The art looks amazing and the story looks promising, but despite pushing myself to play this for several hours, gameplay and story failed to hook me in. The RPG mechanics look interesting but every encounter I played trough had obvious weakness and there wasn't much tactical thinking needed on my part. Story, while shaping up to be interesting, really lacks proper pacing at the start, and just as I start getting invested, the game switches to a new character with their own introduction sequence, and then to another, and another, and another...
Disclaimer: I haven't had the time to check the GOG port properly, but just from being able to start the game and immediately be able to run it at high resolution and reasonable framerate makes it miles ahead of the original copy which was a real nightmare to get running properly. I like the describe this game as the X in the (Dungeon Keeper 2 + X) - Graphics = Dwarf Fortress equation. Graphically it is not far from DK2, the gameplay is pretty similar, if perhaps less focused on combat, and you swap one of the horizontal axes for a vertical one. The story campaign only has 5 levels, though they are very large levels with procedurally generated layout (outside of a few predefined pieces). Rather than reaching the end of a level or meeting the requirements to advance, what is really going to hold you for hours is in each level is catching up with the massive tech tree that the new materials found in each level open to you, and using the newfound knowledge to make your base work more efficiently. Now, I would love to give this game 5 stars, but I also remember it being very buggy. I could probably name a few which I had to fix using the developer console during my last playthrough, but those could be fixed and weren't that common. The most annoying bug to me was the ever-increasing demands of your dwarfs as you go deeper into 4th and 5th level. By this time you can build them luxurious accommodations of crystal and gold, night clubs and brothers, and yet they will curse your name forever and won't ever be happy with everything you've worked so hard to get them. This really sapped my enjoyment of the game, so if GOG somehow managed to fix this one bug, I'll give it 5/5 stars.
There are many things in this game to talk about, but I want to focus on one that hit me the most. Thank you Bare Mettle for making me fear again. I love horror in the games but I hate constant tension (upheld by terrible music) and jump scares, that's why I never play most games branded as "horror". Exanima does what I never knew I needed. Fear in this game is about constant fear for your precious life. What really makes it for me is that you aren't completely defenseless, and your enemies aren't all powerful horrors, it's just that running away from unknown is often the best idea. And if you think you are starting to get comfortable with fighting things head on, the game gives you a new reason to run like a little girl.
ToME4 is a true roguelike that offers great challenge and complete transparency of its stats and mechanics so you can always know the reason why you have died and be more prepared next time. 27 unique classes are just a cherry on top.
