I like the game, I like what they did, I still play this game... but I can't recommend it.
I see two main issues on my side.
The first one is traveling on the island is too slow and boring. You have a carriage that you can use to teleport to another place but:
- it's way too expensive to start using it at first, unlike Morrowind for example which can be compared and was cheap (silt strider, ship, magic guild teleport circle)
- there isn't enough locations covered
Going through the main city for example is just painful. It takes you forever to go from one district to another, and the city is spread like a corridor, and you often have to go from one end to the other. It becomes quickly unbearable, especially because a lot of quests are fetch quest...
But the worse part is really the quests part. I like the idea of not giving you a compass to tell you where to search for something. You have a description and a general idea and that's it. It's the way it should be!
But... what about those descriptions then? They are atrocious. Often just lies. They are here to just make you lose time for nothing. Worst recent example is the last quest of the grave digger guild. You have to find some remains not far away from your location. You have some tips. A fertile soil and running water. Neat, I have exactly that at a few hundred meters of where I am. A river and a field of sunflower cultivated by man. I look around and find weird stuff but impossible to find the remains. I look on the internet and... it's on the opposite side of the island, so absolutely not near from where I was. That's just a stupid lie.
And really that's the most frustrating part of this game. So many quests are just them giving you a big middle finger.
So just to be accurate. I like this game. I like how they fix it. I have great hope for their next installment. And if you accept to use internet solutions to play this game, it can be fun there. But... I just hope they learn to fix their quests description. And in the meantime, I can't recommend it.
Another weird side that I don' t like btw but isn't preventing me from having fun is the world design. It's a mess and it doesn't have any consistency. Rivers disappear and appear from nowhere. You have canyons without beginning and end (and don't drop in there because you have several locations where if you fall, you won't die but you won't be able to get out anyway... like some well in some fort for example). The relief and the way it's setup feels more like a human made theme park than a real place.
But... to balance this review, I also want to underline what I like and why I still keep playing.
First, you are considerate like an intelligent human and you can work your way out of quests (when they are giving you reasonable descriptions) by yourself instead of just running after a compass.
Second, the power-up feel is real. You start, you know nothing, you can't do ♥♥♥♥. But by the end, you start killing enemies in just one shot and it's a nice feeling.
Third, you have a lot of ways to play the game. I would have like a stealth mechanism here however but you can still choose between dex/strength builds. You can decide to favor craftsmanship.
Fourth, you have a world with a lore to explore. Nothing too crazy either way. But still nice to discover bit by bit.
Fifth, you have some choices that you can make. Which faction you decide to join, how you decide to end some quests. I didn't yet finished the game, so I don't know yet what are the impacts but it's nice to see.
Sixth, they are still working on fixing the game. Performance, bug fixing, balancing.
So overall, I'm still happy with my purchase. I still want to finish this game. But... man... I just hope that they fix these quests/travel/directions. If they do a heavy pass on this, I will change my review to recommend.
