Recent reviews by Lumppytaters

I've owned this game for a while and bought it as a part of a Divinity Original Sin Bundle. I've played DOS2 & BG3, loving both games, thus I figured I would give this game a try as well. I regret my 40+ hours. The entire thing, from top to bottom is a slog.

Overall: 5/10 - This is a game that shows its age, with a lackluster plot, uninteresting companions, and certain gameplay choices that mean you spend more time healing outside of combat, than actually being in combat.

Graphics: 8/10 - This is a basic isometric turn based CRPG, you shouldn’t expect much in the way of graphics. The game is almost 10 years old and it shows its age with the bulky, wow-like graphics, but it is a style that works well.

Gameplay: 3/10 - I am a fan of DOS2 and the gameplay loop. Unfortunately, there is a lot of quality of life improvements that are not present here. I spent more time healing outside of combat, than I actually spent inside. The amount of status effects was astounding, where I spent much of my playthrough waiting for any turn. The movement speed of the characters is so slow, that trying to get anywhere is aggravating and the ability to teleport to any shrine isn't explained to you at all; I figured it out by accident. The fact that I am forced to identify 90% of the magical gear I find, means I need to spend so much time, level up resources, or gold just to keep my gear updated.

AI: 6/10 - The NPC’s aren’t absolutely braindead, but they cannot figure out the angle with specified spells when it comes down to it. Not great, but not terrible.

Story: 4/10 - The story is ham-handed, entirely uninspired and failed to hook me at any point. I spent most of Act 2 skipping conversations and not listening to the voice acting at all. It stopped making sense really early and I found myself trying to figure out ‘why do i care?’ other than, they told me to. The Companions are so incredibly uninteresting, that I eventually went Lone Wolf just so I didn’t have to deal with their complaining.

Last Words: This is a game I wished was better but definitely shows its age. It’s good to see the original bones that made games like DOS2 & BG3, but the quality of life issues are an issue. The lack of a decent story makes this impossible to work through. I think you’re good to skip this game.

At the time of review, I've put in 99 hours into the game, only to have the latest update break my saved game; right before the end.

The game, as a whole, is a ton of fun. The combat is engaging, the monsters are interesting, the environment is beautiful. They made a world that is interesting to travel through and I spent so much time just getting lost in the fields & valleys; finding every cave I could. I loved this game so much when I got it, I updated my CPU just to run it better. It is, at its core, an optimization nightmare.


System Specs:
GPU: NVIDIA 4080
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700x (Originally until hour 30, AMD 5 2700X)
RAM: 64 GB (DDR-5)

Overall: 7/10 - It is an optimization nightmare. Wait for the fixes & even then, its not worth full price.


Graphics: 9/10
It is a beautiful game by every notion. The monsters are detailed & beautiful, the environment is diverse & sprawling. This is a game that you could sit and admire the scenery for hours. Every location is gorgeous, with the small graphical hitches. Weird pixels around certain spells & lights. Items in the distance popping in here & there. NPC's popping in as you knock into them. Its nitpicky but its not perfect.

Gameplay: 10/10
The Gameplay loop for combat is amazing. It feels interesting, diverse and no one way to tackle a problem. I found myself swapping classes often and each one taking on a different combat style. Using my shield to parry attacks with patient strikes. To bouncing off enemies like a spring board with my bow (probably some of the best archery gameplay I've had to date). To tackling and knifing enemies as a thief.
The pawn system makes a great return from the first game and is just as fun as it previously was. I love seeing other peoples pawns & helping them complete quests in my world.

AI: 6/10
The AI is wonky at times; as everyone has probably seen the meme is pawns diving off cliffs after monsters. It happens a lot. The dialogue they spit out at each other is the new Preston Garvey of "Another settlement needs your help". I love how the pawns have their own personality & abilities, I just wish they had more varied lines of dialogue.

Optimization: 2/10
It is a mess, at best. This is an easy access game masquerading as a AAA title. The RAM & CPU is being consumed worse than Google Chrome has ever done. The texture pop in can be terrible at times and the NPC pop in is terrible. The cities are the absolute worst since its so dense. I was dropping to 20 frames a second, when the rest of the game was running at 40-60. The drop wasn't even that consistent. It took updating my CPU to an AMD 7700X to make the problems go away.

Story: 6/10
It's ham handed at best, leaving a lot of conjecture in its writing. It doesn't provide a ton of background or motivation for the Arisen; just saying "its always been this way! Why question it?!" That seems to be the resounding theme of the story, the cycle that you need to do as the Arisen. There are only 16 main missions in the game, which do a ton of heavy lifting. Out of the 16, 6 of them are all paired together, where you only need to complete a few. I spent a lot of time exploring before I really dove into the main story and completed it in less than 10 hours as I didn't have to do all the walking as the game expected.
The side quests are fun and interesting but the triggers can happen at weird intervals.

Last words: This game is an optimization nightmare with a lot of shortcomings. There are a lot of elements to the UI I wish were included, like a clock, since so much of the game requires you understand what time of day it is. The classes & gameplay loop are amazing, but I wish Warfarer didn't feel like something that was slapped together at the last minute.
The story is pretty basic until you get to the "True Ending"; which is sad that the story REALLY picks up in the games final hours.
I would wait for the game to get fixed and it to be on a discount. Please do not get discouraged by the microtransactions, as they're not necessary to play the game.

- It is a great game & is an amazing adaptation of the D&D 5E rule set. What it lacks in options it makes up for in solid fundamentals.

I am aware this was a crowd funded game & many features were left out due to time/monetary constraints (like some of the classes[Bard, Druid, Monk...]/races[Half-Orc, Dragonborn, Dark Elves...]). I took that all into consideration. The statements below do not cover the dungeon builder.

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• Solid gameplay mechanics where you constantly feel in control.
  
• Provides a decent challenge. The game scales well with difficulty the entire way through.
  
• Choices do matter at times.
  
• Completely open world that provide plenty of reasons to visit old locations.
  
• The Lore associated with the continent is very engaging
  
• Combat is very solid & polished.
  
• Crashes were non-existent in my 42 hour play-through
  
• Many of the sub-classes are really well put together and help differentiate the class from others.
  
• The banter back & forth between the created party based upon race, background & stats is great to listen to.
  
  
  
  The bad:
• Lack of classes means that playing with different party mixes can becomes tedious
  
• The story itself seems cliche & ham-handed at times.
  
• Only having access to 5 races (with around 2 sub-races per race [sans human & half-elf]) where D&D is known for its racial diversity. They spun a decent reason as to why via the story.
  
• Lack of feats leave much to be desired.
  
• Special feats created for the game, skew the balance of combat (Example: Follow-Up Strike can unbalance combat pretty quickly with a high Strength Fighter)
  
• Some feats are extremely situational and pretty much had no place.
  
  
  The ugly:
• The UI is clunky and difficult to understand when you first dive into it. Took me a handful of fights before I realized that the bonus action spells are a completely different button from normal spells.
  
• The models look very rough around the edges.
  
• Animations don't sometimes change according to the weapon that is in the PC's hand. For Example: My 2-handed fighter held in Greatsword in 1 hand during every cutscene. The Ranger's bow was backwards or not in her hand constantly.
  
• The voice-acting outside of your party can be horrific at times. There are several instances during the background side-quests where I cringed at how bad it was. (Academic *cough-cough*)
  
  
  Overall - its a great game but it could have been much better. I am hoping that TA continues support & look forward to the Sorcerer this week. Also some sort of story DLC would be great!
  I would definitely recommend a play at some point.

This is probably my favorite MMO of all time, allowing new players to get to lvl 60 for free with the base game content (8 class stories, plus flashpoints & Operations [dungeons & raids] & subscribing for a single month allows you to unlock all DLC released as of your last sub date plus availability up to lvl 75.
90% of the game is fully voiced (only some parts of the DLC use KOTOR style conversation screens) [normally] using a "Mass Effect" Style convo wheel.

I've put in thousands of hours, on and off since its original release in 2011. Replaying stories & exploring ever evolving DLC+ events has been a great past time. You can play by yourself, with randoms or with larger groups of friends.

I would say, even if you're mildly considering playing, give it a try.

It was a decent game. There was a good plot to it, choice was a huge factor, down to what missing you did when.

Pros:
*Good plot
*Choices actually mattered(even in which order you did the missions)
*Fulfilling Stealth
*Learning the lore, collecting inforation on targets REALLY helps and is super fun!

Cons:
*Terrible Gun combat (Does not facilitate anyone playing a Solider/Run & Gun kinda character)
--There is a "Critical Shot" mechanic that does extra damage and better accuracy. Problem is, you can't hit anything if you don't wait for the scope center in (about 3 seconds per shot late game).
*Terrible Ending (I felt like it was the end to a bad 90's spy movie)
*Near the end of the game some of your choices are stream lined for you
*Game definitely shows its age with writing techniques, game play and graphics.
*Saving is Archaic, only applying at Checkpoints


Took me about 14 hours to play through. (I had a problem with the game shutting down, it kept running in the background even when I wasn't playing it).


Verdict: Definitely worth it, but only on steep discount.

Its weird. No depth, no strategy. Its a weird combination between the original HALO, Unreal, and DOOM multiplayers. It doesn't know what it wants to be. It's pick up random weapons lying around the map, without much control and go. It's run and gun at its most barebones.

No strategy involved. Don't waste your cash. I'm glad I didn't.

It was not something I enjoyed. The mechanics left something to be desired and it was too easy to a fault. I went into this expecting a challange, what I got was a cookie cutter dungeon builder. It was very rinse and repeat, no excitement in boss battles. I gave it time and felt like I accomplished nothing. Eh, not for me. Wouldn't reccommend it.