It’s a good game and enjoyed it, in fact I started a new game right away
after my first full play through which is very rare for me. But it does have
some problems. It’s not overly long for this type of sandbox RPG. I played
it solidly for about three weeks, which is good but not great. It is better than
the first game but it suffers from the same major problem, and that is that the
main quest line isn’t long or involved enough. The story is horribly generic
with you facing up against a laughably cliché “dark lord” type baddie. And
I’ve never seen such a ridiculous degree of hand holding in an RPG, with quest
markers and onscreen prompts telling you to do this, now do that.
In my opinion combat leaves a great deal to be desired. It’s basically all
button mashing, but there are combat moves you can use for variety if nothing
else. The only move that is essential is Block Breaker because often opponents
will simply stand there with their block up and you can’t hurt them otherwise.
Another serious fault with the combat is that so few enemies are capable of
putting up a fight. The problem is when you hit something it recoils, and it
can’t do anything while it’s recoiling. So all you have to do is keep
hitting it and it’s simply helpless. This doesn’t work with some critters
but it does with most of the humanoid enemies. This to me is a fairly serious
flaw and something the devs should have paid more attention to. I also don’t
like how you can quaff health potions during combat that raise your health
instantly. Oh and the enemy AI is shocking at times. If you shoot an arrow at an
enemy from extreme range so he can’t see you he will simply ignore it and go
back to doing whatever he was doing. And nearby enemies will often not notice
the fact that one of their buddies is under attack.
I found the production values of the game to be quite high. The graphics are
a mixed bag. The landscapes and architecture are simply beautiful but some of
the NPC models look somewhat subpar by today’s standards. And there is no AA
so you get jaggies on everything, but I found I got used to that. I really
liked the look and feel of the game. The voice acting is for the most part very
good and the game has some truly beautiful music.
The landscapes are huge. I spent ages exploring the first big island you
come to but after completing that and moving on to the next region I quickly
became bored with exploring. Usually exploration is a BIG part of the fun for me
in these kinds of games but after a while I began to realise there just isn’t
much to do. Almost all of the quests are acquired in the major towns, and the
few dungeons are too similar and quickly become repetitive. It’s a shame that
the devs went to all that trouble to create these beautiful environments to
explore but didn’t give us anything to actually do except pick plants. I’ll
give you an example of what I mean. There are some little islands that you can
reach and explore when you buy a boat. I set off eagerly to explore them
thinking there’s GOT to be something cool hidden out there. But there was
nothing but more of the gorgeous scenery, some hostile natives and other random
enemies and more plants to pick. That’s it. No dead adventurer with some
cool, unique weapon. No NPC with a quest. No dungeons. Nothing. This is a real
shame given the amount of work that was put into the landscapes and a tragically
squandered opportunity to add interest and to give the player a sense of
satisfaction for taking the time to explore.
There’s very little loot to be had from exploring and dungeon delving.
Most of the loot can be had from robbing people’s houses, and it obviously
should be the other way around. But that’s one thing I like about the game;
people will actually stop you if they see you breaking and entering and call the
guards if you barge into their house unannounced.
In my other review I mentioned the auto health regen, and if I could change
one thing it would be to turn that off. It turns out that health regen is
attached to a skill, so if you don’t raise that skill then by the time
you’ve levelled up a bit and your total health has gone up it becomes
unnoticeable. What I would change now is the amount of hand holding in quests,
which I’ve already mentioned is extreme, and the number of teleporters. It
seems the devs were terrified of making the player actually have to walk
anywhere so they placed a teleport not only in all the settlements no matter how
small, but at regular intervals along the roads, plus there are portable ones
that you can place anywhere you like, AND you have an activation stone you can
use to teleport to any other teleporter no matter where you are! I find that
pretty ludicrous. I actually like travelling around the place, to me it’s a
big part of the game so I ignored all but the essential ones. But I wish there
was a way to turn them off so I didn’t have to pretend they
weren’t there.
So all in all a good game that I can recommend if you really enjoy this kind
of thing and don’t expect too much out of it. Or you’re just looking for
something to fill the void until Skyrim. Oh and one other pretty major thing you
should know is that the largest region on the map is mostly inaccessible in
single player. It was a bit of a letdown for me when I reached the end of the
game because I assumed there would be at least one more chapter as I’d yet to
explore the single largest region in the game. But no, it seems it’s for
multi player only. And if you watch the opening movie of the seagull flying over
that gorgeous medieval landscape and think “Wow I can’t wait to get
there.” Then you’re going to be disappointed. Coz you can’t.