I should have done some research beforehand and asked for a refund. I was absolutely prepared to expierence a straightforward Dungeon Keeper clone which it seems to be and thats totally fine. The problem is that its also designed like a F2P mobile game. The main menue is cluttered with social media and buy this, buy that, "look here, gimme engagement" and the first game mode I wanted to dive into already tries to lowkey fomo me into buying a dlc really bad. Literally before I actually start the game once, it tries to milk me. Not with a new feature mind you. With a game mode that is absolutely barebones and was simply a basic part of the original game. Its also as I said obviously designed with a manipulative marketing intend to make me spend a little more right away. Thats just horrible behavior even for a innovatively designed new piece of vidya. This however is a simple Dungeon Keeper clone. They took an almost two decades old game, scratched the label off, spray painted it just to sell the pieces individually. So there is no extras in development aside from marketing which as a customer is the last thing I care about. I do my best to ignore it and maybe get insulted when I look at the price tag out of sale. And even during one this was not worth it. Apart from that the art direction is sadly fitting the FTP mobile game vibe and the optimization is horrible, even in 2025. You can get the full original games this was based on completely add free and without chinese mobile game bloat or predatory business practices right from the scrapbook of an EA suit for five bucks each or less during sales, so I'd strongly recommend you get that first and only come back if you really, really want more.
Its old, its been around for some time but I just had to write something because its so atrocious. 1: The whole ordeal is railroaded from start to end to the point where deviating from the linear progression simply ends in bugs and wrong triggers. 2: Constant cutscenes are not just a bad habbit of denying player agenda but actually hurt on a technical level because they spawn a lot of problems with the engine like ending polymorph forcefully. Besides NWN just lacking the visuals in general and the story being so dull and shallow in particular that having another cutscene every five minutes is really just no appropriate presentation that would justify the impaired gameplay. 3: Rogues and faces are out. There are virtually no traps or locked doors. No alternative paths to combat. The only PC - NPC interactions are different faux response options (good/evil/neutral) which all continue the same monologue and Morrowindesque NPC wikis with the same three questions of what/who/where which are not even informative since literally all answers are just four liner derivates of "I dont know though" if its not a forced story expo. Choices dont matter at all. 4: The balance is all over the place and this module was obviously never playtested. Several possible soft locks can be enjoyed. The module expects ruthless magic and resting minmax with often almost comically forced difficulty resulting in binary fights of either instant loss or instant win and everyone downing dozens of healing potions. The overall combat is either linear FPS hallways or gigantic procederal generated maps without terrain or landmarks filled with enemies. Loot doesnt matter since merchants dont have enough gold to buy and nothing besides basics to sell with a few exceptions, All in all its even less of an actual rpg than the OC failing spectacularly at combat at the same time and offering a linear teenage fanfic tier story that would fit on a handwritten fridge note. Not even worth a sale.
