Seven seems like a really promising game: open world stealth sounds great, and the real-time 3d isometric perspective looks pretty good. But then you get to actually playing the thing. In practice, Seven is basically a standard open-world RPG that is very confused as to what it wants to be, and lacks satisfying core gameplay loops to sustain itself. You do an AWFUL LOT of fighting for what is supposed to be a stealth-oriented game; there are standard RPG arena-type quest lines that are straight combat, and many of the beasts and enemies in the wilds can't be effectively snuck past: you either fight them or bypass them. The combat is miserable and unpleasant, with a rapidly-depleting stamina bar and every enemy being a damage sponge. The prospect of freeform thieving in big urban areas, which seems like a cool idea, is uh. Basically dead on arrival. The cities are dominated by buildings designed for plot missions, and there's never any exciting loot: 95% of the stuff you find is literal garbage that is used in the game's crafting system, and if you do find anything cool- special weapons or clothing, etc, you're likely to be unable to find a merchant with enough cash to actually buy it from you. Also, you can just murder most merchants and take their stock from their corpse without consequence, meaning cash, even when you get it, is only useful for buying access to new sections of the map. The plot is. Uh. Nothing. It's a dull nothing that is difficult to follow at best (poor translation? and lots of made-up in-universe terms and ideas), and there are no memorable characters to root for. None of it is very interesting. I wanted to like this game so much more than I did, and it's obvious a ton of work and love went into making aspects of it- the art, the level design, the music, etc. But it's less than the sum of its parts, because there's no compelling gameplay to tie it together.
