There is much that is good to say about this game, but there are also a myriad of annoyances and one absolute deal-breaker for me. First, let me say I am a grognard; I cut my teeth on Advanced D&D 40 years ago and seen the evolution through 3rd Edition in various CRPGs over the years, so the system itself holds few surprises. The good: Interesting story; good use of alignment-based decisions and xp awards based on skill checks; nice balance of adventuring and kingdom management (when I have to decide whether or not to keep a spiffy new magic item or sell it for build points so I can enhance the stability of my nascent kingdom, the meta-game is right where it should be), nice soundtrack, good art, intuitive interfaces, good number crunching under the hood. Look, I have 100 hours logged in one campaign, so there is a lot to hold my interest. the okay: NPCs are okay (good voice acting), overall graphics are adequate (spells are not all that impressive). Game ran very smoothly for first 60 hours. The annoying: The inventory system. Stop moving my items around! You cannot effectively lay out a pattern for inventory items in the group stash, because it will be overwritten every time you add a new item or you swap out characters. Bugs: There are many apparent bugs in the Event/Project cards. Or maybe they aren't bugs, but the game is giving wrong/incorrect feedback. Poor encounter scaling -- way too many early encounters feature opponents who are too strong. Sure, I can dial back the damage my heroes take, but the flavor is all off. If I have to save scum until I make a saving throw more often than once a session, something is off. The deal breaker: The incremental corruption of my save games. Not, "the file won't load" corruption, but inventory items disappearing, events/projects no longer registering as completed, game progress halted due to key events not triggering. I have had to abandon my 100 hour campaign; hence the title of my review.
