What a weird game. None of the individual elements in it feel like they work with each other.
Combat is fun, fast and fluid, freely letting you change classes is very welcome and offers a lot of possibilities. But combat also gets extremely easy very early on and besides the Dragons never changes. You'll spend most of the game fighting the same 4-5 enemies, none of which will pose a challenge to you. And that's a shame because the combat offers a lot of possibilities. A mage can cast an ice attack that a fighter then might use as a ramp to jump onto an enemy! That's neat! But the fights are usually so easy there is never much need for it. It can happen for fun, and is fun, but it never feels necessary or strategic. Since the combat is so braindead easy getting new gear barely feels like a reward since it won't change the way you play the game and will just...do more damage. And that's if you can find gear for your class at all. The much maligned fast travel system (or lack thereof) worked for me - until it didn't. There are definitely "I'm miles away from the next town, I'm running low on supplies, everybody is hurting and it's getting dark" moments which feel great. But the downside is that you'll have to run through the same environement over and over and over and over again, fighting the same enemies over and over again.
I don't care how much people love the pawns in this game, I don't get it. I can only hear them repeat the same dialogue 4 times, which you will usually do within a single trip, before wanting to throw them off a bridge. I don't think it's charming, it just feels soulless, sorry. Soulless is also a good way to describe the story and characters which were so uninteresting I stopped paying any attention at some point. But every time I thought I was done something happened in the open world that gave me some hope that there might be more to it. Be it a griffon carrying me away (which then killed me but it was fun regardless) or encountering a dragon fighting a cyclops.
I just wish there was something more to it. If it had engagine side quests, if the combat was just a bit more complex, if there were more interesting things to find in the open world, if travelling from place to place actually felt dangerous and not like a chore, this could've been a really cool game. Instead it is a game that charmed me for the first 10ish hours when all of that still felt like a possibility, entertained me for 5 more hours and then bored me.
Combat is fun, fast and fluid, freely letting you change classes is very welcome and offers a lot of possibilities. But combat also gets extremely easy very early on and besides the Dragons never changes. You'll spend most of the game fighting the same 4-5 enemies, none of which will pose a challenge to you. And that's a shame because the combat offers a lot of possibilities. A mage can cast an ice attack that a fighter then might use as a ramp to jump onto an enemy! That's neat! But the fights are usually so easy there is never much need for it. It can happen for fun, and is fun, but it never feels necessary or strategic. Since the combat is so braindead easy getting new gear barely feels like a reward since it won't change the way you play the game and will just...do more damage. And that's if you can find gear for your class at all. The much maligned fast travel system (or lack thereof) worked for me - until it didn't. There are definitely "I'm miles away from the next town, I'm running low on supplies, everybody is hurting and it's getting dark" moments which feel great. But the downside is that you'll have to run through the same environement over and over and over and over again, fighting the same enemies over and over again.
I don't care how much people love the pawns in this game, I don't get it. I can only hear them repeat the same dialogue 4 times, which you will usually do within a single trip, before wanting to throw them off a bridge. I don't think it's charming, it just feels soulless, sorry. Soulless is also a good way to describe the story and characters which were so uninteresting I stopped paying any attention at some point. But every time I thought I was done something happened in the open world that gave me some hope that there might be more to it. Be it a griffon carrying me away (which then killed me but it was fun regardless) or encountering a dragon fighting a cyclops.
I just wish there was something more to it. If it had engagine side quests, if the combat was just a bit more complex, if there were more interesting things to find in the open world, if travelling from place to place actually felt dangerous and not like a chore, this could've been a really cool game. Instead it is a game that charmed me for the first 10ish hours when all of that still felt like a possibility, entertained me for 5 more hours and then bored me.