There really is hardly anything bad to say about this.

- Combat is something that does not support hack 'n slash ( it's pretty devastating tbh :p )
it does NOT hold your hand ( if you are in a place your to immature for, you'll find out the hard way ).

- It's an open world without transition for the most parts ( it does however require you to walk pretty much all of it for a long long time... mounts and fast travel aren't all that existing it seems.... does add to immersion though ).

- It's overworld is jsut very pretty looking ( taking in mind the graphic ideas of the time ofcourse ).

- DAY AND NIGHT - they are RELEVANT... in comparisson to let's say kingdoms of amalur, this is such a huge step upwards Ö.

During the night you see close to nohting without burning torches all the way ( and the day - night cycles last a long time ) but as a tradeoff the overworld effetively goes to sleep !!!
Wild animals sleep ^^... allowing for much easier hunting or sneaking past them.... it's a world of difference in a non forgiving game.

( Minutes before writing this I stumbled upon something called a "thunder lizard".. it was bigger then me, it sounds dangerous, it was guarding a "life-amulet"..... you do the math in a rather non-forgiving game.... IT WAS ASLEEP, allowing for me to get that amulet. I am pretty sure i was nowhere near ready to go against it during daytime there :p )

-It has the immersion as a whole going very well and feels rather rewarding if you finally manage to outwit that annoying guard and break into his house ( because he desserved it after being mean to you :p )
( they also yell a lot of warnings and give you enough time to run away with your tail between your legs as you got caugh )( seems fair )


If you are like me and don't like wasting things. After you shoot arrows or bolts from your bow / crossbow respectively go and look for stray arrows/bolts
Anything you misfired becomes a physcial object in the world read yto be picked up again from the walls or ground.
( Now for a smaller devteam, that's some detail they could have easily overlooked..... i'm pleasantly surprised they didn't :) )



50 Hours you say ??!.... well it's an rpg with exploration and i am a horder who likes to do and see all, so that seems viable ( nearing the end though )

What i wanted to adress here is "the grinding". I hae read things that claimed later chapters ( 3 and upwards ) were grind-heavy

However trough normal gameplay alone i maxed out pretty much all i could need for the type of playtrough i was going for... so i REALLY can't see any reason in what they claimed.

Just saying :)
( see screenshot ) http://gtm.you1.cn/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1275856095

Point of this game is to make a choice... it is nearly impossible to have all weapons maxed as the enemy spawn ( as well as plantspawn ) is finite.... inbetween chapters some new spawns are added but once you kill them they are gone for the rest of the chapter
=
a limited amount of xp to be gained

So choices are to be made on what you want to play with

- Axes have supreme damage but leave you rather defenceless for a long time and are slow for a long time... in return, along with their damgeoutput, they allow for charged attacks from the start so you can break stance on enemies who are guarding

- Swords are fast and nimble and combine well with a shield ( exception for 2 handed swords and bas tard swords )..... in return their damage outputs take a while to get on par with axes

- Staves are overall the weakest weapons but have extended range and a fast attack rate.. making it so you avoid most incoming damage by simply being out of range :) ( at max staves skill they get damageboosted to get up par with the rest ) ( they are designed as a backup melee for mages )

- as for seal-magic ( just pick one you like and level it up ) ( fire - ice - bullets ) .... they all build up over time and scale on wisdom

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It's worser points so far lie within combat

-You can't treat it as a hack "n slash, which would feel natural. If you do you'll die ( quite a lot if you get to hungry for that one stab ).

-Blocking, as it should, doesn't deny any and everything ( you can't really hold an axe sideways and assume a wolf can't bite you ( shields do prevent this but weapons alone don't ).
Somewhat anooying at times but it makes sense.

- Dodging is "wonky" -- let's be honest, it is... this game has ( just like ds1 ( it's all i have to compare for this problem ) input-memory... or in ohter words not all your actions are actually actions you want to take.

Dodging requires you to press a direction key twice or "direction key + space".
The problem resides within the double press, if you go to quick the game keeps a mamory of it so you'll end up dodging "in delay" ( would be the best description ).

- Same for your weapon swinging - click it to fast and the game will in delay add in a 4th swing in what is a 3-swing combo.... which just leaves you open and that's never good!

So combat, as interesting as it is, is something that takes osme getting used to!


Aside form the combat ( which you get used to, at least i did ) I stil have to find something excrutiatingly unbearable to mention here....

There are claims of bugs with jumping and falling... I have not seen them yet ( maybe that's just random luck on my behalf, but i can't really support them if i can't see them :p )
The xbox version was horrible from what i have heard, but this version seems to have done some fixing... so yeah, not much to say here ( I am looking for it though )

The end seems to be lackluster according to some.. final update.... it is indeed unrewarding, the way getting to the end is by far superior to the end itself ( then agian, the end isn't exactly the majortiy of gameplay... )

Don't overhype or overexpect the ending :)


Quicksaving........
Negative reviews complain about quicksaving and the fact you NEED to do it...
Well they aren't exactly wrong. There is no scaling in this game. Enemies get their health values and damagevalues form the start and they stick with it the entire game.

You pretty much start out with only being able to handle a couple of things propperly on your own and getting destroyed by everything else. As you progress that balance changes.
Things you could handle before are now a joke and harder enemies suddenly become things you can handle.

However troughout your game it is INDEED BEST to hit quicksave pretty much every fight you win or every corner you turn and find safe.
There is an autosave feature that supports this, but you will run into instances were you either die because you couldn't handle it or just messed up and have the autosave be half an hour backwards.

So i guess it's something worth mentioning as a negative trait if you dislike pressing an f# key :)


Quests....

I found that by exploring ( which i did mostly during chapter 2 - going everywere, investigating everything ) it is possible to acomplish quests that you never received to begin with.

Generally these are "Go fetch this" or "Go find that" quests.... this probalby could have been handled better.

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Other then that.... open world, nothing stopping you at all.... exploration everywhere....and nobody telling you anything or holding your hand ^^

"You can get one armor set about 15 minutes in direclty out of the tutorial ( allthough you have to steal it and the guy has a deadeye on his chest :p ) and the next easiest set is 500 gold ( which is rather pricey at the very start ).

And no armor = a lot of pain.

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OVERALL