So yea... this one is hard. I dont want to disparage anyones efforts and the writer is clearly talented and put a lot of thought and work into this, but at the end of the day reviews are subjective so I have to say it how it is for me.
I also want to preface this by saying that I will be giving the game another replay to try out and squeeze some more out of it, maybe with different dialogue choices and a romance it will be a better experience, so this is still subject to change if I ever change my mind.
I have also come into this game after playing Arcadie Second Born, which even as ignorant of this genre as I was, I already believed to be of a very high caliber mid way through so my view of this game may be colored by my superior experience with that game.
That being said, lets start with the positives.
First of all, the writing is generally quite solid, things are described succinctly and everything make sense. I didnt spot any real grammar errors that would take away from my enjoyment.
As a game, this is also a very good package for the price, offering a few dozen hours if you replay, there is even an option to use ingame romance guides and purchaseable achievement guide as a dlc.
The characters are overall quite enjoyable and likeable, much of the time there is a light tone to the game and characters like Morkai did get the occasional chuckle out of me.
There is a lot of potential for the world, as unexplored as it feels the set up is there waiting to be explored.
As for romances, I somehow managed to end up alone despite trying to be with Daelynn so I cant really say, which leads my nicely to the negatives.
I will start with the big one. For me, this really isnt much of a choose your adventure type of game, and I think it would actually be a better read as a regular novel. In so far as deciding who your character is, you dont have much control beyond looks, age, preferences and a hobby. Dont get me wrong, that is plenty to start with but the emotional state, how you view the world and your friends is largely decided for you. That is to say, there is woefully little player agency unless you play as the game intends I assume.
Despite trying to play as somewhat of a scaredycat in the begining, someone who was very low on self esteem and distraught over his past and current situation, my character would constantly be snarky and sarcastic in the very next page, the game often simply telling me how I was supposed to be feeling instead.
It starts of rather darkly and very down to earth but quickly revolves into a surprisingly light hearted adventure, which kind of gave me a tonal whiplash. Which is the second biggest issue I had with the game. It is a bit all encompassing and hard to describe but I would call it disconnection.
As I mentioned, the tone is kind of all over the place, not really settling on anything and despite expecting some dramatic events not much happened. Dont get me wrong, there is plenty of you being mentally tortured and put in bad situations but none of it really had any impact on me as I simply couldnt immerse myself in the story. Things just keep happening one after another, with little to no sense and connection to any sort of overarching narrative structure. Going from place to place just stops having meaning as you move forward and backward without any sense of time passing and of course, without input on your side.
This extends to characters as well. First id like to say that there is this sort of underlying feeling of unpleasantness underpining most of the interactions and many of the characters aside Eledwen and maybe Morkai. This comes partially about from the treatment you get as other review mention, again regardless of your input and simply by the game continually throwing just about everyone at you in a very unnatural way, reminding you how great looking you are and how special you are to everyone.
This kind of leads to an issue with the romances as well, aside for Eledwen whose taciturn and reserved nature serves as an amazing offset to the other characters and easily served to make her my favorite because she is the only one with whom you actually go through something akin to a growth in your relationship.
Daelynn is easily the most confusing here as she starts off already flirty and interseted, essentially throwing herself at you on your first meeting only for me to somehow discover she sees me as family and its seemingly all harmless, childlike behavior from her, which ABSOLUTELY did not come across. When she dragged me to the bed and thre herself unde the the sheets the last thing I expected was for her to want to just hug me and ask me if we were friends after she pinned me down and almost kissed me twice before. Very weird.
As said above, overall the characters are written well, if confusing at times and while I didnt take much opportunities to interact with Straasa and Morkai, they were fine tho Straasa did make me a bit uncomfortable at times with his open affection and a bit odd amount of worrying.
As for the story, to be honest its quite a mess. There is little to no buildup to anything, little explanation or foreword for how magic works, how the world functions, looks like or even how the country you are in is called as the game only ever refers to the whole world. I would absolutely kill for some exposition setting up important places and people, explaining the magic system, the past of this world, the gods and the soul stones in at least a bit more detail.
You are simply one a run and then suddenly you are moving from place to place looking for a soulstone. It doesnt really lead to anything either. I understand that this is book 1 out of however many but even then, while there is a cliffhanger, it certainly didnt make me feel like I want to go and continue reading, more making me question why I would want to as the entire final confrontation is essentially out of your hands and happens in a span of a few pages quite out of nowhere really.
And yes, I also didnt like the ending. I am certain that this is how the writer intended and it will be adressed in the future, it did give us some insight into the soul stones as well but given the random nature of everything up untill now and the lack of possible options other than dying it once again really didnt make me feel like I had a choice here.
As for the antagonist... Monerkol is in a word, gross and as much as I like disquieting baddies who are in complete control of the situation there is so little you actually understand about what is happening, why and how is it possible that it all just feels like a bit of an asspull. He also goes from having centuries old plans set in place to seemingly being surprised just by you wandering around after his one soldier doesnt do exactly what he expected. After all the bluster I found myself very deflated at the portrayal of the vampire "lord of all".
All in all, I cant say I had a good time. There was a lot of good ingredience here, but simply not put together in order that would make for a complete and pleasant, much less a full, meal. There were moments when I thought the characters are intentionally being dumb because they would betray us or something and the way the invasion of your mind is handled without any explanation, without actually making you understand anything made me rather amused instead of intimidated as did everyone suddenly forgetting they all had their own ways of trying to prevent it, after one of the options failed.
Simply said, its all over the place. I would still recommend this if you simply want to read a somewhat epic and heroic adventure, if you want some pleasant and even heartwarming interactions with your companions, but if you want a narrative with depth and structure, an experience that you are in controll of and where you decisions matter in a fleshed and thought out world with proper progression, this isnt it, at least it wasnt for me.
