Being a fan of a classic crawlers, I was first impressed as the game is actualization of something between Dungeon Master and Wizardry experience. For a long time, it kept me with "maybe I will get a bit more far and it gets better", but no, I am quitting after 12 hours, lost endless, but inevitable and somehow frustrating fights. It is quite a pity, it just feels like authors took too big piece in 30 hours game since minor design flaw seize it already not even in half.
As a huge fan of game's style movies, I strongly appreciate that Flying Wild Hog revived and brought this poetics into a computer game. I would overlook also a medicore gameplay. But here, the gameplay somewhere around fifth episode accumulates so much repetition that it become frustrating and significantly ruin the experience. Basically you are applying still the same think on same sequences of enemies where winning is kind of a random, again and again. Moreover, the story is somehow uninteresting, even the (good) black and white samurai movies always had something more than the style, e.g., "Seppuku" was more realistic and had social and psychological overlap, "Kiru" put more stress on humorous aspect and so on. Here, the story is so bland that it does not even motivate to go further, or to care about characters. It is a pity, with a more various and better designed gameplay and more interesting story, this would be my personal game of the year.
In this game, you can clearly see that devs genuinely wanted to make a really good game. And they succeed, the game is great and definitely worth of money. But, but it is good to know what kind of game are you buying. At first, the gameplay is very "console like". You are slowly walking/running in a small corridor, and in some places, there is arena fight (which is ok). That is all. You cannot jump, there is almost no interaction with objects in the game, you cannot move anything (only doors and bridges), take anything, the world is very static. Puzzles are nice, but the variety of puzzle mechanisms is not too high. Although there are many characters communicating with their voices, the world is mostly deserted. I have a similar feeling from Darksouls and I do not prefer this abandoned places. The less one knows about the story is the better. But the narration is definitely impressive, it raises interesting thoughts and that is exactly what a good story should do. Just concerning the main character, she seems slightly "insufficiently portrayed" to me. In the sense that even after finishing the game, I was not able to tell what kind of personality she has. I do not know who is she. You see a lot of things which she experienced, but very few of reaction which would give her some personal attributes. This is maybe an intention, it allows for the player to easier be "in her skin". But I like much more the other approach because it allows one to care about the character and his story. Here, I care much less if she succeeds, because I did not know her, only know that a lot of people hurt her, she is scared and she has a strong will.
It is one of the best RPG ever and yet so poorly rated. The game is carefully polished from all sides. I finished the game for five times from the time of its original release. At first - play as a mage and be really sure you understand how the magic works. At second - it si necessary to design a character which you would visually like. You will see him in dialogs during the whole game, hence if he looks unfitting to the role, it will significantly affects storytelling a can ruin the game. From the technical pov, the music, as well as the graphic is really beautiful, even in 2017. The design here gets from the technology maximum, the game is very atmospheric at most of its places (at savannah feels really hot, one almost feels the scent of sweat at an infirmary, villages near the sea...). From the gameplay side, the action (mage) is fun and a whole game mechanics is suffciently complex and well scaled for at least 40 hours game. Spells and equipement is are constantly changing (improving), but you are not loosing rare effects of items. Gameplay feels very solid and thorough. The best part, which is surprisingly criticized, is the storytelling. Its strongest advantage is that the fiction world is mature, rough and beliveable. I am quite sensitive for childish (Shadowrun games), teenage (DA:Origins), sterile (TES) or just unprofessional (PoE, Tyranny) writing. Here, it slightly remindinds The Witcher series. There is enough lore about the world and it feels living, but the storytelling is concentrated, the world is not filled with "large amount" of needless information (PoE). Dialogs are one of the best in the genre. The main character reacts in an intelligent and mature way, sometimes with for me very close sense of humor. Even the most of the books are fun to read, e.g. the history of the ruined villages is a nice short novel. I am not native speaker, by for me, the main voice actor is great. I particularly love the parts when you are lying/manipulating someone. The point is, that in general quality of a story is never determined just by "a set of events", it not good/bad because "you kill dragon, or find out that your mate is a throne heir". Epicness of an event is irrelevant if for example all characters have mental age 15. Here, there are not so many epic events, but it is beliveable. Infiltrating criminal underground will leave you feeling that you really doing so, the university has its specific haughty and morally corrupt atmosphere and so on. It remains to note that the expansion PoFF has a different atmosphere (it is more light, but also great in another way) and regretfully a different voice actor. From by others criticized things. Controls is a little bit unusual, but once you get used to it, it provides better maneuverability than the classic one. Concerning the horse, anyone, who has ever ride a horse would agree, that just pressing one button like in other RPGs is not exactly the experience. In fact, riding here is IMHO the best among the all RPG. It is not hard, but requires some extra concentration which gives much more impression that you really riding a horse. I personally think that criticism is mainly based on not understanding to mechanics of the game, expecting a different one.
