I want to like things Piranha Bytes makes SO BAD. There should be something interesting in all of this with the cool mechanics and weird world. The combat, though, is clunky. The weird difficulty where you can't go ANYWHERE until you are something like level 20, but you don't know what is "safe" unless you walk in and die to it. Your attributes don't even seem to actually level up your stats they say they do, like Dexterity for range, or Strength for melee.

The factions are both interesting and annoying at the same time. Companions don't seem to do much more than be meat shields and random pop ups of approval. There isn't a real structure to quests, and you can easily do a quest and THEN find the NPC that has it, accept the quest, and give them whatever it was you picked up, or murdered for them.

But I don't DISLIKE the game. I just would rather play something more engaging. Something where how you level FELT better. Items having hard restrictions on attributes to be able to equip the item, not equip it at a loss, but just equip it, means you can upgrade yourself out of a weapon. Some core/basic game mechanics are locked behind skills which are locked behind a money value AND attribute levels.


So, here is the thing, YES BUT...

Invest your first few levels getting monster trophies and unlocking as much of the survival tree as you can and you'll at least not die.

Clunky.
Like, super clunky. Combat is a mess, some keybinds are locked, because, I dunno, because screw the customer I guess.

Not bad for a game that came out in 1999, but not worth my time.

30 bucks is an insult.

A very good RPG with deep world-building & challenging difficulty which makes you truly think about your actions. I consider it a hidden gem.