Soldato
- Joined
- 5 Feb 2009
- Posts
- 3,909
Yeah, I agree.
I got through it in 140 hours, and for some parts of the game (perhaps most of it even) I felt it was nigh-on perfect and possibly the best RPG I'd played since Planescape: Torment. There were times the combat felt so tactical, the party synergy so elegant and the victories so sweet and well-earned. There were times I'd realise something was or wasn't happening because of choices I'd made 20 or 30 hours earlier. There were epic side-quests stretching across chapters and dozens and dozens of hours. There was such a variety and depth of feats, spells, build choices, multiclass possibilites, items and effects that I felt I could play for years and still only scratch the surface.
And then there were times like the House, or, even worse I felt, the last level before the final boss. Hours of utter, utter tedium and the absolute pits of level design, throwing wave after wave of the same spongy enemy at you and setting up the same ambush mechanic over and over and over again. And some arbitrary feeling consequences that shut you out of certain paths for reasons hard to fathom. And, oh... how arcane and poorly explained so much of the game felt until you'd already made many mistakes. I realised I'd completely neglected some questlines because they started with a kingdom event card that got lost in the massive deck of one of my lesser-visited groups of tasks. There were odd difficulty spikes out of nowhere right throughout and the final boss was oddly such a pushover.
I have to say I enjoyed so much of the game to such a degree that I can overlook many of the faults, but sadly not all of them. I hope they build on the strengths and address the weaknesses in the next game.
I got through it in 140 hours, and for some parts of the game (perhaps most of it even) I felt it was nigh-on perfect and possibly the best RPG I'd played since Planescape: Torment. There were times the combat felt so tactical, the party synergy so elegant and the victories so sweet and well-earned. There were times I'd realise something was or wasn't happening because of choices I'd made 20 or 30 hours earlier. There were epic side-quests stretching across chapters and dozens and dozens of hours. There was such a variety and depth of feats, spells, build choices, multiclass possibilites, items and effects that I felt I could play for years and still only scratch the surface.
And then there were times like the House, or, even worse I felt, the last level before the final boss. Hours of utter, utter tedium and the absolute pits of level design, throwing wave after wave of the same spongy enemy at you and setting up the same ambush mechanic over and over and over again. And some arbitrary feeling consequences that shut you out of certain paths for reasons hard to fathom. And, oh... how arcane and poorly explained so much of the game felt until you'd already made many mistakes. I realised I'd completely neglected some questlines because they started with a kingdom event card that got lost in the massive deck of one of my lesser-visited groups of tasks. There were odd difficulty spikes out of nowhere right throughout and the final boss was oddly such a pushover.
I have to say I enjoyed so much of the game to such a degree that I can overlook many of the faults, but sadly not all of them. I hope they build on the strengths and address the weaknesses in the next game.
