This game is surprisingly fun! Yes, there is some semi-mandatory grind, especially if you are struggling with tougher enemies mid-way through the campaign, or if you want to farm for random dungeon drops and events. However, the game is so fun and varied that I didn't mind that at all. In the end I only had to re-do a couple of dungeons and the random placement of rooms, monsters, and events kept it fresh anyway. The visuals, music, voice-acting and controls are all top-notch. Story is your standard fare D&D-style campaign with ancient demons, reanimated corpses, harrowing strongholds and whatnot. It is competently delivered but nothing special. But it's the moment-to-moment gameplay that got me hooked. The turn-based combat is fun and varied, thanks to the options in building your team and customizing each character's perks on the fly. Loot is fun to hunt for, there's fishing which is basically an additional way of getting upgrades from the Collector, and then you have the dungeons where the game arguably shines. These can sometimes get tense, there are traps, an element of randomness in room/enemies/loot and it's all consistently fun to explore! Your characters' dungeon abilities are a clever way of utilizing all the tools at your disposal to try and tip the odds in your favor or just navigate the dungeon in interesting ways. Nightwar is not GOTY material but it's a really well-made turn-based RPG with fun mechanics and a ton of stuff to do and discover (like treasure maps, world bosses, an arena etc.). If you can look past the necessity of briefly farming for better items/higher level around the 12-hour mark, there is a lot of good honest fun to be had here.
