I bought this on steam, I got a deal, usually I'd buy here.. DRM free and all that jazz. Ok the good points first, the music, the art design, the story and the voice work are all very engaging and enjoyable, on the face of it those alone are worth the price of admission, and I MEAN that... However, the rest is horribly bad news if it's an RPG you want. One must think of game play, because after all it is a game, but THERE ARE NO RPG TRAPPING. There's no inventory (I realize the devs have stated that they didn't want a 'loot fest', however that statement alone demonstrates that the devs don't understand the genre they are attempting work within as not all inventory items in rpg's are classed as loot, they've eschewed loot and in doing so eschewed every other item that could fall under the heading of inventory, e.g no puzzle items.. so that means no puzzles either), There is no exploration AT ALL just a series of circles you stand in that progress your game, searching for something then stand in a circle, speak to someone then stand in a circle, looking about then stand in a circle, moving areas then stand in a circle.. all these of these circles are broadcasted, you can't miss them the game litterally leads you by the hand.. there is an upgradable 'leveling' system used for the many (unfair in some cases) fights.. but that DOES NOT DEFINE 'RPG' At the end of the day, it is an utterly linear experience interspersed with the only real control you have, fighting and sadly even the fighting and it's system is anadequate to the task of carry such an otherwise dull PLAYING experience.. it doesn't matter how interesting the story is, how good the music is, how pretty the art is or how professional the voice work is, if there is nothing to the game except standing in circle to progress whatever action you have to take next in order to progress to the next circle, and fighting, then at the end of the day it cannot be described as a good (or even bad) 'RPG'. It is absolutely no more than a linear point to point adventure with a fighting system, this may be enough for some, but I find it to be an insult to anyone who actually expects rpg'ing in the 'RPG'. It's a great pity too, if it had some rpg'ish gameplay on top of the otherwise all round excellence then it would be a 4.5 stars no problem, but for the lack of any substantial gameplay it gets stripped back down to two and it only get's those because the other elements are above average.
This game is well advertised as a clunker if you have ATi hardware.. The performance hit of the PhysX engine is beyond ridiculous. I won't be purchasing this.
