I'm somewhat confused by the mediocre ratings for this game. Yes, it's buggy at times, and if you're particularly unlucky on your saving throws you might even encounter something game breaking. 'Save often, save early' was always good advice for any kind of RPG and it's somewhat sad that this translates into the state of the software nowadays, but you gotta cut the developers some slack. This game is - at it's current state - in far better condition than other major RPG players like Skyrim or Cyberpunk were at the same time after their initial release. I have not encountered anything that really hinders my joy and that could not be undone by a quick reload. So most of the time, at least for me, this game works.
And when it works it works brilliantly. The story and speed of progression is amazing. After 50 hours I am right in the thick of it, with lots and lots of adventures still in front of me. The difficulty spike is rather hard, even compared to other CRPGs. Personally I do not like all the 'meta-gaming' you have to do in order to suceed even on a normal difficulty, and the game misses out on some quality of life features. You better come prepared with scrolls and potions in order to do some buffing in the early hours of the game (hence you practially can't rest after every encounter). Still, the fights are so far very fair and square, with of course some rather difficult ones in between. I don't possess a deep knowledge of the ruleset and often I simply do not understand how things work in detail (why the f*** can't I hit that damn ghost?!), but mostly I get around.
The Crusade mode starts out slow, but turns out to be a nice change of pace from your adventuring lifestyle. To me the installment of MC as leader of the crusade felt believable and sure makes for some fun roleplaying mechanics.
Overall I recommend this game without any hesitation to anyone who likes CRPGs, especially if you've played and enjoyed Kingmaker.
