Played this for years. Seems like a quirky and silly game at first. The main character isn't a serious guy. But the maps are very challenging. Most enemies will crush you and there is no running away from combat, they will chase you down with their unlimited endurance while yours runs out quickly. Get used to saving. It plays like a stealth and strategy game. Sneak around, observe enemy movements, then pick off the isolated or weak. Running at them from behind and backstabbing is a staple gameplay for a while. Enemies do not re-spawn so you make progress by clearing areas (that you can) and powering up. The powering up in town is fun. There are many skills to specialize in and you only have enough points to go deep in a few of them. It's forgiving also, even if you make lousy choices its cheap to shore up weaknesses and still progress, even if you are pursuing a weird skill combination. The weapon/armor system also holds your attention. You collect blueprints and have the blacksmith fashion equipment out of materials dropped by enemies or salvaged from old equipment. Repair costs get out of control so you will find yourself keeping lower quality stuff, even in advanced areas, and trying different combinations that will still work without bankrupting yourself. The spell system is a similar feeling; you only have a few spells but you will constantly experiment to find out how much customization (runes) you can put in each spell to make it useful for your play style, or to be effective against a particular monster type. Hint: later shops do not carry lesser runes which cuts down possible combinations; but if you sell one to the shop and leave they will then have an unlimited supply. As someone else said, companions are a trap. They leech experience (skill points) and you don't get to keep them long. Overall, I enjoy playing it. Good challenging game but not too hard. Always decisions to make, colorful, fully voice acted, and lots of replay value.
If you enjoyed choose-your-own adventure books when you were a kid, perhaps with some skill point system that gives additional branch options and modifies the story along the way... and liked to re-read and check out all possible story branches later... then you'll like this game. In this game, you must help your character survive for forty turns. You train two of her skills weekly, of which the effectiveness of training is greatly boosted or penalized depending on her mood, which varies depending on story events that week. She can also adjust her own mood, in small steps, to counter this randomness... so you're always trying to achieve the right mood in the right order to train the set of skills you want in time for the story events that you know (roughly) are coming. You are shown the result of all skill checks as they happen, so know where potential branch points are. There may be ten or more checks during a turn. But some of the fun is when you want a different result in a particular week, and so you try an alternative skill set, assuming you would get there again but better prepared... and find out that the story ends up in a completely different place because your new skill set. And some desired endings and combinations are hard to reach the first few times. Some skill checks are not just pass/fail, but partial success of a check can lead to a third path... If trying to find out all story endings (for you, your friends, and enemies) and finding hidden branches while leading your character through her mood changes and the results of many possible skill combinations... if this appeals to you then I'd recommend this game. Looking at this in another (odd) way; if you played the game Fallout and hated the combat/walking around, and you were only interested in the slightly silly story, skill checks, and replaying for the various endings... and if maybe you called the vault dweller a pretty princess sometimes... you could be interested in this game...
