I finished another game at long last! It's true! And it only took me three whole months :)

I had a lot of fun with this. As someone who's historically not really a strategy game player of any stripe it was a little touch and go to begin with but once I got the hang of it the combat system became quite enjoyable. The default difficulty is probably... a little too easy, to be honest, especially by the end (and especially if you build certain characters extremely brokenly. Looking at you, Yrliet) but the difficulty being very customizable is quite nice. I didn't tune it up during my playthrough even though I definitely could have but also I'm going to be playing this again for certain so I'll mess around with that when I do.

Enjoyed as a story experience too! My entire breadth of knowledge of Warhammer prior to engaging with this came from playing a bit of Darktide and spending a long time listening to my friends who were obsessed with it tell me stuff about the lore. It should be noted that part of the reason this took me some time to finish is that between starting it and now, I did also start reading the novels, and now I have an incurable brainsickness related to that- I consider this to be something that this game should take as positive though. In retrospect, it's not a terrible introduction to 40K, just due to the sheer scope of things it covers. At least 10+ factions from the 'verse are represented to some degree here so you really do get a good idea of what the setting is like. Still heavily Imperium-focused but you know what, that's just fine.

Also, and this is an addendum I feel compelled to add just because it's directly responsible for me wanting to play this game in the first place, has one of the most batshit insane romance subplots in a game I've ever experienced. Dunno how VG romances after this are going to stack up to Evil Torture Elf who is your pet cat :J

40K was always a universe I appreciated from afar but never enjoyed while engaging with it. This holds true for this game too, the needlessly wordy and tiresome writing and terminology made this slow going but enjoyable enough. The combat was fun as well with some decent choices and tactics. I put this game down mostly because of the perks/class system. I found myself scrolling through menus and reading dozens of uninteresting perks for 15+ minutes every time one or more characters leveled up. I didn't stick with it long enough to fully flesh this system out so I can't attest to possible evolution that I didn't get to. But wow this dragged the games pace to a crawl that frustrated me to no end. So unfortunately, I think this is where my playthrough ends for now.

I'll enjoy basically any mid-budget or above party crpg, but I think this is the most playable of owlcat's endearing attempts at making an rpg. The writing is kinda bad, the levels are kinda bad, the combat is kinda bad, but if you want to play a crpg as a whole everything works pretty well!

In contrast to owlcat's last two games this one isn't completely impossibly difficult. I think this is a consequence of the rule system (designed by owlcat I think?) being simple enough to be trivial to break, vs the prior games being pathfinder which requires some kind of a super dork phd to keep up with the power curve of absurdly min-maxed enemies.

As a fan of Warhammer 40k and CRPGs, I enjoyed Rogue Trader. It was the first Owlcat game I actually finished, but I just can't recommend it to anyone. Because this game is a mess. Here are my thoughts right after reaching the end for the second time.

Let's start with presentation. I wasn't paying attention to the game during Beta stage, but it feels like Owlcat created "just enough" content to push it to release, and this feeling of "just enoughness" never left me. There's lack of... everything, really:
-GFX assets
What's the difference between several unique Medium Armor sets you have? They share the same icon - you have to check the tooltip.
Most of the talents either have no picture at all or share the same one - once again, you gotta check the tooltips.
-Voiceover
In-battle barks are reused so often they became memes inside the community.
Party banter is just... there, existing in a vacuum.
Most dialogues are silent until they are suddenly not. This one hurts because VAs did a pretty good job (especially with Cassia and Argenta), but the amount of spoken lines is so small one can't help but wonder why Owlcat even bothered.
-Polish
Goofy animations, a-posing, interface bugs are so prominent you will learn to ignore them.

It's not like those are game-breaking critical issues, but this really sets the tone of the game.

Let's get to the design.
-It's overwhelming, but also simplistic
The amount of archetypes is ridiculously small. For a good chunk of a game you will have 2 or 3 core abilities to rely upon, but they are surrounded by a plethora of talents to choose from. Talents bombard you with numbers and complex modifiers, making early leveling a chore with unobvious payoff. But that does not matter, because...
-Balance is non-existent
You will eventually pick up 90% of all available talents and start clearing rooms before Turn 1 is concluded. The game tries to counter it by introducing fatter enemies with bullshit abilities.

Story.
-Vastness of a sea, depth of a puddle
There're lots of things happening on the background during your journey and everything neatly ties up in the end, but the way the plot is presented is kinda messy and disjointed.
Your companions' character arcs happen in their own little bubbles and abruptly end without any satisfactory closure.
Reactivity withers up and dies during act 2. World type? Previous Career? Triumph? Darkest Hour? Most of the decisions? Previous events? Rarely (if ever) brought up until the ending slides begin to roll.

It seems that Owlcat had some interesting ideas, but in attempts to make them work they ran out of money and/or time. Still, I think their recreation of Warhammer universe was pretty spot-on, even if some enemies were just too ridiculous for a mere human Rogue Trader. Locations were small, but packed with little things and were pleasant to look at. Sound design was also great. But the rest is... yeah.