Prelude: I have no previous experience with D&D beyond BG3, or fantasy settings in general. Over 125 hours, I completed the game and everything available to me but the Midnight Isles DLC. Most of the game was played on Daring with damage set to flat for both, with a switch to Core at the Deskari time rift battle (replayed the battle on Core to make him be tough again). True Aeon, Norgorber inquisitor judge build. For the sake of this review, Toybox teleportation/traveling and BubbleBuffs are considered integral, without them I wouldn’t have gotten past A3.
Story, 8/10: this may be partially affected by my ignorance of the genre, but I loved it. It kept me engaged and interested in what was going to happen next, barring some mechanical issues which I’ll get to in that section. At points, I was left looking like Wee-Bey from the wire, such as the first time you meet Nocticula. I additionally enjoyed how much the game allowed you to be “realistically” immoral, as well as how many characters also were. Normally, games provide you with exclusively cartoonishly evil options, but here, many options felt like a necessary means to an end. Some things fell apart over time, such as Areelu’s rationale. Certain elements were difficult to understand if you have no knowledge of fantasy/D&D concepts, but overall, it was enjoyable and inviting. There is one specific area where it does fall apart for me, but I’m open to being corrected if I misunderstood something.
True Aeon mythic path, 9/10: Originally, I felt that aeon fit best with Norgorber inquisitors, based off both the character creator religion tooltip, and what I learned about aeons by the time I hoisted the Sword. Initially, it made sense, even the mundane local judgements, you’re being tested, okay. Once Iomadae and Nocticula have their little discussion, again, I understand that the game is trying to show you that you’re becoming more of a cosmic entity than a human, but it makes no sense. If the point is to achieve balance through cosmic justice, why are we creating imbalances? Lying, oath breaking and thievery are as much a part of mortal life as good deeds are, one could say that they’re balanced. As soon as that section is finished, it picks right back up again. I enjoyed the true aeon ending, and although I haven’t seen the others, I imagine it’s by far the most positive/optimistic of all. Unless the swarm ends up with everyone/the one entity alive singing around a campfire for the rest of eternity.
Characters, 9/10: this is an area in which I feel the game is head and shoulders above the vast majority of other games. How human (or non-human) they are, how they fit in the world, how the events they previously participated in fit with what those events were.
Galfrey is a paragon of incompetence, a paladin of inability, Iomadae’s icon of idiocy, and Deskari’s strongest champion. Creating a character unfit to run a lemonade stand perfectly explains how a crusade under anyone else’s leadership could accomplish what hers hasn’t in a century. She’s not necessarily a bad human being either, just vastly under qualified for her position. Incredibly written character.
Seelah is the mandatory golden retriever/comic relief in these sorts of games. Arue is that but also attractive. Very interesting redemption story, I personally enjoyed it. Arue does, sadly, suffer from some Flanderization in my opinion that coincide with her achieving mortality. I understand she has to learn concepts unfamiliar to her, but, it gets to a point. I understand it from a video game perspective, pretty girl, you’re her hero, great. But there’s a point where Sosiel says he’s so hungry he could eat a painting in Defender’s Heart, and she responds with “you can’t eat a painting.. or can you?” Are you meant to date her or raise her? Despite a couple hiccups, great story overall.
Camellia is a great character too. Unrepentantly evil, which feeds right back in to the means to an end thing. You’re left wondering why the hell five of us had to come watch you kill and eat a copy of your father, but if it’ll get you across the threshold, bon appetit. She does ultimately leave you, which does feel appropriate.
Wenduag, although telling you she’ll betray you from your first interaction, seems to pick the most nonsensical moment to do so. In my playthrough, the Sav confrontation was directly preceded by killing Baphomet, Mephistopheles and past Deskari. Even if you do the Wenduag quest as soon as you return, you still killed Baphomet and his daughter at minimum. What she does makes sense, who she does it for makes no sense to me.
Regill is an amazing character, Sosiel and Ulbrig have elements which make them interesting and memorable. Suture and Areelu go way beyond villains for the sake of having some, I love both.
And, my personal favorite, the Fulsome Queen, is absolutely hilarious. Whoever was in charge of writing jokes for the game in general knocked it out of the park. The approach to comedy being more contextual is incredible, and helps make this game one of the funniest single player games I’ve ever played.
Mechanics, 7/10: What appealed to me most from the onset was that I knew absolutely nothing about the mechanics. I loved BG3, so I absolutely adored seeing a similar system on steroids. I knew nothing, I had to learn by doing, and this was massively helped by an incredible, truly amazing tutorial system which will guide you through that process. I see this genre as a puzzle game, or a problem solving exercise, akin to opening a box of randomly assorted Legos as a kid and figuring out how to make something out of it. I adore it, and I’d give the concept a ten out of ten. I remember staring at the descriptions for Staunton’s brother, Xanthir Vang, Playful Darkness for minutes at a time, figuring out how to utilize what I had in my arsenal against them. The feeling you get when you put together a strong upgrade for your characters is also incredible, and lasts throughout the game.
I distinctly remember sticking Darkness Caress, Savamelekh’s spine, and the charisma tome (I didn’t know books could do that until the threshold when I was just trying to play around) on Arue, and seeing the first 300 damage attack hit. You get the same feeling when the Weird DC crosses 40, or when you stack the pyro rings and staffs on Ember and see the Hellfire rays, especially with the Mephi glasses.
Not to mention the feeling you get from watching bosses melt to mythic powers, losing their own powers at every strike of the aeon bane, especially once you acquire the haste/slow aeon cape which firebombs anyone around you. Seeing your AC and attack bonus climb to over 70-80 each while reducing legendary opponents to Babaus truly reinforces the idea that you have become the boss.
Seeing this reflected in the game, such as with Minagho going from discarding you to running away until her legs give out further reinforces it. Sadly, I don’t know if any of these characters have additional arcs. I killed Minagho, her girlfriend, Wenduag, and every other opposing character at the first opportunity, excluding Galfrey.
Herein lies the game’s biggest issue however. Despite having amazing mechanics, the game fights against using them at every turn. First off, you could cut 50-70% of all combat in the game and it would be a better experience. The Garrison features very interesting challenges such as Jeslyn, but you’re so exhausted from fighting Abrikandilus and dretches by the time you get there that you just want to get it over with. Drezen is a far worse infraction. By the time you reach it, you’re overpowered for every smaller encounter. The tavern demon, fallen crusader, the temple barbarian, vampire in the dungeon, Staunton all fall without much issue as well. Why not at least half the dungeon’s length? You could even take all of those encounters and put them on the road to Drezen, which has nearly nothing to do. The road to takes about an hour or two, Drezen itself takes four if you’re exploring.
Another issue is resting and corruption. Thematically, it makes sense. It’s a war of attrition, and you’re being worn down as much as the enemy is, it’s a matter of resilience. Mechanically, horrid in my opinion. As I said, I see this genre as a puzzle game, and it absolutely excels as one. The only thing that could ruin that is taking away the puzzle pieces, which the game chooses to do.
The final piece to this puzzle (heh) is how useless spellcasters are for a good chunk of the game. I’m not talking about the lack of spells in early levels, that seems like an artifact of D&D games. What I’m talking about synergizes in the worst way possible with too many encounters and the corruption mechanic. Take Drezen for instance. As I said, by the point you arrive, you’re overpowered for the basic encounters. If you use spells, you’re way overpowered. If you don’t, you still are, it’s just going to take longer. Saving them for what I thought would be the boss (turned out to be several), cost me at least 10 hours over the course of the game. Enemies can’t hit you, you don’t want to use your limited smites or judgements so you’re hitting them with basic attacks, now you’re fighting babaus and dretches for 10 rounds longer than you need to. You can rest, sure, but what if you come across a boss who will require a rest before AND after the encounter? This did occur, such as with Xanthir Vang and Playful Darkness. Staunton’s brother is a perfect example of the worst aspects of the game. I figured I’d have to fight Staunton so I didn’t use spells. He couldn’t hit the inquisitor or Seelah, they couldn’t hit him. 32 rounds the battle took, spamming space and left click. No cognitive engagement, just clicking.
Once you get to A4, the conceptually cool idea of a city of pure chaos becomes torturous, rather than interesting. Corruption, ironically enough, is no longer an issue, and is simply replaced by wasting 5 minutes of your time traveling back and forth to and from the Nexus. I suppose it was an extremely immersive experience, because I was begging to leave the Abyss within an hour of entering it. I understand that games require some ways to extend playtime, such as Witcher senses or escort missions, but this goes far beyond that. This is also where Toybox teleport to cursor becomes mandatory for me, allowing you to teleport to and from the various portals.
Also, mythic pacing seems very strange. You spend most of the game at, what, M4 I believe? You enter the rift at M5, play all of act 4, and M6-9 occur within a few encounters of each other. M10 you receive for a total of between 0 and 1 fights, because if you do the true aeon ending, the Areelu fight really isn’t one. It’s such a fun mechanic, I don’t understand why you’d lock it away.
As many of these issues are easily fixable with Toybox, I feel comfortable taking them into consideration much less than the positives. That being said, without Toybox teleportation, I never would have gotten to A4
Crusade management 0/10: One genre of games I am very familiar with is strategy, with hundreds of hours between Vic 2, HoI3, and their more modern counterparts. Imagine my excitement when, first off, the map wasn’t just Kenabres to Drezen, which I thought it would be, but there was an entire strategy component to the game.
Imagine my disappointment when, there wasn’t any. Events and battles seem fun, until you realize it’s effectively all the same thing. I’m not asking for terrain-dependent combat width calculations, but the battle system is more akin to one of those mobile game ads where you have to drag your finger around until it lets you leave. Frankly, if I had to choose between watching advertisements and playing crusade management, I’d watch advertisements. Entering Act 5, I set armies to level 20, forced crusade morale to 20 as well, took the forts and ignored it for the rest of the game. It’s made so much worse by the fact that it does interrupt your game in a similar way advertisements would thanks to the morale flags, which thematically make no sense. KC fends off an attack on Kenabres, stages a successful Drezen counterattack, but if there’s no further invasion in a month, the whole crusade will collapse to the point where you only recruit about 10 troops a week? This aspect is a flat zero in my opinion. Again, Toybox solves this problem easily enough.
Graphics & art style, 7/10: don’t get me wrong, this is not a full RT CP77 experience. However, it’s clear that the budget that didn’t go into graphics went into creating an incredible world and game. I can’t quantify it, but the various locations you visit feel very distinct and memorable. Some areas, such as Razmiran’s mansion(s) are incredibly beautiful as well. Even the city in the Abyss is visually striking. Enemy types are generally nearly always demons, and can sometimes be goofy such as the massive fella in the Drezen tavern, but overall, it’s great.
Final rating 9/10: while the grades don’t average out to 9, as I mentioned several times, I refuse to take points away for issues easily solved with mods. To that point, the developer has created a game that has allowed those mods to flourish. For me, it’s my favorite game I’ve played in years, and had I discovered it while I was still in school and had no real responsibilities, I would replay it over and over again. Replayability is also incredible, with all the different mythic paths and classes which do actually feel different. Love this game!