12 different characters over 55 or so levels gets tiring. You will be levelling consistently over the course of the game, and the more levels I got, the more I dreaded levelling all of my companions. Owlcat had autolevelling in their previous games! Just add archetypes like in NWN (maybe even allow us to create our own). Not even favorite talents are kept between playthroughs or shared between characters with the same class. Some characters which come later in the game have poor preset builds, with one in particular taking talents he will literally never be able to use. Other things, like running out of melta charges or resources for colonies is a minor problem, but in the former case I had to fix it with Toybox. Nothing in the game indicates that Melta Charges are to be used for creating entrances only, otherwise you run out of them and won't be able to fully explore locations. That's it! I like it.
I more or less agree with all the reviews here, however, there is no linux version here on GoG as of now (at the time of release), hence only 4/5. Amazing game nevertheless, worth even the full price.