Last time I played the game was quite a long time ago, maybe 1 and a half years or 2. I wanted to see how it had evolved so I played it again from beginning to end.
First of all, the general structure is definitely improved: it is more cohesive and it makes more sense as a story.
There is a bit of an empty space in the mid-late game between the takeover of the orcs and the final part when you go back to Rastedel for the second time and all the conquest arc: I finished the orcs pretty quickly so several weeks passed and I was afraid I had missed something to trigger the final part, but it was just waiting for the right week in the end.
I guess the still missing parts will help filling the void a bit (I'm particularly curious to see what the role of the fae will be, the intro was intriguing so I was disappointed that it led nowhere).
The rather unique mix of management, exploration and story, which attracted me to the game the first time, is still well done: not too deep but enough to keep you busy and provide variety. Also here, I finished the research and the buildings towards the three quarters of the game so it dried up a bit in the end, but I guess that's just a buffer to accommodate the less management-inclined players. Cla-Min's shop is still underused, though.
By the way, the devs must be commended for the random events, both on the map and in the castle, there is a nice variety and you meet various minor characters that tickled my curiosity and I would have been glad to meet again.
Something I was quite impressed of is how much the game gives you the possibility to shape the Rowan you're interested in playing: I played him as a sort-of closeted guy that starts in love with his wife but then discovers progressively he's interested in other things, becoming progressively more distant from Alexia, indulging more in his desires and becoming more corrupt and prone to power-play (in both directions), using the occasional straight sex for advantage... and it worked really well, it felt very natural, not forced at all.
The characters are globally pretty good (the cast is huge) and, like I remember, nicely sculpted and interesting -especially the main ones, just with more events (those who have them). There are some slight disappointments (e.g. Greyhide's story ends somehow abruptly without any followup or recurring events) and one might like a bit more or a bit less this or that character but in general it works. I'm looking forward to the development of the stories for those who haven't got that already.
Alexia is a bit of an accessory (at least in my case, where for story reasons I limited the contact between Rowan and Alexia as much as I could), but you can see that she "makes sense".
A suggestion: the work events are nice but, towards the end, I didn't know if I had exhausted all of them for a specific job; as the weekly Alexia events are for character building but mostly to collect scenes, it could be nice to have a counter that tells you how many you have unlocked for a specific job, so you can eventually move on.
Most of the things I would like to see are either in the plans or are probably due to limitations of what you can put in (for example, there are plenty of recurring things with Cla-Min but none involving her brother -but I guess it's not much of a priority), so it definitely looks like they did a good job with their plan of working through the to-do list in a more planned fashion and with a systematic approach.
First of all, the general structure is definitely improved: it is more cohesive and it makes more sense as a story.
There is a bit of an empty space in the mid-late game between the takeover of the orcs and the final part when you go back to Rastedel for the second time and all the conquest arc: I finished the orcs pretty quickly so several weeks passed and I was afraid I had missed something to trigger the final part, but it was just waiting for the right week in the end.
I guess the still missing parts will help filling the void a bit (I'm particularly curious to see what the role of the fae will be, the intro was intriguing so I was disappointed that it led nowhere).
The rather unique mix of management, exploration and story, which attracted me to the game the first time, is still well done: not too deep but enough to keep you busy and provide variety. Also here, I finished the research and the buildings towards the three quarters of the game so it dried up a bit in the end, but I guess that's just a buffer to accommodate the less management-inclined players. Cla-Min's shop is still underused, though.
By the way, the devs must be commended for the random events, both on the map and in the castle, there is a nice variety and you meet various minor characters that tickled my curiosity and I would have been glad to meet again.
Something I was quite impressed of is how much the game gives you the possibility to shape the Rowan you're interested in playing: I played him as a sort-of closeted guy that starts in love with his wife but then discovers progressively he's interested in other things, becoming progressively more distant from Alexia, indulging more in his desires and becoming more corrupt and prone to power-play (in both directions), using the occasional straight sex for advantage... and it worked really well, it felt very natural, not forced at all.
The characters are globally pretty good (the cast is huge) and, like I remember, nicely sculpted and interesting -especially the main ones, just with more events (those who have them). There are some slight disappointments (e.g. Greyhide's story ends somehow abruptly without any followup or recurring events) and one might like a bit more or a bit less this or that character but in general it works. I'm looking forward to the development of the stories for those who haven't got that already.
Alexia is a bit of an accessory (at least in my case, where for story reasons I limited the contact between Rowan and Alexia as much as I could), but you can see that she "makes sense".
A suggestion: the work events are nice but, towards the end, I didn't know if I had exhausted all of them for a specific job; as the weekly Alexia events are for character building but mostly to collect scenes, it could be nice to have a counter that tells you how many you have unlocked for a specific job, so you can eventually move on.
Most of the things I would like to see are either in the plans or are probably due to limitations of what you can put in (for example, there are plenty of recurring things with Cla-Min but none involving her brother -but I guess it's not much of a priority), so it definitely looks like they did a good job with their plan of working through the to-do list in a more planned fashion and with a systematic approach.
