I will start off positive. I liked the premise of the story, I liked most characters, maps are actually quite cool, if you don't count the puzzles. Music was decent. That's about it unfortunately.
My dislike for this game is NOT a skill issue. I like the game's difficulty...after level 8 or so, it was almost enjoyable. First few levels are disgustingly difficult. Yes, you're not supposed to fight everything. I get it. Very exciting. First 10 hours you have to exploit the game at EVERY single corner to not die like a worm at every step. Traps in every single new area you enter? Very exciting! I love waiting half a minute for the fire from my fireball to die out, and I love spending a minute waiting for my regen spell, healing my whole team after stepping on a trap. Before any new area you must quicksave, because the game always finds a way to ♥♥♥♥ you over. Very exciting and fun yes.
The game has what, 15 classes or something? Yeah forget that. There is only really 7. The game won't tell you anything basically. I would have liked to know for example that you can't get any gear without loremaster. Or how many star stones you have collected, or where they next might be. Quite the opposite in my case. After about 10, I really didnt count, but simply said, the game apparently disregarded any new ones gained. I got to unlock the teller of secrets room and then the game apparently bugged. I went ahead and found all the remaining star stones with google. The game won't let me through to the final area :D So fun. Honestly I really didn't have a great time with the game. If it wasn't for the many setbacks, I would have liked trying a second go with a different build but the game is really a ballbusting simulator. Around level 17 or so, I apparently lost ALL my gold and the means of obtaining it also btw :D. 35k+ gold down the drain and whenever I trade or pick up more, it disappears. Another fun thing I didnt find to my liking was that instead of a quest log like any other game, this game utilizes a quest journal. To give an example to why I dislike this, is when I accidentally killed a suspect gravedigger in my playthrough on second day, I was stuck for a bit and went to ask Arhu on some leads. He told me to go ask the gravedigger... who has been dead for 5 days. "Go ask gravedigger" was the latest log. I imagine that with a normal quest log this wouldnt happen. Also the whole investigation in Cyseal is SO boring. And I repeat, the game tells you NOTHING. I thought that with an open map, it would be easier to just go clear the mobs and find clues on the investigation along the way. Nope. The developers clearly wanted you to take a precise path, across the whole game. All the time you have to backtrack to something because the game just won't tell you ♥♥♥♥.
So yeah, after 80 hours or so, the experience I'm left with is that I got cucked from the last bossfight and the story. The time I played was legit torture, and the more experienced I got with the game, the more I hated it for how dumb it is. P.S. if anyone reads this, try out my dual hand-wand-enchanter build Jahan. Get witchcraft for buffing your damage with oath early. Max dual to 5, then max out wand. basically ♥♥♥♥ tons of elemental damage. You don't even need to max Intelligence, just get like 7 and then rest you get from gear, and then swap elemental type wands on whoever you're fighting. Simply just auto attack for 3AP and the hit is guaranteed and probably the most damage build possible also. Gigabrain. Also if you're making a man-at-arms, always go two-hand build OR a pure damage sponge build, no inbetween. two-handed gets much better gear throughout the game, damage sponge can be the loot carrier so I guess more noob friendly. Atleast late game.
