TLDR: Is it worth a buy on sale? Yes! Is it worth it full price? Yes, again! This game has a light, but appropriate story. Unfotunatly it doesn't really go very far... you get answers to side quests, but not really the main game. I was a bit disapointed we never got to hunt down the pirates. It is a very involved competitive shop and building game, where you can usually take your time, but other times you have only a set number of days to finish an item. This can lead you to failing a quest if you do not have the shop upgrade needed to make the next item at that time. This is rare; I think I failed one build job outside the very start of the game. The music, exploration, characters are all good, fun and lighthearted. The sidequests and other activities you can do tend to be fun and give a feeling of immersion and progress. The fighting ring is especially noteworthy, as you grow stronger. The game sort of runs out of content at the end. I did not keep playing after the end of the story, despite the fact that you can. I value the stories in the game very highly! It has many interesting story beats. The gameplay such as fighting is just ok; doesn't get in the way, nor is it spectacular. I wish the story continued, either in dlc or a second game, because the ending is rather abrupt. it's not terrible, cliffhanger type stuff some companies try to force in. It's just that there are a LOT of questsons left unanswered. One paticular character is missing and you have no idea what happens to them.
Everything about the base game is great! Story, music, progression, characters, exploration, robots. It's a wonder to explore in this fun new world! The expansion is similarly fun except for one thing: the MASSIVE power creep in both enemies and weapons/armour you can get. While the base game slowly introduces new creatures that are one step up from the previous ones, the expansion goes about 5 steps up with the monsters and a couple steps up with the equipment. Btw a game calling home is not the same as DRM; those ignorant reviewers who claimed it is need to learn to read wikipedia. You want a game that is close to it? Assasins Creed calls home every time you walk through a door. At least these devs state it up front that you are providing them analytical data; most just do it without your knowledge.
This game is a horror story. If you can't stand gore, stay away from this. The story is inevitably gruesome in that the main character will die in many of the endings. However if you persevere you will be rewarded with the true endings. These are very emotional stories. So while it's not a good experience most of the time, it IS worthwhile! It's definitely worth it, even at full price!
Is it worth buying at full price? NO! Is it worth buyong on sale? If you liked the last game, sure give it a shot! First off the good stuff is all still there: Control enemy captains and send them against each other, betray overlords, etc. You get powers Everything looks nice and sounds nice. The captains are still a-holes.... though with more variety this time! Ever wanted an orc bard from D&D to be your ass kicking companion? You can do it in this game! This one has a lot of little changes to the mechanics; not really improvements, so much as seemingly random try-this spagetti sort of thing to see if it sticks. Some things you'd expect are straight up removed. For example, in the previous game you could mount a caragor by skillfully timing a dodge/throw and jumping on it's back while it's on the ground. That's gone... no reason given, it's just straight up gone. There's a bunch of abilities this time too, only now we have sub-perks for them and you can only have one active at a time. No worries about trying them out though, because you can switch them for free anytime after you buy them. The problem is that many of these perks were things we _already had_ in the previous game and you'd expect to have at the start of a sequel! Now you have to re-earn most abilities, such as mind controlling an enemy in the middle of combat, etc. Speaking of mind control, this game WILL NOT let you use the ability on normal enemies at a speed of less then 3 full seconds. This makes no sense and is contrasted by being able to take a perk that lets you mind control broken captains, beasts, etc in half a second! It is infuriating! A lot of the mechanics seem to be purposefully made to make the game harder, for no reason. It's like someone was trying to go for the whole hard-but-fair thing and forgot the entire point of the game was fun as most of the mechanical changes are irritating! NPC losing combat to npc gains them nothing; npc losing to player gains them 10 levels!
