Having spent most of my weekend on this, I am LOVING it!
It feels so immersive, so spot on... just, great! I love the fact it seems to be set in summer, so you are often gifted with blue sky and sun, whilst you traverse gorgeous scenery and a bygone world. I love the fact that the combat feels so raw, maybe not as brutal as something like Condemned, but it feel intelligent and dangerous!
I'm only starting to level up my lock picking and sneaking - I love the old Thief games from PC, so most of my characters in things like this and Oblivion/Skyrim - so will eventually like to have a character setup that emulates that sort of play style. But for now, my lowly wannabe knight is fine
I have uncovered most of the map, mainly by foot - as I missed the opportunity to nab a free horse, but doing it this way has lead to several memorable and enjoyable encounters... like seeing a random traveler, and deciding to use him as a target for ranking my bow up; he took an arrow in the back and started to flee me, the game telling me that I could be reported and my status be affected! So I took off and chased him down, managing a few slashes with the sword, before he ran into a forest; shortly collapsing and dying due to his injuries. Only, I had failed to notice a camp in front of me, and three foreign knights started to chase me!
Or the time where I had to recover a gem, and found a small bandit camp - I hid nearby and waited for nightfall, sneaking into the camp to knock out and then run through both bandits within
Thus making it my new mission to seek out these camps and kill the enemies within; though, I have been chased out by a few, as they have greater numbers and kit!!
I have got used to the awful lock picking, but can only currently manage easy locks and below. The almost punishing save system is also something I have got used to, and I like the way they have implemented it - so hopefully this wont change in the next patch! I have also FINALLY got a fence for stolen goods, and although I probably get less than 40% of item value, I have been able to amass a bit of wealth - 3k wow
It takes time to gel with this game, and I can easily see how many people would be put off of it within the first few hours of play, but it is certainly worth sticking with, and spending the time to approach things differently - it's almost a simulator level of gameplay. I certainly urge those sitting on the fence, to pick up a copy - these devs deserve for this game it do well imo.
Had my first bug yesterday though - a corrupted schnapps save, but it's been absolutely fine aside from this.