This game caught my attention for several reasons. Firstly, is was an ARPG with controller support, so that meant that I had to give it a chance. I've enjoyed gaming for years, but I really do prefer to game with a controller, so that was an absolute plus for me. I was also fascinated by the historical fantasy aspect of this game, so I was pleased to find during gameplay that this concept was maintained throughout with clothing and architecture.
The soundtrack was good, and the graphics were very vivid and colorful. The one thing I have to say about this, though, is that the color saturation seemed a bit off to me. I must have walked past the carrot patch a dozen times during the prologue, because they looked like beets to me, and I noticed that "ruddy" color scheme throughout. I'm unsure if this was intentional, but it was definitely noticeable.
Mechanically, the game is sound, but there is room for improvement. I felt like, at times, there was a bit of lag or delay between button presses and action on the screen, specifically with combat. That does improve later on with the addition of the sword, but the delay coupled with the lack of auto-aim made combat unimpressive and a bit more of a challenge than it probably should have been.
I liked the health, stamina, and combat upgrades, but gold is scarce in the game, so if you intend to obtain the achievement for having 1,000 gold, it's best to do that before purchasing upgrades. In my case, I hadn't reviewed the achievement guide beforehand, so I'm stuck at the end of the game with little to do but start a new game for that achievement. That brings me to replayability. If I didn't intend to replay for the purpose of attaining my last 3 achievements, I probably wouldn't feel the desire to revisit this game. That fact leads me to address the pricing. I feel like the price point could be lowered a bit. I wanted this game very badly, so I paid full price for it, but I'd feel a bit better about that if there was more content, or greater replayability. Since that's not the case, this might be a game you'd want to pick up on sale. In my opinion, even a dollar or two off of the full price would be a fair deal.
Also a positive are the number of destructibles and the looting aspect in the form of gold. While I wish that gold was of greater occurrence during the game, it is possible to attain all upgrades if you enjoy smashing destructibles and looting chests, like I do. What I would like to see improved, though, is layout. The gaming environment is relatively small, with a lot of backtracking or revisiting of areas as the game progresses. This world has tremendous opportunity for expansion, so hopefully, we'll get to see that in a future update.
Story and character development are also areas that can be improved. There's not much to the characters or the story, and a lot of the dialogue between characters seems to have been inserted as filler, as if the developers felt that something was needed but didn't quite know what, or didn't have the time/budget to do what they really wanted.
The game can easily be played from start to finish in an afternoon, and it comes with a lot of very attainable achievements. This will likely become my first "perfect" game, so if that is something that interests you, you might consider this when deciding if this is a game for you.
Overall, it's a perfectly enjoyable game with some unique elements. I'd encourage achievement hunters and ARPG fans to give this a try. I'd also encourage the developers to either revisit Cross of the Dutchman in the form of content updates or publish a sequel. I would definitely consider their next publication.
Edit 9/14/2016: I've played through this game twice now, and I wanted to add a little something to my review. While, from strictly a gamer's point of view, I still think that this game would benefit from some polishing and additonal content, I have to say that I have great admiration for the developers undertaking the challenge of an illustrated history lesson in video game format. I can imagine that the devs may have felt that, while considerable creative license has obviously been exorcised, they were attempting to balance history and historical fiction, entertainment with the limited information available about the real "Great Pierre." I have to admit that as much I love history, I was unaware of Pierre until this game. It's fascinating to me that he made such an impact in Dutch history and even somewhat to world history. Whether or not he was really the 7ft giant of a man wielding a 7ft sword in battle, the reputation was hard-earned. I now understand why Pierre came to be known as the Cross of the Dutchman.
