Will the recent (last 5-10 years) smorgasboard of isometic CRPGs in the vein of the Infinity Engine and Fallout that we have seen (Pillars, Pathfinder, Numenera, Wasteland, D:OS), it always struck me as beyond odd that no one seemed to have any interest in making a spiritual successor or clone of the most popular RPG series around, which is The Elder Scrolls.
Make no mistake, based on what has been presented so far, Tainted Grail IS that game. It's trying to be The Elder Scrolls every bit as much as PIllars of Eternity was trying to be Baldu'rs Gate. Whether it succeeds or not we won't be able to tell until it's much more fleshed out. But someone is at least making the attempt, and doing a pretty good job thus far. Let's hope it comes into full-bloom.
As for early access: So far the game offers the first chapter with roughly twelve hours of gameplay and is pretty stable already. The only bug I encountered was some chopped off music at a certain scene. The devs want community feedback on how to continue development on the last stretch. If you don't plan to get involved, you might consider waiting for full release.
How to best describe this game: It is to Elder Scrolls what Necromunda Hired Gun is to Doom. It's obvious where the game got its inspiration from, but it brings enough own content to have its own identity and brings new ideas to the table.
The lore is set in grimdark early British mythology, with king Arthur and druids and all. You start as the classic clean slate prisoner, as there are no classes and you level up skills by doing. The skill tree has been streamlined, and you only have two schools of magic now. To make up for that, the actual combat was improved from the classic TES "step forward to hit the enemy, step back to avoid getting hit back" formula. You now have a sidestep, some time-related cantrips and can pull off some neat combos. It still is somewhat clunky, but already an improved experience compared to the original.
So far the characters and quests range from unremarkable to intriguing. The choices are advertised to matter, whether that actually happens remains to be seen in 1.0. The wyrdness as both a story and a game mechanic is not entirely new, but still well-integrated.
Graphics are passable. The sound is pretty great though, eery druidic chants or horns with lots of bass. Clubbing an unarmored enemy head gives. satisfying THONK, so that's neat.
In conclusion so far very promising, will continue to monitor.
I have an hour of play, I would've gone on but unfortunately the game state simply isn't stable. In that hour it has frozen six times and deleted all my save games twice leaving only a single autosave each time. I have also gotten stuck in the terrain twice -all without completing the prologue. If the experience were better I might persist but I haven't been convinced its worth the effort
You will snap your first five or six lockpicks before you get the idea but its really pretty straight forward so not a problem. Stealth works right out of the box, no complaints there. Can't speak to exploration but there was nothing in the prologue that wasn't purely linear. Combat though. . .Combat is pretty miserable. Weapons feel slow and unresponsive, there is no sense of impact, also no physics for arrows. Successful blocks still result in damage taken just reduced. I would say the idea is to caper back and forth into melee except movement has a weighed down aspect to it as through your character were under water or moving against some sort of resistance, so there is no shuffling out of range of an attack in combat once you get close enough to land a hit yourself. That is fine, I guess, not the way I would want to play anyway, but neither do I want to just face tank everything and chug potions
This is pretty rough and as it stands its unplayable. I am going to assume most of these issues will be worked out prior to launch but even if they are. . .Its still a pretty average experience. The starting area is relentlessly tepid. The enemies, what I saw of them, are generic and may as well have been taken directly out of Gothic or Oblivion, so was the environment, and so was the first puzzle I came across -but its all based on a board game so that may be why
Anyway. Its not a bad game, just not a very good one, and currently not one which can be confidently played. Once this reaches full release please delete this review but for the Beta people should have a bit of warning
I'm not here to say if this game is good or bad. I am simply here to say that I am having so much fun. I am currently about 11 hours into the game and I feel like I have barely cracked the surface. It definitely gives off Oblivion/Skyrim vibes. If you enjoyed those game, then you will more than likely enjoy this one as well.
Is this game perfect? No. But I haven't experienced any bugs, yet. I've been enjoying the combat. And I'd say this is an all around solid rpg. One major issue to be aware of is that 3rd person is not great. They even give you a pop up message that the game is not really designed for 3rd view, but hopefully this is something that gets improved with updates.
And for anyone that is interested in the photo mode. That's not that great either. Again, hopefully that is also improved with updates.
Despite those 2 issues, so far, I am having so much fun. In the end, that is all that truly matters to me. I can't wait to get back into that game world and explore.
Rough around some of the edges no doubt but so far this has been one of the best RPGs I have played. If you love exploration that is actually rewarded with interesting places, hidden quests, cool loot and many more surprises then I would urge you to check this one out.
As of writing the third person camera is serviceable at best and needs a lot of polish, however the developers are aware of this and it is quite amazing they even got this into the launch consider the whole game was design for the first person perspective.
Some optimisation does still need to happen, I've had some dropped frames but nothing that's caused too much of problem, nothing game breaking and no crashes yet either.
Really interesting combination of some recent popular RPGs with heavy cues from Skyrim, but it really does do its own thing and feels like its own product. The world is dark and interesting, there's always that feeling of just a little longer, just one more dungeon, just a quick look over that hill etc.
Highly recommended!
