This review contains spoilers
Lae'zel is the best thing about this game by a huge margin, her companion/romance story was amazing and she's one of my favorite video game characters because of it.
The rest of the companions were mostly just okay, and a lot of their stories were kind of underwhelming or disappointing (or basically nonexistent in Wyll's case). Shadowheart's story was probably my least favorite, especially with the ending focusing on her boring-ass parents who are given no characterization before this point. Karlach's story mostly just felt one-note, though I did love her little fangirl crush on Jaheira (me too Karlach, me too). I started a Durge run to romance Minthara and see her story for myself, but put it on hold as there seemed to be a lot of bugs surrounding her quest triggers.
The main story/plot was honestly godawful. The only good parts were those involving Raphael, Ketheric Thorm, and the late game reveal about the Emperor's true identity. By far the worst part of the plot is the most important aspect, the initial hook of the mind flayer parasites. At first it seems like a compelling reason for the party to get together, but it quickly falls apart when you're encouraged to infect yourself with more parasites in exchange for more powers. The reason this aspect falls so flat is that there is mechanically no reason to avoid doing this. There is no consequence, even just narratively, whatsoever for filling your brain with parasites, despite the entire first act's plot being dedicated to trying to find a way to remove the one parasite you started with. That's fucking stupid. The story in the second act is much better, but mostly because it's so separate from the story of the first and third acts. Act three picks back up with the mind flayer plot and it's immediately shit again. The House of Hope, the wizard tower, and the secret dragon fight are the best parts of the third act by a huge margin. The rest of the final act was mostly forgettable or disappointing.
I almost forgot to mention performance! It's shit! I have a decent PC, nothing fancy but it runs Elden Ring smoothly (shader compiling stutter notwithstanding, thanks Windows). In this game, cutscenes as early as the opening would fail to fully load textures and were consistently choppy. The Nightsong cutscene in act 2 completely failed to load almost all of the structures and details, which was a common theme for the rest of the game. By act 3, even outside of cutscenes entire buildings would refuse to load walls, floors, enemies, etc. The mansion where the painter's quest finishes was the worst offender.
Overall, this is one of the hardest games for me to rate. The voice acting is incredible, some of the writing is amazing, some of the set pieces and encounters are iconic; on the other hand, a lot of the writing sucks ass, some characters' stories are disappointing, and the main plot is mostly dogshit. Performance is bad, and in act 3 is unforgivably horrible. I love this game and I hate it at the same time.
The rest of the companions were mostly just okay, and a lot of their stories were kind of underwhelming or disappointing (or basically nonexistent in Wyll's case). Shadowheart's story was probably my least favorite, especially with the ending focusing on her boring-ass parents who are given no characterization before this point. Karlach's story mostly just felt one-note, though I did love her little fangirl crush on Jaheira (me too Karlach, me too). I started a Durge run to romance Minthara and see her story for myself, but put it on hold as there seemed to be a lot of bugs surrounding her quest triggers.
The main story/plot was honestly godawful. The only good parts were those involving Raphael, Ketheric Thorm, and the late game reveal about the Emperor's true identity. By far the worst part of the plot is the most important aspect, the initial hook of the mind flayer parasites. At first it seems like a compelling reason for the party to get together, but it quickly falls apart when you're encouraged to infect yourself with more parasites in exchange for more powers. The reason this aspect falls so flat is that there is mechanically no reason to avoid doing this. There is no consequence, even just narratively, whatsoever for filling your brain with parasites, despite the entire first act's plot being dedicated to trying to find a way to remove the one parasite you started with. That's fucking stupid. The story in the second act is much better, but mostly because it's so separate from the story of the first and third acts. Act three picks back up with the mind flayer plot and it's immediately shit again. The House of Hope, the wizard tower, and the secret dragon fight are the best parts of the third act by a huge margin. The rest of the final act was mostly forgettable or disappointing.
I almost forgot to mention performance! It's shit! I have a decent PC, nothing fancy but it runs Elden Ring smoothly (shader compiling stutter notwithstanding, thanks Windows). In this game, cutscenes as early as the opening would fail to fully load textures and were consistently choppy. The Nightsong cutscene in act 2 completely failed to load almost all of the structures and details, which was a common theme for the rest of the game. By act 3, even outside of cutscenes entire buildings would refuse to load walls, floors, enemies, etc. The mansion where the painter's quest finishes was the worst offender.
Overall, this is one of the hardest games for me to rate. The voice acting is incredible, some of the writing is amazing, some of the set pieces and encounters are iconic; on the other hand, a lot of the writing sucks ass, some characters' stories are disappointing, and the main plot is mostly dogshit. Performance is bad, and in act 3 is unforgivably horrible. I love this game and I hate it at the same time.