Disclaimer: I don't play many CRPG's and am definitely not a hardcore RP'er in general. I never thought I'd finish this game. I finished a 'classic mode' game, maxing out side content, with like ~110-130 actual hours playing the game

So... I'm torn. I really loved the story, the part I played in it, and how it panned out. Incredible perception of freedom in this game. It left me genuinely curious how the game would unfold had I made different decisions.I think this game would appeal to sandbox gamers (minus the open world) but, for me, the type of freedom this game has often distracted from what I was doing in the story, or my immersion in it. There's a lot to tinker with if you're willing to immerse in the systems, but I would have liked for it to be more focused on gameplay and tactics. I really disliked how much looting and inventory management there is in the game. There's gotta be a way to organize that and recipes and books and equipables better. Felt messy and time consuming to filter through and organize. Probably as a noob, I just wish there were more guardrails or tips for effectively scaling with the difficulty of the game, without requiring deep meta or wiki browsing. I feel better prepared for the next CRPG I play, and for what it's worth, I finished Disco Elysium around the same time and liked it better.

Overall: 7/10

The good: There is so much to do.

• The story. Factions on factions on shadow factions. It was cool unraveling it all and finding gems of hidden context through side quests. I do wish one of the big reveals towards the end factored into the ending or final decision more... but ok.
  
• Side quests. There are a ton of side quests, many pretty deep, the majority of which are rewarding and fun.
  
• Freedom. You decide how you want to go about your quests and interactions. Kill, sneak, diplomat, ignore. It feels like these are all valid options
  
• Spec. You can build/spec/respec your party however you want at any point in the game-- skills, stats, class, hair, etc
  
• Interaction. You can talk to probably literally everybody, and they'll all have something to say about their world and their life

The bad: There is so much to do.

• Spec. There are so many attributes and skills and items and weapons. They all really matter and I was getting destroyed in some of the more intense battles in the very beginning and the very end, requiring me to spend a lot of time reloading, or running around trying to figure out how to "be better" to do the thing I wanted to do.
  
• Pacing is... up to you. Spending a bunch of hours deep diving side quests or shopping or managing your party sometimes feels necessary, but it does feel like a rabbit hole. I really felt the times I got trapped and spent my whole session in menus or backtracking. My attention spills everywhere playing this game.

The ugly: There is so much to do.

• Loot. Looting what feels like 98% of objects in the world is a bit of a double edged sword. Boxes, vases, shelves, chests, drawers, corpses, bags... I mean, the list of object types isn't that long, but they're ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ eeeveryywhere. The Lucky Charm skill encouraged my aggressive looting for higher rare drop chance, but this whole world of interaction drove me mad. I certainly did it to myself, but loot did feel like a massive distraction. Clearly just not a fan of excessive, useless loot.
• Shopping. Was not into searching for specific shopkeepers to sell me the specific type of spells or weapons or armor I needed. Why are there so many? Why don't they have better signs? Why are they scattered all over the place? It just adds to the time sink and running around aimlessly.
  
• Complexity. There's little to nudge you towards good builds or good practices. This is probably the other side of total freedom-- you do whatever you want, but you also have to figure it out yourself. This really cost me in the first 1-2 acts, and then at the very end. The last battle of the game was seriously impossible for me until looking up some good builds online and then spending a bunch of time getting better gear. I spent 100+ hours on this game, I'm getting my epic battle dammit. Also, there's a crafting system in this game. Good luck.

[i] [u]Disclaimer[/u]: I don't play many CRPG's and am definitely not a hardcore RP'er in general. I never thought I'd finish this game. I finished a 'classic mode' game, maxing out side content, with like ~110-130 actual hours playing the game [/i] So... I'm torn. I really loved the story, the part I played in it, and how it panned out. Incredible perception of freedom in this game. It left me genuinely curious how the game would unfold had I made different decisions.I think this game would appeal to sandbox gamers (minus the open world) but, for me, the type of freedom this game has often distracted from what I was doing in the story, or my immersion in it. There's a lot to tinker with if you're willing to immerse in the systems, but I would have liked for it to be more focused on gameplay and tactics. I really disliked how much looting and inventory management there is in the game. There's gotta be a way to organize that and recipes and books and equipables better. Felt messy and time consuming to filter through and organize. Probably as a noob, I just wish there were more guardrails or tips for effectively scaling with the difficulty of the game, without requiring deep meta or wiki browsing. I feel better prepared for the next CRPG I play, and for what it's worth, I finished Disco Elysium around the same time and liked it better. [b] Overall: 7/10 [/b] The good: There is so much to do. [list] [*] [b]The story[/b]. Factions on factions on shadow factions. It was cool unraveling it all and finding gems of hidden context through side quests. I do wish one of the big reveals towards the end factored into the ending or final decision more... but ok. [*] [b]Side quests[/b]. There are a ton of side quests, many pretty deep, the majority of which are rewarding and fun. [*] [b]Freedom[/b]. You decide how you want to go about your quests and interactions. Kill, sneak, diplomat, ignore. It feels like these are all valid options [*] [b]Spec.[/b] You can build/spec/respec your party however you want at any point in the game-- skills, stats, class, hair, etc [*] [b]Interaction.[/b] You can talk to probably literally everybody, and they'll all have something to say about their world and their life [/list] The bad: There is so much to do. [list] [*] [b]Spec[/b]. There are so many attributes and skills and items and weapons. They all really matter and I was getting destroyed in some of the more intense battles in the very beginning and the very end, requiring me to spend a lot of time reloading, or running around trying to figure out how to "be better" to do the thing I wanted to do. [*] [b]Pacing[/b] is... up to you. Spending a bunch of hours deep diving side quests or shopping or managing your party sometimes feels necessary, but it does feel like a rabbit hole. I really felt the times I got trapped and spent my whole session in menus or backtracking. My attention spills everywhere playing this game. [/list] The ugly: There is so much to do. [list] [*] [b]Loot[/b]. Looting what feels like 98% of objects in the world is a bit of a double edged sword. Boxes, vases, shelves, chests, drawers, corpses, bags... I mean, the list of object types isn't that long, but they're fucking eeeveryywhere. The Lucky Charm skill encouraged my aggressive looting for higher rare drop chance, but this whole world of interaction drove me mad. I certainly did it to myself, but loot did feel like a massive distraction. Clearly just not a fan of excessive, useless loot.[*] [b]Shopping[/b]. Was not into searching for specific shopkeepers to sell me the specific type of spells or weapons or armor I needed. Why are there so many? Why don't they have better signs? Why are they scattered all over the place? It just adds to the time sink and running around aimlessly. [*] [b]Complexity[/b]. There's little to nudge you towards good builds or good practices. This is probably the other side of total freedom-- you do whatever you want, but you also have to figure it out yourself. This really cost me in the first 1-2 acts, and then at the very end. The last battle of the game was seriously impossible for me until looking up some good builds online and then spending a bunch of time getting better gear. I spent 100+ hours on this game, I'm getting my epic battle dammit. Also, there's a crafting system in this game. Good luck. [/list]