From the moment I saw it in early access, I wanted it. Then years later, I forgot about it, and it was offered for free. So certainly can't complain about free stuff, but here's the review none the less. Pros: -A metric butt ton of content, rivaling the lengths of (non-'open world') AAA games. (Literally 2 straight days of play, and I was 1/3 of the way through.) -The level design and details on the environment is quite insane (especially for an indie game). -An interesting, bold, tactical squad-based combat system. -An initial feeling of choice of character progression. -A rich, lovingly detailed story with characters of some depth (although they occasionally break charcter for some reason) -Ignoring the combat, the story is reasonably well paced, with just enough to keep you intersted. Cons: -The "mechanics" of the game, as I'll explain below. -The combats get really, really repetitive, and slows the game down. By day 2, I turned it to story mode and fast forwarded the combats. They weren't really a challenge after unlocking the mage anyway....save for when your characters one shot themselves on reflect aura. -A shallow character progression. Each ability has 2 different alterations you can make to it...which while I can appreciate the development time, really doesn't offer any more than stat bumps for progression past that initial choice. -Gold-based progression. There's no XP. Instead, you collect gold, and spend that gold to upgrade buildings which allow you to spend gold to level up characters. The real way to obtain enough gold to level up your party is doing these "challenges," which the game never shows you how to access, so it'd have to be almost by accident to even see the little tab. I don't appreciate it. -The gear was mostly junk. You rarely got an upgrade. Or even a situational side grade. Unique items are rarely even powerful enough to be a side grade. -Story mode should have just made the combats a fade-to-black, and then fade back in.
