I am starting to really love roguelikes in general, and I think this is a good game. However 1) the pace is so slow I literally begin to fall asleep at times (I play in the evenings after work...) and 2) even with Wikis I find that I am not sure what I'm supposed to be doing. That annoys me partly because I'm older and from an era where we got actual paper manuals that explained every little thing in your interface. My first playthrough I didn't realize that once I beat the first boss I was supposed to go on to chapter 2 by clicking the II button and just kept replaying chapter 1 and wondering why I couldn't get certain resources and proceed with my village building. Still, I've played lots of hours and will probably play more.
I am almost embarrassed about how many hours I've spent with this game (over 500 at this point). Something about how each run through is different depending on your card choices and combinations just has me enthralled. I do play other games: RPGs, Strategy, Simulations, and other Roguelikes, but this is one that I keep going back to, sometimes just as a pallet cleanser between others. It can be frustrating, I suppose, but I enjoy anticipating what the next attempt will bring me.
I bought this on a whim, and I'm glad I did. My favorite action RPGs are the Gothic games and Risen, and this is not as deep or difficult, but I am finding it to be really, really, just plain fun. I do recommend using a game controller, especially if you use a laptop for gaming, because I found some of the key combinations difficult on the laptop keyboard. And even if you are not proficient with a controller (I'm not), you can learn some favorite moves and still progress. The graphics are really nice, the monsters are diverse and interesting, and you really can play every character class (independently) in one game if you want to try them all out - without losing progress. I do wish the save feature was better - if you lose a battle (die) twice in a row, you pretty much have to go back to the last time you slept in an inn and replay from there (there may be a way around this to load a manual save, but they don't make it easy). Anyway, I highly recommend this game - it's a blast.
This is a great little puzzle game for programmers or non-programmers alike. As others mentioned, the commands are few and fairly simple, but I found that this added to the optimization challenges. I was a COBOL programmer for many years, and this game reminds me of how useful paragraphs and performs can be - 'cuz you can't use them here (at least I haven't seen that option yet, and I'm 2/3 of the way through the game), and you end up with a big pile of 'spaghetti code'. I personally find the presentation friendly and delightful, and I would imagine that it would be a good introduction to coding for anyone curious about programming. Fun and engaging.
I did play this game when it first came out and never quite finished it. As I recalled, it got very difficult at some point, and tedious. Even with that, I had some really good memories from it, too, so I bought it again here thinking maybe now I'd have the patience to finish. Sorry to say, but, no, this title has not improved with age. The difficulty is very high after the first town is completed, with random encounters that come regularly. At this point I was catching diseases which permanently destroy the characters' stats which was very frustrating and seemingly unavoidable. The graphics would not usually be something I would dwell on, but they are from the very beginning of 3D rendering and are really quite boring and ugly. I have uninstalled it and am now happily back to Oblivion, where the graphics are sweet and the difficulty forgiving.
