Safe to say I fell into the same rabbit hole with this game that many other people last year did also. I was particularly surprised because I had no prior DnD knowledge and the only CRPG I had played was Disco Elysium, which I didn't even know was a CRPG or what that genre really was.
I'm going to try and avoid doing a full crazy detailed breakdown of my thoughts on the game cause I feel like I could ramble for quite a while since with 100 hours played in like less than 3 weeks, theres a lot I can say. Clearly I was hooked, once I managed to get an understanding of the combat I was able to settle in and enjoy the next 70 hours or so unimpeded for the most part.
I say it like that because while I did enjoy the game overall, I think the wheels start to fall off a bit in act 3. This game was in early access for two years I believe where people could play all of act 1. You can tell when you play that act 1 is definitely the most polished part and I kind of wish they had done the same for the other acts. Act 2 is very light compared to act 3 content wise and even act 1, and act 3 is basically as large as act 1 and 2 put together and is almost overwhelming when you reach that point after already putting in 70-80 hours only to get a new objective for the real endgame bad guys.
That being said, I wouldn't put 100 hours in so quickly if I didn't enjoy it. I think the writing is top tier, even the most random of NPCs are a level of interesting, and not a single voiced line is phoned in, everyone from the main cast to a pig on a farm puts their all into the voice work. I think the character build system and all the spells, cantrips etc can be overwhelming initially but once you find some stuff you like the game is pretty much beatable with most setups, bar a select number of disgusting fights in act 3 that really need to be patched for a quick redesign, looking at you Viconia.
In summary, writing and va good, plenty of content, initially overwhelming, overstuffed final act along with some bugs and frustrating dev decisions lead to a small dip in enjoyment but overall I'd recommend and honestly I think if I had any prior DnD experience I would have given it a 5/5 since I'd already have a lot of the onboarding already done and understood.
I'm going to try and avoid doing a full crazy detailed breakdown of my thoughts on the game cause I feel like I could ramble for quite a while since with 100 hours played in like less than 3 weeks, theres a lot I can say. Clearly I was hooked, once I managed to get an understanding of the combat I was able to settle in and enjoy the next 70 hours or so unimpeded for the most part.
I say it like that because while I did enjoy the game overall, I think the wheels start to fall off a bit in act 3. This game was in early access for two years I believe where people could play all of act 1. You can tell when you play that act 1 is definitely the most polished part and I kind of wish they had done the same for the other acts. Act 2 is very light compared to act 3 content wise and even act 1, and act 3 is basically as large as act 1 and 2 put together and is almost overwhelming when you reach that point after already putting in 70-80 hours only to get a new objective for the real endgame bad guys.
That being said, I wouldn't put 100 hours in so quickly if I didn't enjoy it. I think the writing is top tier, even the most random of NPCs are a level of interesting, and not a single voiced line is phoned in, everyone from the main cast to a pig on a farm puts their all into the voice work. I think the character build system and all the spells, cantrips etc can be overwhelming initially but once you find some stuff you like the game is pretty much beatable with most setups, bar a select number of disgusting fights in act 3 that really need to be patched for a quick redesign, looking at you Viconia.
In summary, writing and va good, plenty of content, initially overwhelming, overstuffed final act along with some bugs and frustrating dev decisions lead to a small dip in enjoyment but overall I'd recommend and honestly I think if I had any prior DnD experience I would have given it a 5/5 since I'd already have a lot of the onboarding already done and understood.