I got the game on Saturday after playing the demo. I've played for about 20 hours now, so here are my current impressions:
- So far I've been primarily playing the Wood Elf, who is essentially a Rogue-style character with some rudimentary skills in melee and summoning. I would say that ranged combat is a bit flawed, as enemies generally move way too fast for you to successfully target them from a distance and keep the pointer on them as they run towards you. You can shoot on horseback as well, and that has the advantage of allowing you to retreat from enemies, firing arrows as you go. When you're on horseback, you fire much more slowly and seem to have a lower hit rate.
- I've also played a bit of the Battle Mage, and I played the Gladiator (basically the Barb from D2) and Seraphim (essentially an angel with a mix of magic, ranged and melee combat) in the demo. I would say that melee and magic work better than ranged.
- The world is huge, and as such can be quite daunting. Cities are extremely spaced-out, often requiring a great deal of time to travel between them. There are waypoints as such, but they are quite spread out and are not always in the most obvious places.
- So far I have amassed a ridiculous amount of gold and have little need for it. The items you can buy from merchants don't tend to be particularly interesting, and the stuff you pick up from enemies' corpses doesn't tend to be any different.
- The stat system is intriguing. Every time you level up, you gain a percentage of each stat's starting value, and get one point to put into a stat of your choice. You also get a certain number of points (based on level) to put into passive bonuses.
- There is no mana as such. Instead, combat moves and spells are on a timer. The amount of time between casting actually increases rather than decreases as you level up spells, which means that adding points to a spell might not always be the best idea.
- You can save whenever you want, but if you die you respawn in what I assume to be the nearest city, with no penalties (except losing your horse if you had one). Enemies to respawn D2-style, which is annoying if you want to quickly run through an area you've already visited.
- Overall I'm finding the game enjoyable but daunting. I find myself playing for very long stretches at a time (i.e. several hours), something I don't normally do with games. It's addictive but not always completely thrilling: there's more a desire to complete your currently available quests than a genuine interest in finding out what happens next. I would say that it lies somewhere in between DIABLO and BALDUR'S GATE. There's not enough depth in the story and missions to make it an interaction-based game, and the fighting system isn't refined enough to make it a combat-oriented game. Still, it makes a nice change from endless reruns of D2, and if you enjoy it I would say this should appeal to you.
- So far I've been primarily playing the Wood Elf, who is essentially a Rogue-style character with some rudimentary skills in melee and summoning. I would say that ranged combat is a bit flawed, as enemies generally move way too fast for you to successfully target them from a distance and keep the pointer on them as they run towards you. You can shoot on horseback as well, and that has the advantage of allowing you to retreat from enemies, firing arrows as you go. When you're on horseback, you fire much more slowly and seem to have a lower hit rate.
- I've also played a bit of the Battle Mage, and I played the Gladiator (basically the Barb from D2) and Seraphim (essentially an angel with a mix of magic, ranged and melee combat) in the demo. I would say that melee and magic work better than ranged.
- The world is huge, and as such can be quite daunting. Cities are extremely spaced-out, often requiring a great deal of time to travel between them. There are waypoints as such, but they are quite spread out and are not always in the most obvious places.
- So far I have amassed a ridiculous amount of gold and have little need for it. The items you can buy from merchants don't tend to be particularly interesting, and the stuff you pick up from enemies' corpses doesn't tend to be any different.
- The stat system is intriguing. Every time you level up, you gain a percentage of each stat's starting value, and get one point to put into a stat of your choice. You also get a certain number of points (based on level) to put into passive bonuses.
- There is no mana as such. Instead, combat moves and spells are on a timer. The amount of time between casting actually increases rather than decreases as you level up spells, which means that adding points to a spell might not always be the best idea.
- You can save whenever you want, but if you die you respawn in what I assume to be the nearest city, with no penalties (except losing your horse if you had one). Enemies to respawn D2-style, which is annoying if you want to quickly run through an area you've already visited.
- Overall I'm finding the game enjoyable but daunting. I find myself playing for very long stretches at a time (i.e. several hours), something I don't normally do with games. It's addictive but not always completely thrilling: there's more a desire to complete your currently available quests than a genuine interest in finding out what happens next. I would say that it lies somewhere in between DIABLO and BALDUR'S GATE. There's not enough depth in the story and missions to make it an interaction-based game, and the fighting system isn't refined enough to make it a combat-oriented game. Still, it makes a nice change from endless reruns of D2, and if you enjoy it I would say this should appeal to you.