There's a lot to be said about the game, overall it's a very flawed but interessting CRPG. The issues lie more in the design philosophy of the developers, which seem to be; "We have a save function, and therefore, players are going to save scum, so lets design the entire game around this concept!". Random Encounters that'll shred you to pieces(unless you save prior to moving anywhere on the map), high difficulty checks on chests\traps. Chests you can only attempt to pick once per character(meaning, you save, check how difficult\hard the chest is, if it's too hard, you come back later and pick it). Even quests are heavily designed around the idea of save-scumming, as while the idea of time being an important resource is potentionally interessting\good, the way the quest locations are handled\done, leaves one to feel like you 'have to' save, then move around the map to find the location you need, then reload and go there directly. Another issue is, if you go to a location, clear it, then continue onwards with the main-quest, if this location 'was' a quest location with a scripted event, this scripted event won't trigger until you're at that point in the quest. Meaning; you might be completely lost and have no idea what to do(because you never got the scripted sequence). One such situation is in Troll Trouble, if you go to the broken watchtower too soon, you'll not trigger the proper event sequence, therefore, you won't know to go there to get the proper troll-locations(and so will at best, wander aimlessly wasting time, time, which is something you rarely have to spare!). Essentially, the bugs at release have mostly been fixed, but because of these fundemental design flaws I can't give this more than 2 stars. Had it not been designed around save scumming and scripted-events be missable(by no fault of your own), it'd have been 4 stars. There's more issues than just this, but those two are the biggest ones in my opinion.
I wanted to hold off on the review until the game was at a later stage, as at release it was a bit all over the place, good concept, and 'good enough' executed, but not the best(i.e; lack of spells, diversity in enemies, and so on). Now having gone back to play this game many years later. I have to say, it is now without a question at a point worth buying if you enjoy the concept of the game(Magic powerfantasy). The game can be hard at times depending on difficulty chosen or what spells you choose, but overall, an absolutely amazing concept that I througly enjoy(and come back to every once in a while). The only thing I'd like to see, would be a spell-combination like system, such as taking the stone pillar spell, combine it with an ice spell, to create an ice-pillar, or rock-wall into an ice\fire\thunder wall, etc. Though it'd require a redoing of many spells in the game, so this is something I hope they consider for a sequel.
The game doesn't really hold up to it's own store page 'promises'. "Unprecedented freedom of choice" - The story is set, and has a set path. You can't go into certain locations, or follow certain clues until the game has decided it's time for you to do so. The first hurdle, make sense(the waterlock being broken, thereby no way to go past the canal until it's fixed, in 3 days), there's an actual good immersive reasoning for it. But after that, every roadblock onto why you can't follow a clue, or enter a specific area, falls flat. The simple answer is; "We decided you shouldn't do this right now, even if the clues are pointing here, you need to aquire some other clues somewhere else!". "Countless tools for role playing." - This is both a yes, and a no. There are a couple of skill checks that 'must' be done to progress the game and it's story. Failing them isn't a branching path, failing them is simply having to come back later and try again, after putting skill points into that skill(or using drugs, or changing your outfit). The biggest issue with the game, is the dice roll system. If you get a 2, it's an immediate failure, no matter what. if you get 12, it's an immediate success. The issue with this system, is in that you can always fail. This would be fine, if failure was an alternative path, but it very, rarely is. What ZA/UM should've done, is design the game, with the assumption that every dice roll would fail, and create a coherent and enjoyable experience based on that(a story of pure failure, of course, as to give weight to the consequense of failing), and then design the successes ontop of that. As it currently is, they assume you'll win some, and then lose some. And certain checks they assume you'll always manage, which feels cheap(especially with a guranteed failure chance if the wrong dice result pop up). All in all, it's an interesting game, but it definitly is not a game filled with "unprecedented freedom of choice", just the illusion.
It's a cute, simple and "short" game. The first thing to note is the claim of a 100 endings, it is both true, yet not true at the same time. It is more a case of 100 different "game overs", rather than "endings". The game continues on after you've reached one of said 100 game overs, often with some sort of change(some persistent, some not, often some changes to your character). The game is also more of a puzzle game than anything else, attempting to find the right combination of items to do or cause a specific situation or ending. As such hints are spread around the map(some of which will show\unlock after a certain time, or certain parameters being met). If you'd like a lighthearted humor rich game, where you'll be "rewarded" for experimenting, or trying out things, this is the game for you!
First off, the things this game does well is in story telling and the characters(if you look at the game taking place within a couple of nights, rather than a few weeks, so just barely getting to know people) are top notch. Lasting consequenses for what you do, and being locked into it trough the autosave system is top notch. The issues however lies around combat and exploration. You're activly punished for exploring, or attempting boss battles. The combat\exploration phase of this game takes a lot of inspiration from the souls series, so when you die, any and all spent resources will be spent, making an difficult boss fight even more difficult. For those of us that never use consumables unless we can find a steady use of it(in souls-like games) it means we get stuck with never using any consumables at all in this game. This doesn't make the game more or less difficult, it simply means we end up not using a wide variety of tools at our disposal, in fair of it being worthless when\if we die. Exploration is hampered in the same way, certain places you'll meet NPCs that you have to save, if you do not save them before resting(leveling up), they will die. This means if you happend to find an difficult encounter that you just can't solve without resting, then your SOL and that NPC will die. As such, you are activly detered from exploring, unless you have plenty of levels already. Because of the auto save system, which work so well with the consequenses, once an encounter is found, you effectivly can't rest(level up) anymore, at all. Because when you do, that NPC dies, unless you finish that encounter(with your underleved character). It's not impossible to win them mind you, enemies mostly scale in the damage they do than anything else, so perseverence and good doding will save the day, but it feels like a cheap and poorly designed mechanic. Also bullets are rare, yet if you use a gun those bullets are spent if you die, making using a gun the worst choice in the game.
