Surprisingly tight combat on hard difficulty. Way more thought than one would expect, has gone into balancing encounters and progression, and this game is all about combat and little else. A good chunk of the skills/spells are useless, buffs mainly, but there are a ton of them. The game has 4 classes and you get to make your own party of 4, so I thought the 'to-go' option is pretty obvious. Unfortunately the classes are not made equal, not even remotely so. The Sorcerer kills almost everything, the Shaman kills the rest and holds the party together, the Ranger pretends to help, and the Warrior is not useless due to, what I would describe as, a technicality. I think rangers suffer a lot from the difficulty scaling, and warriors suffer from the main strategy of every encounter being "avoid being in melee range". That's not always possible, so he actually graduates from useless to very much necessary, but usually he just sits on his ass.
Unfortunately the game is way too long. I can't say there isn't enough variety, but if the game has 100 different enemies, then it has 100 thousand enemies. Their numbers could have been easily cut in half. The game follows a certain formula, which is very effective, but didn't need to be stretched as much. You enter a new area, you are introduced to a couple new enemies in small numbers. Next group will have greater numbers. The one after will introduce a harder enemy, which will require special attention. In the following encounters, the harder enemies will gradually replace the regular grunts, and you will start getting surrounded. In later areas, enemies with considerably more health will be thrown in the groups. You face 8 Ghouls. Then 7 Ghouls and a Vampire, 6-2 etc. By the time you face 8 Vampires, you will never want to see another Vampire again. Then you face 10 Vampires, alongside 20 other enemies, and you are like "Ok, let me choose a movie first".
The encounters will escalate, until you finally open a door and face 30-40 enemies. The combat is turn-based, so the large groups will suck the soul out of you and require a second monitor. Eventually there will only be large groups. I am in the final area now, and I lack the mental fortitude to finish it. The first thing I faced was 10 of the beefiest enemies I'd seen. This is so disheartening, cause you know the next encounter will be 20 of them and spread out, plus they are resistant to the skills that are specifically for such situations.
Also, apart from a few unique items, the gear is randomized, which I personally do not appreciate. It ranges from amazing to ♥♥♥♥, and it occasionally causes issues.
I come off overly negative, but, excluding afk time and not paying attention cause the movie was interesting, I did put in 100 hours at least. The first 4-5 encounters in each new area were always fun, but there are usually 20+ of them, and in later areas some encounters feel alone like 20. Then you face the same encounter which just drained you, but they also added a boss...bruh
