I've only beaten this once, but I've escaped Fort Joy at least five times, both solo and with different groups. That should tell you how much I enjoy the game mechanically to be excited to start the campaign over that many times on a whim, but it should also tell you how little thrust the story elements have that it took me so long to beat it just once. It's one of the only CRPGs where I'm never disappointed to see a dialogue end with combat--it's just that fun. This works especially well in multiplayer, since there's not as much pressure to save scum for the easy route when fighting your way out of a tough situation is so satisfying.
And even outside of combat, there are some fun ways to use your party's powers to solve problems. Once, we were on a quest to kill a particular man, but doing so would anger all his cohorts and start a bloody, messy brawl that we didn't want any part in. So what did we do? We used a ring of teleportation to zap him out of anyone else's sight and pummeled him in a back alley. The game is full of little things like that which most other games would script or invisible-wall you out of doing, and that's where it shines. In fact, the world is often designed with this in mind, so when you can't simply cheese your way around an obstacle, pains have clearly been taken to make it feel like a natural part of the world rather than an arbitrary roadblock or limitation. Though the dialogues and non-companion characters tend not to get very deep, they're fun and functional enough to keep the rest of the game shiny and smooth.
This, in turn, makes me a lot less interested in the capital-R Role-playing--playing as a custom character gives you strictly fewer dialogue options than the pre-made "origin" characters (think playable companions), whereas I've retained very little sense of the values, history, or personality of my custom characters--but that doesn't stop me from getting joyfully lost in its immersive-sim-esque creativity. If Larian's upcoming Baldur's Gate 3 steps up the writing and atmosphere but retains the absolutely stunning way this game latches into my brain when I play it, it'll be an all-time great. Maybe this one already is.
[edit from 2023: oh BG3 is really good lol]
And even outside of combat, there are some fun ways to use your party's powers to solve problems. Once, we were on a quest to kill a particular man, but doing so would anger all his cohorts and start a bloody, messy brawl that we didn't want any part in. So what did we do? We used a ring of teleportation to zap him out of anyone else's sight and pummeled him in a back alley. The game is full of little things like that which most other games would script or invisible-wall you out of doing, and that's where it shines. In fact, the world is often designed with this in mind, so when you can't simply cheese your way around an obstacle, pains have clearly been taken to make it feel like a natural part of the world rather than an arbitrary roadblock or limitation. Though the dialogues and non-companion characters tend not to get very deep, they're fun and functional enough to keep the rest of the game shiny and smooth.
This, in turn, makes me a lot less interested in the capital-R Role-playing--playing as a custom character gives you strictly fewer dialogue options than the pre-made "origin" characters (think playable companions), whereas I've retained very little sense of the values, history, or personality of my custom characters--but that doesn't stop me from getting joyfully lost in its immersive-sim-esque creativity. If Larian's upcoming Baldur's Gate 3 steps up the writing and atmosphere but retains the absolutely stunning way this game latches into my brain when I play it, it'll be an all-time great. Maybe this one already is.
[edit from 2023: oh BG3 is really good lol]