This is a great game and an ambitious undertaking. The mechanics are intricate and take a while to figure out as you play. I played their previous release (Kingmaker), which helped. In terms of bugs, I often run into situations where I look through mechanics to figure out if something that happened was a bug or some special ability. It usually is a special ability, but I've gotten to some weird situations, like some special abilities that need to trigger on critical only, but trigger in other situations as well. Anyways, the strongest part of this game are the intricate mechanics and all the different classes that allow for different builds. There are a lot of approaches you can take to building your party. Otherwise, the story seems OK so far, the world feels big. There are a lot of effects and special resistances that can be incredibly annoying if you try to chop through this game using a single tool. A lot of encounters can be like puzzles, and you really need to figure out ways to approach a wide array of challenges. Sometimes, it's an inconvenience. Still, I enjoy this.
I played Kingmaker and loved it, and so went on to play this as soon as it came out. I didn't encounter any bugs or balance issues. The game was engaging, different builds are fun, all new content is great, story is solid. I loved it so far just like Kingmaker. I played it for 57 hrs so far, but haven't gotten to the part where you command armies (so can't review that bit yet), and I've taken a break from it for now. My one issue is with the mounted combat feature. Basically, once you get a mount, you can fight on it mounted with added abilities, or the mount just fights by your side like your creature companion. It even has its own leveling and equipment. This system is great until you imagine it implemented with a paladin and his/her horse in a dungeon. I can either ride my horse down dungeon corridors, fighting from horseback (weird), or have this horse run around biting and kicking people, in a dungeon (even more weird). It's like I have this intelligent horse familiar that isn't constrained by tight quarters. Maybe that would make sense for a small character riding a wolf, but weird for a horse. This breaks immersion - despite the fact that this is a fantasy game with lots of unrealistic stuff, this is too blatant for me. From a balance point of view, I get why they did this - if a character's strength is mounted combat, he/she should be able to use it in more than highly limited open terrain. But you'd never use mounted combat outside of open terrain. I think maybe if they had a leave/recall feature for mounts, especially horses, that would make more sense. I don't know how to go about character balancing, though, because if you build a character around mounts, you expect to be able to use that advantage. In general, a lot of early game is dungeon crawling, so mounts don't really fit in for most of it. Maybe developers can figure something out regarding that.
When I first got this game (based on all the awesome revues, off course) I was a little put off by the absence of animation. DO NOT LET THAT STOP YOU! In fact I would go as far as to say that it does not need any, because of the art style and the overall nature of the game. I have played "Masters of the Broken World" and have to say that Genesis takes the win in my book. It has a cleaner, more straightforward interface, and honestly, I like the art style of the original much more, it has that cozy quality vintage 2d look to it. Honestly describing this game in all its splendor will take too long, just play it! But do be warned, it will suck you in for hours upon hours, I've been playing this everywhere I go: at work, in class, at home, even in my sleep (I guess thats how I know when I had a little too much of it LOL :).
