Yes, it has a few flaws. If you listen carefully and long enough, you'll even hear a few die-hard fans complain about a few things: it's missing a few iconic elements of Fallout lore that would be introduced later, you can be accidentally killed by your own party members with alarming frequency, the turn-based combat can sometimes take too long to resolve, and there are skills/perks that are objectively less useful than others. However, there are very few games that can lay a greater claim to "best turn-based RPG". If you like retro-futurism, black humor, or post-apocalyptic fiction, this is the game for you. The graphics and gameplay are old-school 1990s-era, but if you're at GOG.com, you probably don't care. Don't let the fanatics tell you that you can't call yourself a Fallout fan without having played this game, but you'll definitely be missing out.
A lot of the humor is stupid, the voice acting is bad, and it's buggy. But it's just so much fun that a certain kind of ARPG fan will forgive this game all its faults. There's a quest to help German power metal band Blind Guardian recover their instruments, after which you get to watch an in-game concert and bash orcs to death with a guitar.
Some people have criticized this game as boring, but I liked it. Clearly, it's not for everyone. The game starts off very slowly, both metaphorically and in terms of your ship's maximum speed. The manual, which seems to be written by a sadist, doesn't stress the importance of immediately upgrading your ship. You start off barely able to accomplish the simplest of tasks, and everything is incredibly tedious. The game's steep learning curve and unforgiving mechanics can also be off-putting to new players. Once you've purchased a few upgrades, however, the game becomes significantly more fun. You can finally survive space combat, travel is faster, and new opportunities open to you. You'll still spend more time trading than in space combat, and some of the gameplay can be a bit repetitive. However, it's fun to upgrade your ship, learn how to exploit the game's economic model, and explore the galaxy (each sector has different music, and the goods are often different). If you put forth the effort to learn it, this can be a fun sandbox game despite its flaws. I would rate it somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, and have rounded up to 4.
Heroes of Might & Magic 4 is a flawed but underrated turn-based strategy game. Like the other games in the series, you recruit armies of fantasy creatures and fight tactical, chess-like battles. Heroes 4 was rushed, which means it's not as polished as the rest of the series. The AI is probably the most notable deficiency. It does alright, but you'll undoubtedly see it do some boneheaded things. Some minor but obvious quality-of-life improvements are missing. There are no major problems, but it's enough to comment on. A lot of major gameplay changes were made from the earlier games. Heroes 4 has the most RPG elements in the series, to the point where you can forgo recruiting monsters and instead wander around the map with a party of adventurers. This is so much fun that it makes up for some of the changes that I didn't like, such as getting rid of unique bonuses for each hero. Instead of starting with cool special abilities, you make your hero unique over time. It's not a bad system, but heroes feel more interchangeable. Some other aspects of the series were also streamlined, making this one of the easiest HOMM games to pick up and play. The graphics are pretty good, though the game doesn't support modern widescreen monitors unless you're willing to install an unofficial patch. The music is amazingly good and is worth the game's price by itself. In keeping with the streamlined nature of the game, the tactical combat isn't especially complex, but it's a lot of fun. The campaigns are also fun. Recommended if you enjoy both classic CRPGs and turn-based strategy games. If you're not into CRPGs, this might be veer too far away from the classic TBS formula for your taste.
