Gets better later on. But start boring, repetitive, horrible shopping experience and complicated skill+stat system.
(2/10)
So for the past few days I had been trying out Darkensang: Dark Eye. I found it extremely repetitive. Most of the missions have you going into caves and killing the same monsters over and over again. I am not kidding. There is this mission where I had to go down 5 levels to hunt down some rat queen.
Level 1: rats
Level 2: rats
Level 3: rats
Level 4: rats
Level 5: rats+rat queen
The rats get stronger and more numerous as you go down. But each level are almost identical in looks with the same type of monsters. So boring and repetitive.
And then the next mission have you go into a different cave to kill slugs over and over. Go figure!
This is similar to some MMORPGs I have played, and this is horrible in a single player RPG.
Missions are also extremely hard. It is common to having to fight 7-9 enemies with your group of 4, while your party was still at NEWBIE level 4!!! Dear Lord have mercy on the newbies!
And upgrading your stats are very expensive. You farm for hours for tiny bits of improvement. And it takes a lot of time to figure out what is going on and what stats+skills you want to improve. The system is very complicated and if you invested into the wrong stuffs that is it that character is screwed. The good news is you have multiple allies that you join you so messing one up is not a big deal. However if you messed up your main character you are screwed for the rest of the game. Like I said upgrading stats are expensive. It takes 100 to 300 experience points to upgrade anything, and you get ONE experience point per enemy kill. ONEEEE!!!!!! Did I mention this is during newbie level 4? Dear Lord have mercy on the newbies!
The town is huge. This might sound like a good thing if the merchants are not so FARRRRRR apart from one another. You spend like hours running around town just to buy and sell stuffs. Weapons, armor, potions, blacksmith, skill trainer. They are all very FARRRR away from each other. This is hours wasted without gaining or killing anything. This is the first RPG I have tried that requires so much running from merchant to merchant. NPCs seems to place their shops all over the place. There are multiple NPCs selling the same type of items (e.g. armor) but they all have one or two unique pieces, requiring you to visit them all. This drives anyone insane!
All in all, boring, repetitive, horrible shopping experience and complicated skill+stat system. I rate this 2/10 after spending around 25 hours on it. I know that is just the beginning of the game but I am not temped to continue. I know what a good RPG looks like (e.g. Dragon Age: Orgins) and trust me Darkensang is not one of them. Luckily I only spend $5 on this.
----2nd review----
(6/10)
Ok I played for a bit more and the game is getting better. After upgrading weapon skills at a 1.5AT/1PV ratio the game moves along much faster (Yes after upgrading the weapons you can select if you want to improve attack rating or parrying with that weapon. Finally I can hit those mobs!). I also spend the rest of the experience points on Vitality to increase everyone's tanking ability. The game is slowly moving away from frustration.
And missions finally have some diversity.
Still hasn't explored the world of mages much. Attack spells seems very useless right now. Their healing is worst than potions and takes forever to cast. Their injury removal removes one injury every 4 levels, and I am level 5 right now. And mobs right now easily create 3 or 4 injuries at once, making it impossible to remove them with magic. WTH? At least that poison removal is working well.
I still think the beginning of that game was horrid; One of the worst starts of any RPGs I have played. That rat mission is not needed. I guess the developers were trying to be funny by making those increasingly hard mobs still only giving you 1 exp each. Not so funny for an average player. After skipping that mission other quests' mobs gave me 2 or 3 exp each, and they were 10000000x times easier.
They should have made a tutorial video on how to upgrade your stats and skills, and their effects. That would have made life so much easier for me and other players.
The merchant NPCs should have all been right next to each other. Having them so spread out is a waste of time. And basic items should be unlimited. This merchant only have ONE dagger for sale, seriously??? In real life I see like 30+ cars in a car dealership and cars are expensive.
----Final review----
I have finished the game. I increased the score to 7/10. This game isn't that bad once you get the hang of it. I will list some recommendations, so anyone that play this game after me can get though this game easier.
Recommendations
-Max willpower. This minimize the wounds and knock outs that you take.
-Max your vitality points, and then later strength and vitality. You can never have enough hit points.
-Take two healing mages with bow. I took that human girl and elf girl. Train up both to use bow and a 1 handed weapon (sword and fencing weapon for me). Attack using bow and spells. Switch to shield+1 handed weapon for defense.
-Take two front line tanks. I used spear and two handed hammer.
-Great Spells, max them: A Helpful Paw, Balm of Healing, Clarum Purum(only need level 1), Calm Body, Calm Spirit(only need level 1), Fastness of Body, Psychic Focus, Thunderbolt, Culminatio Ball of Lightning
-Boss shut down spells: Lightning Find You!, Plumbumbarm Heavy Arm