I really want to reccomend this game, based on my history with the genre and the devs, however I simply cannot, especially at the current price, and after the amount of time it was in development and the amount of kickstarter money that went into it, I can only say it was a massive disapointment in nearly every regard.
- Giving credit where credit is due, the world is fantastic, and intriguing, unfortunetly this is not an original part of the game, they simply lisensed Monte cook's Numanera setting, though this was a great choice.
- The main problem I have, is that despite the setting, there is no game here. It's a puzzle, and an easy one at that. There are mayble a half dozen mandatory combats in the whole of the game and most of them are more puzzly than combat anyhow, which would be fine if there was any sort of challenge persented.
- Puzzles are good, not having to fight things is interesting, when the "puzzle" to avoid the fight is a single line of dialog with a percentage chance to pass or fail, and its nearly impossible to fail, ya dun farked up the game design son.
- The other problem is, for a game that is supposed to be about player choice, your choices mean very little, and dialog options are more about solving a puzzle than adding any depth to the story or meaningful character development. Also there are a dozen insta-deaths in game, with no warning, for choices where you have done similar actions before. Great game design there lou.
- Because the choices don't do anything other than solve puzzles and the game is almost entirely linear, there is little to no replay value, unless you want to change a few lines of text in the credits screen, and not much change at that.
- The graphics which aren't background are mediocre at best, however the backgrounds are gorgeous.
- You can't use many movement type skills, which would be great for stealth, outside of combat, nor, as far as I can tell, can you seperate your party members to make sneaking about easier.
- None of these would be a problem if there were much of a game to play through, sadly there isn't.
- The only "exploration" is holding down the tab key to look for items and interations, there are no optional areas apart from a "secret" room or two and the game is almost entirely linear, even the sidequests are all completed by just checking out all the locations and talking to people in the areas you go for the main story.
- The game is only 15 hours long, I took 17.1 according to steam doing every sidequest + pixel♥♥♥♥♥ing for treasure and
- To make a comparison, Pillars of Eternity has a larger world, longer playtime, just as much if not more (and arguably better) story and a much more entertaining and versatile gameplay experience and was made for less money and in considerably less time.
