A classic RPG with many great traits but not used to a 100% potential.
You begin by creating a character of one of the 20 archtypes.Man dwarf and elf to its given class. Each set with its own stats spells and talent points...unless you choose expert mode. Then its fully customizable. You cannot edit the appearence. You can only pick the gender and name. With 40 spells and around 30 talents through out the game with 8 attributes, strength constitution agility dexterity charisma intuition cleverness and courage, the character creation is quite complex and fun. Theres plenty to do. The leveling system takes alot of thought. Which is hard for beginners because you could waste your xp points spending points on stave use or charisma for your warrior. Definatly a learning process.
This is a party based RPG. Through out the game you accquire party members of various classes. Each individual is unique with his or her own background story, voice, and skills ect ect. You can use 4 characters per party and the rest wait in your given residance. It seems very charming and classic to have a cast of characters at your beck and call, to mix and match your party set up. For this game does indeed need balance. I found that youl need a caster, powerful melee and a rogue to pick locks and use his social talents for quests and such. That even adds more to the variety of levling your part, self and customizing your group. Theres many many things you can do, and many you cant. Social talents for side quest rewards and execution, profession traits for creating weapons and potions. Lores for identifying magic items, healing wounds and cureing poisons. All upgradeable via xp points.
The story starts with your made character, the protaginist in avestrue (sp?) You are to get to ferdok city to visit your friend Aldo inwhich you are submerged into a string of murders that reveal your destiny as a dragon slayer. The oracle chooses you to collect the dragon armor and protect the adamantine heart from the ones ending the world. As I said this games main purpous in my opinion is the story telling.
There is alot , ALOT of text. Theres tons of useless and boring dialogue slowing the games flow. There is a fair amount of voice acting but not all of it. The game would be very immersive if the entire dialogue was done in voice.
Youl find your self clicking the text to skip all the junk and get right to the meat of the story. But there is alot of problem solving to do.
This style of rpg has a very good use to these problem solving methods. Such as using social talents and picking locks, curing a certain ailment ect. But it all seems so half assed to the point of uselessness. If your an impatiant person then this game is definatly not for you.
The combat and control. Basic click and go. In this lovely 3D environment it can be tedious on wher you can and cant go.Its very very linear...You cant free roam like in some RPGs. So you might be getting frusterating clicking somewher or finding a path. Its also very very time consuming to cross an entire map via clicks.
The combat is click to kill. Use your combat skills that drain endurance, and spells that drain AE...astral energy. Further down the game more battles require strategy involving picking off one by one, saveing your skills for another and debuffing with spells.
The difficulty can jump from boringly easy, to stupidly hard. So save often and be ready to strategize whenever you can. The boss fights range from giant spiders,rats, thief bosses to ogres, to dragons and are very entertaining. Theyre well don in terms with strategy and visual appeal. The skirmishes are fun. Your party takeing on 9 10 spiders at once pre setting your skills.
But thats also the trouble with this game. There is barely anything to fight outside of quests. It seems like the only thing you can find to fight is during a dungeon crawl or sweeping through a dwarfs storage room of evil bugs. The action is indeed lacking and wracking up for levels and loot is non existent. Thats why point spending is important.
Another problem is the loot. The only thing that appears to be of mirth is from the merchants and quest rewards.And even those run out. Picking locked chests seldomly has a rare peice of unidentified magic jewelry or a powerful weapon. There arent any special gear that you can hunt for. Lots of useless and wasted options makeing you feel empty. For instance the dagger trait. Dont waste points on dagger use because there simply ISNT a decent dagger in the game. Same goes for swords. The gear category in this game falters to almost ridiculousy. Buy the best armor and divy it out with the rest of your team, its a balanceing act. Its a very limited aspect when it could be adding amazing depth to the game.
Graphics now. The graphics are top knotch. Very detailed and smooth even on a decent computer. The evironment is lush and the atmosphere rememberable. Although the caves and mines tend to be identicle but the maps and castled details are remarkable. The fire falls has some very good visual effects of smoke steam fire blur and blaze whisps. Great looking water and shrubery. It reminds me of lord of the rings online. Almost up to that level.
I mentiond that this game is very linear and geared towards story. Thus in the equation all these great RPG aspects seem almost wasted. Like once your done with a level of a map , you cannot return ever. If you missed something and have an uncompleted quest it is lost forever. If at the end of the game and enter the stage, and save it..thats it. You could be unprepared or just feel like seeing other things and you cant. Thats a huge dissapointment. Once enemies are defeated they dont return for further XPing, or if you end up loseing money.
There is indeed a fun factor. Thats with these RPG elemants. The cmbat is unique and gripping but the games linear method holds it back so much. Its a great game that could be one of the best. Compelling story with addicting characters, great visuals in spells and atmosphere. A robust , various leveling system. Variety is the spice of life. I use that term whole heartedly.
I highly recomend this game if they like fantasy strategic character building classic RPGs. But for the impatiant , high expectative person that dislikes complexity. Your probably not going to enjoy it.