Played about 5 hours before giving up. Really wanted to like this game, the promise of a more pen-and-paper, thinking man RPG where combat wasn't as prevalent. Huge wall of text at the beginning explaining combat is not to be prioritized, and to ensure stats are put in other categories. Great! Proceed to create a street wise merchant with high persuasion, then explore the start area. In the next few hours, I fail pretty much all checks everywhere, no matter what it is. Can't climb a wall, can't get information from people, can't persuade the guard to let me through. I eventually have success in a quest line to poison guards in a remote location. Awesome, the poison will ensure no combat! Get there, promptly get murdered by two guards that have been poisoned but still very much alive. I reload and try every single combination. Every one leads to combat. No way to get back to town from this location. Try to fight, I'm under powered; proceed to die a few more times, impasse. Load a previous save, and get entangled in a different quest, to deposit the current ruler of the city. A few screens later, I'm again in the middle of a fight, against the entire town guards. For a game not prioritizing combat, there sure is a lot of it. Not the "kill the rats" variety either, killing the entire town guards or an entire garrison of soldiers. WTF. If I ever get back to this game, I'm making a fighter. In the meantime, it will collect dust - there are far better isometric RPGs out there that I haven't gone through yet.
