An older, janky, yet pretty atmospheric game. Sadly, for every thing this game does okay, there’s another, often absolutely jarring technicality that brings it down. See them below. I can’t recommend it.
Pros
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[*]Passable story.
[*]Conversations are alright.
[*]Das Schwarze Auge system is cool.
[*]The extent of exploration leaves more to be desired, but it does happen, and the atmosphere is really nice.
[*]Combat is weird and strikes are literally slower than your hand moving the cup of hot tea toward your lips as you read these lines. I put it here as well as in the cons, because I personally didn’t mind, and for all its downsides, it does most of what should be there — parry, dodge, various attack abilities, spells, etc. You be the judge.
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Cons
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[*]Abhorrent save system. In other times, the system of checkpoints would be semi-okay in an action game. In this one? Not only are there no renewable checkpoints such as entrances to different locations, but the game doesn’t even tell you when and how it saves. From what I’ve gathered, traveling to a new district saves only once (after that, there's no save point to and fro), it sometimes saves after a fight, and it sometimes saves during certain quest phases.
You’ve traveled into a different district, spent 20 minutes exploring, opening chests, talking to people, investing AP points — and then you die in a trap your character hasn’t noticed, an insta-kill situation, or from a merely hard fight? Yeah, get wrecked. You appear at the entrance of the district and have to do it all again. Think you’ll save some by traveling into a district just before the fight? Nope, no save checkpoint there anymore. Do it all again if you die. Etc.
[*]Half of the skill checks for Herbs, Alchemy, Fast talk, Haggle, Picklocks, Weapon Abilities, etc. have the requirements as high as 4–6 even early on. Raising one of these skills to rank 1 or 2 already costs a lot of AP (AP is what passes for EXP in this game). By the time you reach the end of the second area, you'd still spend majority of APs to meet that 4–6 criteria for a single skill check.
[*]The questing is butchered. Technically speaking, you can refuse a quest, but you’d have to do it every time until you’ve explored the entire area, keeping mental notes on who gave you which assignment and to whom you’ll offer your services. More often than not, you’ll end up talking yourself into one quest branch without realizing someone else had a different path ready. Too late — you’re already spoken for. And imagine doing all this with that stupid anti-QoL save system. Pretty horrible design, too.
[*]Combat is weird and strikes are literally slower than your hand moving the cup of hot tea toward your lips as you read these lines. I put it here as well as in the pros because I personally didn’t mind, and despite its downsides, it’s also somewhat original. You be the judge.
[*]Noting the points of interests is mostly useless. You’d think that with all those inflated skill requirements, there’d be tons of backtracking, right? Nope. Once you move onto another set of areas, you can’t return to earlier ones. I don’t even know which is worse now, man.
[*]Last but not least — and it may sound like nitpicking — but I see it as twisting a knife in the wound: you can buy rings or amulets of [i]"insert whatever PC skill here"[/i]. In theory, nice. In practice, they improve skills by one point — not one rank. I’ll explain. You get 80 AP from a quest or a fight, and if you invest it into, say, Lockpicking, it gives you two 2-3 points. You need 5–6 points to improve a rank, and only ranks count toward those skill requirements for certain actions. Get me? WHAT USE IS A +1 RING LIKE THAT, FOR PRAIOS'S SAKE? Other than to aggravate already frustrated players, that is.
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So, that’s that. I’m sorry to say this, because I’m a long-time fan of Das Schwarze Auge, and I grieve that no more RPGs have been made in this system since this game roughly 12–13 years ago. But even so — don’t buy this, not even on sale. You’ll only end up disappointed that you “can’t” enjoy what’s otherwise a nice atmosphere and olden charm. There are plenty of other fish in the sea that do both the technical aspects and gameplay features well enough.
