So, these days I`m just trying to have fun playing games without punishing difficulty, OP monsters, arbitrary time limits or very limited ressources.

I'm more interested in party/character development, storytelling, lore, combat and exploration.

Is it likely that I will enjoy this game or not?
I love the graphics BTW.

I don't remember exactly, unfortunately...I don't think it was very frustrating. I'm not sure what you mean by character development. If you mean story-wise, some characters are pretty interesting, others less. If you're talking about stuff like skill trees, there's not much.

If you like lore, I'm sure you'll enjoy talking to the natives, and there's lots to explore. Really? I thought the living cardboard cutouts in the 3D environments look a bit silly ;) Especially since you always see the front even when they move backwards.

This depends very much on how you choose to play the game.

Albion is an excellent RPG, but a rather primitive one in terms of game balance and it's quite easy to back yourself into a corner and end up in a situation where the game is virtually unwinnable. Fortunately, your chances to utterly screw yourself like this are fairly limited, and with the benefit of walkthroughs that's very unlikely to happen.

Difficulty: combat starts out at average difficulty and is pretty well balanced for the entire time you're in the main first area of the game (trying to avoid spoilers). Once you acquire your fourth party member and access to their crowd-control and disabling abilities combat becomes much easier. This applies pretty much for the rest of the game, providing you manage your supplies of (again trying to avoid spoilers) 'ability resources' and take a little time to make sure you're at an appropriate level for each new area.

Probably the single biggest piece of advice I could give would be to spend quite a bit of time in the main first area of the game to ensure your fourth party member has access to their highest level of crowd-control ability (this must be taught by a trainer) and /stock up on supplies/. If you do that, and make intelligent decisions about party makeup near the very end of the game, you will be just fine regarding difficulty.

Storytelling and lore are all absolutely top-notch. Exploration suffers a little - there's a lot to see but not a lot of it is actually populated by stuff to do (devs clearly ran out of money), but the world is engaging, engrossing and gorgeous. Unsure what you mean by character development - no skill trees here - and there's no party 'banter' as such that reflects one particular makeup over another, but overall the characters are well-realised and compelling.

It's not an easy game (at least on a first playthrough), but in my opinion it isn't overly difficult either. Combat is ok, not that great (can get a bit monotonous), but there's some variety in the type of enemies you face. You'll have to do some grinding, going out to the wilderness and killing monsters so you can acquire loot and level up your characters...but it's not that bad.
Skills system is fairly limited, you don't have much influence on your characters' stats and abilities. You can go to trainers and increase stats in melee combat, ranged combat, critical hits and lockpicking...and some items or unique events can raise stats temporarily or permanently...but that's it for character building.
Story-telling and lore is truly excellent however. Your party members also have some personality, don't exspect anything like Baldur's Gate 2 romances, but they do have back stories and come across as distinct personalities.
There's also quite a bit to explore, there are several different settings (you start out on a spaceship, then you get to a tropical island...later there's a large city, a desert setting etc.). Quite varied and nicely done.
It's a great game with a unique setting and story, with fairly decent gameplay...give it a try.

There are some situations in which you are outright killed, but that's avoidable. Also there are some mechanics in the game which help you make your life easier if you have troubles, some are intended, some are exploits, however even the exploits aren't worth bothering with unless you really have troubles.

Here's what you can do:
-At the beginning of the game on the Toronto you can aquire a pistol, which is an almost always hitter and one-shot killer in the earlygame, you can also steal all cups, of which some sell for steep prices (20g) and you can find some medicine to have early healing potions.
-Under some circumstances, the healer of the first city might give you a free potion, which you can sell for good money and you can exploit this to gain any amounts of money, but it takes time.
-If you click "fast enough", you can steal some decent wares from the shops' display.
-If the spellpoints of a mage are used up, he/she uses healthpoints to cast, if you cast healing over and over on the mage himself, he will eventually gain more hp than he loses for casting, thus he bascially has unlimited sp and can heal the entire party between battles.

Also remember that equipment is important and enemies get a lot easier, once you have decent defence. Also about the level of grinding required, well, if you walk around the map you are currently in once and fight the monsters you naturally encounter, your level should get high enough so that no further grinding is needed.

A lot of fun in the game comes from exploring, which is sometimes quite rewarding. Equipment, which you get for it is usually more important than levels. Albion certainly plays best, if you take your time with it. It's a genuine roleplay experiance I'd say.

Good, I'll buy it later this week.

Thanks for the help.

While I mostly agree with your post, I'd disagree with this - again trying to avoid spoilers, your second Iskai companion will not be high enough level from one pass around the first continent to learn the essential crowd-control spell that is almost required to get through the main dungeon in the second continent, quite apart from the lack of money needed to afford essential protective stuff from the second continent.

I agree. I just played Albion yesterday, up to getting to the 2nd island, and brought the Iskai mage up to level 10, so she could learn all the frost spells. It's important to do this because once you've left the first island, it takes a long time until you get the chance again to learn Iskai spells.
Anyway, on my playthrough yesterday I ran into a problem I had already encountered when I played Albion years ago. Some spells seem to be bugged and don't work properly - had this problem with the "Sleeping spores" spell yesterday. If it's the same as with my playthroughs of some years ago, some other spells will probably also be bugged ("Berserk"). Has anyone else had this problem?

So, you are half right, there are at least two instances, where grinding is recommandable. The first one is getting "her" high enough to get that "cool spell" early. The second is to grind for money in that fake choice moment late in the game. However, the game still remains very solvable without that first grind, however if you do, you have bascially won. In my recent play, I leveled her high enough by exploring the island once. (I didn't ressurect the useless character, xp for her was higher).

There's things in the game, if you understand how to do the battles, how to equip the characters and know which loot comes when and where, it gets very trivial. But actually I found that somewhat cool to find out. There's a lot you can figure out which makes your life a hell of lot easier. It's very rewarding if you figure these things out.

Correct. Again, I suspect a lack of funds. As of my last playthrough a number of spells have issues, from memory Berserk (does nothing other than occasional beeping noises on cast), Fungification (prevents looting if you kill foes with it - can break game), Light (duration of casts can stack and, I suspect, end up causing an integer overflow that results in permanent light for the rest of the game), Irritation (does nothing), Steal Magic (even at high proficiency never seem to gain more than cast cost).

Special mention for Thorn Snare, which is also broken but in a way that's ludicrously OP - prevents the trapped creature from doing anything for the rest of the combat, making boss-fights effectively auto-win. I should note that there does appear to be some very slight variation in effects - a few creatures, like the final boss in the Big Gloomy Grimdark Cult Dungeon (trying to avoid spoilers), or from memory the Arsehole Racist Rogue Cult Leader Druid will be made immobile but still able to attack adjacent squares and cast spells - but as the end-game boss is also neutered by the spell I suspect this is an oversight.

Then there are the spells that [I]work[/I] but you'd never cast, because they're objectively terrible (pretty much every trap-variant spell other than Thorn Snare, the 'Fire' spells, Regeneration, etc), but that's a different issue.

I think Berserk is bugged as is Sleeping spores in my version of the game...the beeping sound (which I get for Sleeping spores as well) supposedly is meant to indicate that a bug has occured. IIRC Berserk can even lower your characters' stats permanently (!) so it should be avoided.
The issue with Fungification (potential destruction of important items) is more of an oversight, the spell works as it was intended and is in fact one of the most powerful damage-dealing spells in the game (same issue also applies to Khamulon's gaze and Wrath of the goddess which also destroy items).
Wouldn't say the fire spells are useless...I used them quite a bit in my recent playthrough. Never really have used the trap spells though.
BTW, concering spells, does anyone know if there's a chance for Khunag to learn Khamulon's gaze? I've never found a scroll for that spell, though it is implemented in the game (there's an item that has the spell effect).
On the whole, Albion's combat and spell system isn't without flaws...but you do have some variety of options and it isn't that unbalanced. Honestly, I liked it better than the combat in Fallout 1/2 which I found rather tedious and simplistic.

If I remember correctly, he can learn the spell, but I don't remember where the scroll is - I didn't find it in my most recent playthrough.

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According to my old saves, the scroll is in Kamulon in the area after the party is imprisoned, but before they enter the 3D dungeon.

Hmm, I thought I'd thoroughly searched that area and found no scroll (just the sword that has the spell effect)...but thanks, I'll have a look.

OK, my mistake, I checked again and I had the scroll in Kamulon before being imprisoned, but Khunag's level was too low to learn it.
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Found it! It's in the prayer room. Behind the statue of Kamulos are two curtain-covered areas, if you go into the one on the right and then go down (behind the curtain) you will find the scroll.

Wow, cool, would never have occurred to me to look there...that's almost a secret area. Thanks for your help, it's greatly appreciated!