PC, 2023, 7.5/10: A CRPG (I think that the right term, its one of those top down, turn base, squad of hero characters (they all have abilities based off their class and items) where you make choices in the game that change events, as well as combat encounters that take place in the world's environment) that uses D&D 5e rules (though, mod a bit to fit into a video game). You can play a pre-made character, or make one of your own. Anywho, the visuals for the game are pretty good, showing off a lot of details (well, on my 4070 TI it did, but i had the settings on Ultra) on the world and characters, however, this comes at a steep price later in the game, where the devs didn't optimize their code. Resulting in lag time (in a single player game) of 30+ seconds. The story is mostly good, though, like most long games, it wears very thin, and breaks a bit by the end. The VO was just great from the start to the end, the voices for the main characters, and side characters, was amazing. Gameplay wise... its a tales of two games. The first half of the game, Act 1 (there are 3 acts, but Act 1 takes about as much time as Act 2 and 3), is great. They had this Act tested in early access for about 3 years, and it shows. Act 2 is good, by straight forward, and lacks the creativity and scope of Act 1. It isn't that it is bad, but if Act 1 was like this, it wouldn't have caught the publics interest (those who already like CRPG would have like it, but the quality doesn't match Act 1). Then there Act 3, which has the same problems as Act 2 and more. When it worked, it was alright, but it often didn't work. The performance through parts of Act 3 was just horrible, and had me concern that I wouldn't be able to finish the game, due to the game being kind of unplayable. Beyond performance issues, there are design issues too. First, the game doesn't deal with vertical buildings or floors well. Getting the camera to display a floor above or below was a real challenge. Also, a lot of the creativity seen in Act 1, was missing in Act 2 and 3. For example, in Act 1, there was a pull-y that you could shot down to break a hole into a structure. Stuff like that wasn't seen in Act 2 or 3. Also, it felt like the ending half of the game didn't introduce anything new to the story, in the sense that, in Act 1 you had a conflict between some 'good guys' in a haven, and the bad guys. And this kind of happen again, almost exactly, in Act 2. So yeah, the gameplay started strong, and then ended up okay. I still enjoyed my time with the game, and I have a positive opinion of it, but by the end, I was glad that it was over, and kind of wished that it was a little bit shorter and much more dynamic.
Completed: The game, took about 105 hours or more. I beat the game the day after the 5th patch, so i got the extra ending stuff. Geez, if i hadn't gotten that, my opinion of the game would probably have been much lower. From the sounds of it, the old ending was shallow and lite on details. Anywho, thinking back on it, and i think my big problem i had with this game is that it does a lot of telling you that you are making a difference, and not showing you. Sure, you clear out enemies (either good or evil), but it doesn't really change that much, other than having that area being empty of people. There a story line reason for that, since you have a tadpole in your head and need to get it out ASAP. But gameplay wise, it was a lot of, you did this thing and free the land (assuming you went the good route), but you can't see it, but know that it happen, cause we said so, now run forward and do more stuff that will change the world which you'll never see, so it kind of like it doesn't, but let's pretend that it does. Guess i wanted something like building something, owning a house, or some kind of mini-game thingy to be different.
Side note: There were people (ign) that were trying to parade this game out as bug free and other games should be like. And that is just bizarre. Act 3 in this game was some of the worse performance i have seen in a game in a long time. There were 5 or 6 spots on the map that would have lag of 30+ seconds (npcs wouldn't move, couldn't do commands, etc). Beyond that, there were numerous times of dialogue getting cut off, buggy quests, and combat animations displaying a 5 second lag to execute commands through out the game. My guess is that most of these people only played Act 1, and are willingly ignoring that this game was in early access for 3 years, in order to attack other games with an unfair and disingenuous way.