...and to be honest: the first ever that i played without the need or even thought about using a walkthrough, a hint-system or anything that spoils the tiniest bit of story or gameplay. It sucks you in and don't let you out until you have finished your business. Or be finished by it. The RPG-Elements fit the Game perfectly. What an immersion! And the second run was even more interesting than the first. Not only because some details in the Game have changed - thanks to some random elements - but because it worked out completely else than the first run. I'm not a great fan of adventure-games, so maybe for genrefans it's more of a an storyteller and not very challenging. But in my opinion it's perfectly balanced, very well shaped and gives a really outstanding vibe! Recommended - no matter what. Even if you are not into that type of game normally, or if you are no great Horror-Fan: it's a pretty unique experience and worth to make it!
A really, really great game, one of my top 3 so far. I spent houndred of hours with it, and chance is high that it keeps to be my favourite RPG. The Story is well written and immersive. The theme is interesting, intelligent, enigmatic. Generally its about what life is, or how it works, or not. Or maybe its about the whole existence. Hm, something like that. Mysterious. Profound. Severall times i find myself thinking about what happens there for minutes right in front of my pc-screen. In my opinion thats the strongest part of the game - but not the only outstanding one. The charaktersystem is just exemplary. You progress your skills just as your persuasions - and that takes greatly part on the immersion. Most of the time you really FEEL every word thats spoken, every action thats taken by or with your charakter. Every event that happens has a meaning, you have to think about it - and its kind of a miracle to do somthing like that in a pc-game, really! (basegame, not necessarily the expansion - white march is much less immersive in my opinion, i havent finished it yet). The battle-mechanics are great, and what some people may call "overwhelming micromanagement" is a big plus in my point of view. Yes: you have to think about every action you take, you permanently have to revise your queued spells and hits, you have to change your target-directions every some seconds, you have to combine your party-actions and skills in the right order to the right time and, most important, you have to find out the weak points of your opponents - in other words: you really have to FIGHT to win. You cant just "level up and kill everything" - thats mostly impossible (first played in normal mode, thats not too hard if youre a bit familiar with the mechanics; then in hardest, its partially ultrachallenging). If you like it (very) easy you can i.e. change to story-mode (the enemys are mostly dummys in that mode) Its so much more to say but thats it with my char-limit. Buy that game :)
