Everything that is unlikeable about so-called Souls-like genre is here. Quality of life? You won't find it here; maybe authors feared people will think it's a game for casual gamers if they include things like pause, map or in-game manual. You don't even get a flashlight until you spend 10 minutes in the darkest and the most boring maze I've seen in video games. Visuals? Irrational - that's the 1st word that comes to my mind. We are shown beautiful open areas and then we are forced into dark, ugly tunnels and - to add injury to the insult - it downright hurts the gameplay: neither combat system (both character's moveset and enemy's AI) nor camerawork handle narrow spaces very well. Storyline? I don't know. I played for hours and I DON'T KNOW THE STORY and that is a problem. The writing isn't 'minimalistic' or 'mysterious', it simply don't give (at least for hours or possibly ever) answers to some really basic questions like 'who am I?' 'what am I supposed to do?' and the worst and the most important of all: 'why should I even care?'. Combat? It's barebones. Meet new enemy, memorise its attacks through trial and error (and by 'memorise' I mean learn which ones you avoid by dodging to the side and which ones - by jumping back), find out which one of your 8 melee attacks (standard, post-dodge, mid-air and mid-sprint - all in 'light' or 'heavy' variant, so 8 in total) works best and spam it while dodging enemy's blows, repeat. I didn't go very far in this game; mayby it gets much, much better down the line. But. What if it doesn't or what if YOU are not willing to push through hours (I'm using word 'hours' a lot, don't I?) of mediocre gameplay? I know I'm not. What I am trying to convey: This isn't the worst or even a bad game. But. If you are not a fan of Souls-look-alikes, this game won't even try to change your mind and If you are - there is not guarantees you find any enjoyment here.
... gets you -10 modifier to lockpicking. Remember that, it will spare you confusion and frustration. Another advice on the end of review. If you never had contact with Dark Eye system, be not afraid. The prologue of the game explains the most important nuances and is almost too easy (you receive two companions, who could handle most quests by themselves and you can win fights by spamming special attacks - enemies run out of HP before you run out of stamina). Things get harder in Act I and later, but you should get a grip on mechanics by then. Character creation is... odd. You choose your protagonist's class and it determines their - bear with me here - race, ethnicity and sometimes sex. Ow, and available spells too. On the other hand, once you create your hero(ine) you are free to expand their non-magical abilities as you see fit. You want to teach your sword-swinging Knight building traps, spear fighting or applying medicine? You can. Graphics look a bit cheesy, but didn't age too badly (can't say the same about animations). All in all, it's worth it's price for any RPG fan. Beware the undead mule.
... and I love you. Only 2 months ago I digged (heh) up my ancient original copy of this game, used some black magic (and the help from 4 different forums in 3 different languages, I kid you not) to make it run on Win 10 and now you add this game, polished and upgraded to work with modern systems. All potential buyers should know this game is (or at least was) quite unique and that is always a good reason to give it a try - to sate your curiosity and expand your horizons, if nothing else. However first contact with gameplay may be... bad. It's hard to enjoy a strategy game when nobody obeys your commands and you don't know why. You must spend some time to learn about your dwarves' needs and how to fullfill them. By NEEDS I mean both personal necessarites (food, sleep, fun etc.) and building/production requirements, for example: they will NEVER use resources hidden in the Fog of War (the onea seen by other dwarves or buildings are all fine and useable), you must manually either bring goodies to your settlement or expand your settlement toward resources depot. All in all, it's a good old game, but the start is hard because you must learn about your subjects' psyche first. Graphics & art style are acceptable and they have a soul, and the music is great. By Odin's beard, GOG, only two months, you could have earn some money and spare me lots of work. Ehh.
