I didnt buy the game at launch due to the mediocre reviews and bugs reported but boy am I glad I bought it now.
Since the enhanced version was released the game has been improved fixing the bugs and issues people had with the Kingdom management. Kingdom management can be set to Auto now so you dont have to worry about it if you just want to play the story and do side quests.
You can play with different difficulty settings as well to tailor how hard or easy you want the game to be.
Its a great CRPG with great graphics, story and character throughout the game world.
I am enjoying it more than Pillars of Enternity.
9/10 for me.
I sank 200 hours into this game. There are so many things I could say about it, but I think my experience in the very end summarizes it well.
During my fight with the final boss, I had to submit two bug reports. After winning, the ending vignettes I got describing the aftermath did not correspond with the choices I made, and for whatever reason, I did not receive nearly half of the content I was supposed to get. Three bug reports in total.
After the ending sequence, the game tried to return to the main menu, but a graphical glitch caused everything to look strange. When I tried to click on anything, the game crashed to desktop.
That's pretty much what the game was like for me the entire time. It's a shame, because Owlcat Studios poured their heart and soul into their creation, but they released such an unfinished mess, that even three months after release, I still struggled to immerse myself among the myriad of bugs, poor design choices, and imbalances.
Maybe you'll like it though. Many people claim they didn't encounter bugs when they played (I don't know how). And maybe in a few months it'll all be polished up nicely. There IS a lot of good storytelling and gameplay buried beneath the problems.
and lets you play by the rules, while he comes up with enemies, that ignore them and just slay
everything.
Level 4 fighter with 1d8+10 damage. Or Lvl6+ archer with 1d8+14, fighter with 1D10+17.
You beat them and get regular, +1 and a +2 weapon from them. Enjoy! (Playing on normal.)
I deactivated critical strikes. Enemies with +7 when you are fighting with +1 will just one shot you
try after try. Stag Lord? Crits for 52 damage vs. level 5 party. Enjoy! Balance? ZERO.
You can not cast/buy so much blur, mirror image, mage armor and barkskin potions/scrolls or cast
them on everyone.
Fighting feels like lottery. Bad roll? Dead. Reload! Bad roll? Dead. Reload! Just repeat, over and over...
I never reloaded more often in a computer game! Never.
The game gives you plenty of auto- und quicksave slots. For a reason.
Once in combat you can not retreat. This random encounter will kill you. Ok, let's reload... FUN!
You are not supposed to be here. Don't explore too much. You are dead. Let's reload. FUN!
Aside from some text errors and quest entries that link to a decision I have not done, I have not
encountered bugs within act 1 and early act 2.
Feels stable, runs on my old hardware - great so far.
If you do not whish to manage the barony, you can set it on 'auto'.
I wish you could do the same for the exploration and combat. That is unfortunately the boring part
of the game. Way too random, to long, to forced. Would like to skip it. And I am only in act 2.
Managing the barony feels great so far, even though you are dropped in the cold water.
So I give it 3 stars. Mixed bag. Game is ok.
If you like diablo-gameplay and slaying the same monster over and over - maybe add one.
If you are more interested in a good story, with good/evil, lawful/chaotic choices and don't like
the over long and forced hack & slay parts, bad enemy AI (really, really bad AI!) maybe remove one.
Up to early act 2 the evil choices are 'meh'. Mostly killing everything.
This game is simply too damn long. I like a lot about it, but after 100 hours and you're just abrely reaching the end, all while trying to go as quick as possible, it just gets to become a drag. The story isn't particularly intersting either, which doesn't help.
I like that they tried to do so much and give a truly meaty game with TONS of content, but cut back on random wilderness areas, trash encounters, and just give a more focused, substantial experience next time.
I like ice cream as much as anyone but that doesn't mean I need to sit down and eat 20 pounds of it. That's what this game feels like after you've made it all the way through. Honestly if the game had been half as long, it'd be perfect in my eyes.
So, my Kingdom has just been destroyed, somewhere in the middle of the 3rd act. I felt pretty confident, that I had everything under control, but turns out: I was wrong.
Up until now, I had fun playing this. I'm a tabletop RP veteran and played a lot of Pathfinder, so the mechanics were familiar to me) I agree with what some reviews said: If you're brand new to PF, this will be a challenge). And yet, I very likely won't start the game from new or even try to find a saved game (in my 3 dozen or so saves) that I could make work.
Why?
The game is hard work. You have the "standard" CRPG components of following the main story (which isn't always clearly marked as such, and I kinda like that), chasing down side-quests, following personal stories of your companions, all while trying to manage a kingdome.
That was fun to me, but, I sort of never got reaaaaly hooked. I can't even say why. The story works, the kingdom management is solid and ads depth, I like Pathfinder.
I will say, the load times have been an issue. Waiting anything like a minute or more for bigger maps to load breaks the game fun for me. For now, I'll go and play some of the other RPGs I have yet to play. Maybe I'll give this one a shot once its final patches have been applied.
