More frustrating than the enemy AI is your own soldier's AI having a stroll all over the place. An experience in frustration that isn't worth the nostalgia.
The story is vinegar: not very tasty by itself, but you'd notice if it were missing. Item acquisition is completely random, that includes vendor. Very bad mechanic, especially since it's weighted by the player level. The reason why this was necessary is probably the small number of towns and non-linearity: aka back tracking aka our map was too small. And when it comes to the maps, yeah it gets very bad here and there, especially when low health monsters are running away. Not a good mechanic for a game that is turn based. This game either tries to be too much or too little, not complex enough to be the immersive sim it tries to be, and not simple enough to be dumb fun like "Torneko's Great Adventure". As for character building, which is a very important part of this game, the mercantile skill is just as bad as it sounds and the absence of a luck state is either a saving grace or a curse, not too sure yet. The riddles/puzzles are simple but missing a hint will waste you a good 30 minutes, which is in-line with old RPGs. This isn't really an RPG though, it's a glorified diablo-like with a slow pace, and a slower crawl as default movement. It's fun for what it is, although the first couple of levels where you don't know what skill does what exactly and have to figure it out wasting a few points are a bit of a pain, and by the time you figure it out the game is soon over. Replayability is nil because the story is a placeholder and your character's origin doesn't matter. The ending bugs after the first slide, but apparently you can't import your character onto the next game so I guess that's two failures. Throw away expectation and think of it as if it were a game made in the early 90's with a clunky fanpatch to make it look a little better, and it becomes enjoyable. Also all dungeons are very dark and the resolution is stupidly small so expect your eyes to hurt after a while if you play in windowed mode for any reason.
The mechanics are aged like rot. The dialogs are more often than not text dumps, and while there is no side-menu it is no more complicated than morrowind's. Sure, there is the illusion of agency, the skeleton of a good game. If this were an alpha version I'd praise it. This is NOT what is expected of a finished product. However, I can't deny that this game is strangely poignant. And nothing is more frustrating than "almost good".
Movement feels good and the gameplay is rewarding. The atmosphere and graphics are pleasing too. There is some weapons variety and most choices are valid; you can easily rock two shotguns or nebula/hawk and clear a dungeon no problem. The powerups are more of a mixed bag but by the end of the dungeon you'll have picked up at least a few decent ones. And that's an issue. I don't think there's a solid justification or purpose for this game to be "roguelike" and have randomised loot. All it does it force you to play something a little less optimal, but unless you're an idiot you won't have any problem as this game is far from difficult. Yes some maps are claustrophobic, and having a slow or piercing modifier makes some encounter much easier to deal with, and the weapon "the bomb" (basically a rocket launcher with slow projectiles) allows you to check every corners and deal with fliers with ease, but it's extremely hard to get hit in the first place. So all the randomisation does is prevent you from exploring a build of your chosing. It's a mild aggravation. And since there's only 5 depth to every dungeon, even the abyss, it's not meaningful either, since your build doesn't carry over. I was really expecting more from the abyss but no, it's just more of the same. Maybe you get to fight a true boss with a true end after freeing all of the villagers and collecting all of the pages but I'm not even going to bother, because I have no idea if there's actually going to be a hard fight as a reward or if it's just busywork. A few bugs that require you to restart the game, but you lose virtually no progress by doing so. Also, mushroom maps will get you stuck on walls and ledges at the worst timing. It's a good skeleton of a game. Lacks content, not fleshed out enough. Maybe give players tools to add maps and mod the game or release an expansion. Maybe bigger dungeons, more rooms, more depths, heck add another class or two. Whatever it takes to expand on this baby.
Feels like a chore, unengaging story, unchallenging yet lenghhy combat, the controls are a bit clunky and the puzzles are generally unimaginative. And the voice acting, ugh. As far as I'm concerned there's nothing good about this game. For a goddamn action game, to have the combat be so boring is a major flaw. It's nowhere near challenging yet you're constantly stuck in it because the game decides to throw more and more of the same dumb enemies at you. And in the rare event you misplay you can just rewind it, nothing is at stakes. And when there are no stakes why bother? Well, the story is not going out of its way to give you a reason to keep playing, that's for sure. Prince of persia 1&2 were bloody hard and downright sadistic, missing a step due to bad jump timing would have you restart the level all over, and while the combat AI was easy to beat it could also murder you brutally if you messed up. And the whole 60 minutes time limit added another layer to it. Sure, trial and error and retries are a chore in their own way, no doubt. And Sands of time got rid of those chores: by taking a 180° approach and getting rid of any fun in the process. What you're left with is an unchallenging game that feels like downtime But worst of all: Unskippable Cinematics/Cutscenes. So yeah, don't waste your time or money.
Incredibly slow and repetitive gameplay with a lot of downtime that will make you hate both the wind and stupid AI allies which are nothing more but a hindrance; especially while fighting pirates. If that wasn't enough, progression (ie getting stronger) is done by acquiring items, randomly generated items. So be prepared to grind instances like you've never done it. Which don't matter much because it doesn't matter all that much. Which might sound convinient, but kills any diversity and everything plays more or less the same. unless you want to ultra-specialise your ship in one of the few stats that are worth doing so (most aren't). While entering instances in a simple click can be seen as convinient, it completely negates the "exploring" ascept of the game. Speaking of exploring; I get that dividing the map in smaller zone makes for good resource management, but completely isolating them from one another ruins trading, exploration and the general atmosphere of the game altogether. As for the netcode, it's crap. Expect it to be laggy as hell. Talents are limited, dull, and past level 90 you unlocked everything anyway regardles of specialisation. Oh, and there are item (read: drop) based skills too, making the game one-dimentional. As for metagame, item and stats description are lacking, Why can't you tell me what does what in details instead of being so vague? the only immersion I'm getting so far are sinking ships. And let's not talk about the configuration menu because there's none. It'll still make for a few fun hours spent playing with your friends (solo just isn't worth the time spent playing) before you eventually get bored. Just make sure you all get the same faction if you want to ever meet each others without having to grind 90+ levels. But hey, at least you can enjoy the 0 different game modes. It's a sandbox game, which means devs can get lazy. If only modding was able, somebody could finish the game for them. Just play pirates gold instead.
