I honestly don't remember why this was in my library but, after finally completing a 600+ hour epic RPG, I needed a bit of a palate-cleanser and decided to give it a try. I must have read a positive review somewhere that promised "Darkest Dungeon but with more story", yet this largely falls short on both counts. The combat and customization are shallow, the story and dialogue are just kind of "there", and the lore is all explained in a very "tell, don't show" method via notebook pages that are scattered throughout the game like so many breadcrumbs. The UI is clunky and has zero tooltips, requiring that you jump back and forth through menus to remind yourself what your special abilities do, what your current conditions mean, and even what your precise hit point are. There's a nod to "replayability" given that there are good/neutral/evil endings, but the paths to them are completely obscured and determined by arbitrary dialogue choices made during the game. The art is probably the one positive and--given all the feminine "assets" on display--was obviously what the devs cared most about (to be fair, there's a tiny bit of masculine cheesecake as well). Along those lines, there is an entire wardrobe of collectible outfits for the main character which, again, attempt to artificially pad the game's replayability by making it impossible to collect them all in one run. I almost quit after the first couple of chapters, which is saying a lot given that I'm kind of an OCD completionist. Thanks to my commitment to the Sunk Cost Fallacy, I soldiered on for the full 20 hours but was uncharacteristically blase about the plot-point choices. In the end, I kind of wish I had followed my original instincts and put it down early. If the game were a little more difficult and/or a little bit longer, I might be seriously angry at myself for wasting my time. As it is I'm just annoyed and disappointed enough to have opinions I need to inflict on other people.
