Good: Bite Size nicely written lore dumps everywhere; under turtles, inside gull eggs, in the tubes of a church organ. Everywhere has a little something for you to find and enjoy, and the promise of more in another 5 minutes if you want it. Pleasant and relaxing soundtrack. Very sharp crafting engine. This does overlapping skills and resources extraordinarily well and would enrich a skyrim-like game massively, since it carries this game by itself. Charming visual style. Sound engineering, mixing and effects good enough to highlight separately; this is very clearly a well crafted sound scape. Bad: Intentionally janky UI - this is obviously a design choice and it succeeds in its goals making every action seem meaningful - but will not do your RSI any good. Good memory or the wiki on another screen required for complex tasks. The UI makes this even harder by spreading verbs widely across and actively hiding information from you until past the first step of an activity Personal Taste: Somewhat overcompensates Cultist Simulator's constant timed demand for action and reaction by having zero stakes whatsoever. Timing and Endurance based gameplay; there's no real failure state and identifying a win condition playing without a guide, never mind achieving it, will take at least 6 hours if you're lucky. I like this game even more than its predecessor. It's a pleasant, inviting experience to whittle away the hours and gently take the mind on an occult sight seeing tour. The UI is the most serious opponent in the game in that it seems designed to hinder you from completing tasks - but it's very clearly for a purpose.
First review on GOG after some 14 years. This game is that compelling and I nearly missed it. This game sold me on Pathfinder as the successor to D&D 3.5 but one of the potential drawbacks of that RPG system is the emphasis on optimised play. If you are not prepared to put the time into planning out viable builds, you will not enjoy this game as much as the developers intended. That said, for my first play through I went in completely blind and it was a comedy of blunders. I am pretty sure the only reason that I made it through was to play as an evil tyrant - using atrocities and pitiless opportunism to break through the web of genuinely difficult story and strategy choices. This was not only supported by the game, but it was well written and even rewarding to the point I say Kingmaker has the best 'evil plot' in a Baldur's Gate inheritor. This is very very clearly not the only way to play and there is a mind boggling spread of content for people who play something other than a poorly optimised, socially inept gnomish abjurer. It's also the first BG Inheritor that supports a summoned army without mods - I could and indeed *had* to create some 40 skeletons to take on the challenges the game threw at me, and the 'evil path' enhanced this approach through quest rewards. It also looks pretty and the sound engineering is top tier, especially for magic sound effects. Some of the music and voice choices have some bland notes, but it is forgivable. Those are the good parts. The bad is that the game is woefully optimised and playably buggy. Development has improved the bugs since release but my play through with the latest Linux build had at least 6 CtD. Loading times are woeful despite user side optimisation, slowdowns are noticeable with the aforementioned 40 skeletons, autosave takes progressively longer without mods as the game goes on, and basic activities require multiple transitions. And yet it is worth it. I want to play this game again then get the sequel.
