I probably would have recommended this game had I made this review before reaching Act 3. I was getting really absorbed into the story and characters and I'm not ashamed to admit I've probably spent at least 10 hours or so in character creation/level up screens trying to plan my character. I love the magus class and the way it blends melee and magic together. There are a decent few story moments in the beginning where you're triumphing through incredible odds and you feel awesome. I'm saying all these nice things now to soften the blow of my main critique which is that the balancing is absolutely atrocious. From the end of Act 2 onwards a metaphorical switch is flipped and suddenly all the enemies are jacked up on death steroids from hell. The whole becoming a mythic hero theme starts to lose weight when you can be absolutely wrecked by the demonic equivalent of Bob from accounting. From my understanding Owlcat seems to have given enemies blanket boosts to all stats across the board which would explain things. I started on the default enemy stats setting of moderately weaker, and have since had to drop it down to much weaker. Even then I was still encountering enemies with enough damage per round to kill my characters in one turn, who have such bloated defensive stats (armour class, saving throws, spell resistances, and always pre-buffed with spells) that combat routinely involved me spending several consecutive rounds missing and wasting spells. If you're a min-maxer to the extreme or if you set the difficulty really low, maybe you'll be able to have a smooth ride all the way through. I might have to lower the difficulty even further even though I don't really want to. I enjoy an engaging challenge but that's not what this game provides, this is trying to deal with that asshole kid who keeps throwing up an everything-proof shield until you get frustrated and want to beat his teeth out with a brick and chain.
