This post it´s going to be one heavy on criticisms about this game. That said, the criticism are just opinions, but before we got with them, I want to stat some facts.
1.- I´m writing a long post about the game.
2.- I have played the game from start to end, good path.
3.- After playing the game, from start to end in the good path. I have played, from start to end, neutral path
4.- After 3.-, I have played, again from start to end, the evil path.
5.- Very few of the games in this site can claim anything in the line of the previous 1-4 facts.
My critics can be centered in two branches. Story wise and mechanics wise.
Lets start with the mechanics wise. The combat sistem. From my point of view, the weakest point of the game. It´s too much, or to few.
At the start of the game you have a very simplistic and generic combat sistem. Oponent, choose a spell of one school, win or loose. Not a challenge, but also you solve a combat with one/two clicks. Fine to me.
As the game advances you get a more complex combat sistem. With a lot more detaill. A combat resolution implies 6-10 actions. Open 12-20 slides. A substantial investment in game play time.
But makes it short.
Combats are not a challenge. You don´t neet to think about. You can play it in autopilot. The same scheme works for any enemy. You don´t have any incentive to use lower level spells. You don´t have any incentive to save mana. You don´t have any incentive in save health. You can not disengage and run. Nevermind if you win a combat with 3 health an two mana left, in the next one you are going to be at full strengh
In the last update, things have improved with the implementation of random efects. Slightly. Sometimes you get small surprises. But still, when I go to a scene with combats, instead of feeling "I will have fun", I feel I will have a chore. For a combat sistem with the level of detaill and investment that we get it needs to be more challenging, with more options that win or die, and, more important to me, integrating the combat results in the storytelling.
And now, I´ll start with my critics story wise.-
I find there are an overuse of two narrative resources. Too much "Saving in the last minute", and "Deus ex machina". Situations where the MC is in a "I´m going to die" situations and, voila!, straight from the blue, appears Perdita or Ayna and save your ass. Or else, again, the same kind of situation and arrives a surge of hiden strenght from the MC that solves the situation. Straight from my head I can remember at least 3 situations solved in one of this two ways. And that´s something that tends to kill the tension in the scenes.
Also, Chekhov´s gun.
In a more general sense, I have the feeling that the game was not well thougth from the start. Let´s say that have grown on it´s own. It start with an idea and gets a big rudder´s hit at the end of the ship´s quest.
No more (or at least very few/unimportant) free roaming, money it´s not a factor of relevance (and in the first part of the game you find money, you get paid). Almost as if we start a diferent game. A big change of focus. Okey, may be in the neutral path the change it´s less radical but still....
And that´s all. Just remint again that, after all this criticism...
1.- I´m writing a long post about the game.
2.- I have played the game from start to end, good path.
3.- After playing the game, from start to end in the good path. I have played, from start to end, neutral path
4.- After 3.-, I have played, again from start to end, the evil path.
5.- Very few of the games in this site can claim anything in the line of the previous 1-4 facts.
