Posted August 17, 2022
Since the devs appear to semi-actively check these forums I thought it might be worth providing some thoughts. I've just done a single playthrough, as a Rillow swindler: I generally played an anti-greed character (in a somewhat "gentleman thief" way), freed Zoria and romanced Bjalla.
Overall, besides the slowdown issues, there's quite a lot to like about the game. Honestly one of the standout features is the 2d art, portraits and really pretty loading screens, the artists absolutely knocked it out the park on those location sketches. The plot feels almost too BG1 at the start (there's an iron mining town in the south with big problems and civil unrest brewing whilst a darker plot involving the gods unfolds behind the scenes, you say?) but it does unfold a bit better towards the endgame.
In gameplay terms, combat's fine but it suffers a bit at times from the combat system being very detailed (I often had a ton of effects I could trigger with different spells and zero idea what actually countered what or how I was meant to work that out). The last fight was annoying rather than fun, and that's even with the fact that I knew about the chain-breaking thing to start with. I wonder if Rothgor's dialogue could be tweaked to make the chains thing more obvious? I think the tanks' ability to pull aggro onto them is quite weak compared to some other games in this genre, which makes baiting for the chain breaches unreliable, and that's doubly true with how many minions Rothgor gets, which is tricky.
My biggest presentation/world-building gripe is the Rillow. The core idea is interesting, but I'm sorry to say that the execution and the way they're presented as horribly over-stereotyped mock oriental caricatures is tropey in a painful rather than a fun nostalgia sort of way. Everything from the related spell class being called "Oriental" to the merchants deciding that their major conversation topic is how much less sand there is in Isilmerald, to their Elenuator being presented as jealous and vengeful as opposed to the just and fair Alnarius, to them generally being shown as decadent merchants and little else, to the mix of visuals, it just... grates on me pretty hard, honestly. It's not helped by Siracca, who shows the Rillow at their worst in their reactions to her and who reinforces all the Isilmerald conceptions about what they're like. I think their Matriarch is okay, but chunks of the rest of their dialogues and presentation could do with an overhaul to make them feel a bit less like a negative stereotype from colonial-era adventure fiction. I genuinely nearly stopped playing the game when I reached the Garden of Delights because it did not feel good. This and the lag are the two things that would give me pause before recommending the game to a friend, I think it's a very major issue.
I think one main thing that could help without needing too massive a content change is just making the dialogues a bit more three-dimensional and detailed. Presumably their life in the desert but as great herbalists involves them, say, having really intricate mundane or magical irrigation systems, and different designs of house, and that feels like more the kind of thing people might comment on than just "ah it's all sand where we come from". Also when they talk about the journey, rather than just making it "a long way", having them discuss the actual hardships of the travel might help emphasise that despite the "decadent" image actually anyone who walks across a continent to trade is a pretty tough customer (and in this case, a tough proprietor). And maybe comments on what is and isn't available might humanise them a bit - like, I dunno, some Rillows complaining that nobody in Isilmerald grows the fenugreek they want for a recipe or something. I think also presenting the Garden of Delights a little more cyncially from the Rillow perspective might work: you could maybe work into some dialogues a bit of an admission that the reason the whole place feels such a stereotype is more about what sells easily to people with money in Isilmerald than it is a "real" reflection of culture in the east (like it'd be sort of fun someone in the dancing tent mentioned that actually Rillow dances are typically much more lively communal things and the belly-dancing show is just what the locals here expect).
Otherwise, most of the story was fine, occasional things struck me as odd. I did like having plenty of vineyards and things, that made Isilmerald feel a bit less generic somehow. At the beginning there is a weird moment where someone mentions a cold mead if I remember rightly: this is really not usually how you serve mead, which should be room temperature or actually served warmed up! It felt a bit weird to me that the people in some of the outlying villages like Fasitgrove are referred to as "settler" in the text - surely Isilmerald is a pretty old/settled landscape.
The ending felt a bit strange to me. I wasn't clear whether I had done something wrong or not, because the whole thing ended with a "well the good things aren't lasting, Zoria is free and the dark moon rises" - I mean, a cliffhanger for a future game or DLC like that is fine, but I wasn't sure from how it was presented if it was implying that there was some better outcome I should have been aiming for or anything like that. I also wasn't really sure how the greed mechanic factored into anything at the end, I'd been working pretty solidly on trying to keep party and world greed down as low as possible and it wasn't clear to me what the consequence of that actually was.
Smallish content and gameplay additions I'd like to see:
> Slightly bigger range of clothing and bigger recolourings. It felt weird that I couldn't get a turban anywhere despite my character obviously having one in his portrait. Also it would've been nice if the primary/secondary colours did more for the main look rather than just tiny bits of the trim of a garment (so if you get two sets of Rpbes of the Prodigy, you can't make them look different enough to be at-a-glance different on two separate characters. Also would've been nice to have my noble robes in a main colour of my choosing.
> It would've been nice to be able to camp or tavern-stay until the next dawn/dusk rather than 8hrs every time, even if it's an 8hr per rest system still: this would make city things where people only appear in day and night cycles easier in particular.
> Multi-level dungeons having a menu or system to allow you to skip through to later sections as long as you've reached them once would be very useful. Especially as the loading screens aren't that quick, turning back for supplies then having to load through all the level's of Amanuel's Hoard is a slog that feels unnecessary.
> I didn't like the fact that Jade and Bjalla will not share a party after their showdown about their tiaras. I can see a character leaving if you fully favoured one over the other, but I didn't favour either when facing the spirit. Jade stomping off in a huff felt very earned at that point, no complaint there, but if I can't persuade the friend I got a curse lifted from to make it up with my girlfriend then I'm really not sure what I'm carrying around maxed Bargain and Persuasion stats for - so I'd have liked some way to get a reconciliation there with appropriate stat checks.
> It'd be nice to add some text on what your companions do next to the end screen, maybe with some variations based on their quests, unless that needs to be kept in the dark for a future game or DLC.
Anyway, sorry if that was a bit of a ramble, I thought it was a fine game but with a couple of major issues that I hope will improve with future versions and hopefully someday more entries in the series :)
Overall, besides the slowdown issues, there's quite a lot to like about the game. Honestly one of the standout features is the 2d art, portraits and really pretty loading screens, the artists absolutely knocked it out the park on those location sketches. The plot feels almost too BG1 at the start (there's an iron mining town in the south with big problems and civil unrest brewing whilst a darker plot involving the gods unfolds behind the scenes, you say?) but it does unfold a bit better towards the endgame.
In gameplay terms, combat's fine but it suffers a bit at times from the combat system being very detailed (I often had a ton of effects I could trigger with different spells and zero idea what actually countered what or how I was meant to work that out). The last fight was annoying rather than fun, and that's even with the fact that I knew about the chain-breaking thing to start with. I wonder if Rothgor's dialogue could be tweaked to make the chains thing more obvious? I think the tanks' ability to pull aggro onto them is quite weak compared to some other games in this genre, which makes baiting for the chain breaches unreliable, and that's doubly true with how many minions Rothgor gets, which is tricky.
My biggest presentation/world-building gripe is the Rillow. The core idea is interesting, but I'm sorry to say that the execution and the way they're presented as horribly over-stereotyped mock oriental caricatures is tropey in a painful rather than a fun nostalgia sort of way. Everything from the related spell class being called "Oriental" to the merchants deciding that their major conversation topic is how much less sand there is in Isilmerald, to their Elenuator being presented as jealous and vengeful as opposed to the just and fair Alnarius, to them generally being shown as decadent merchants and little else, to the mix of visuals, it just... grates on me pretty hard, honestly. It's not helped by Siracca, who shows the Rillow at their worst in their reactions to her and who reinforces all the Isilmerald conceptions about what they're like. I think their Matriarch is okay, but chunks of the rest of their dialogues and presentation could do with an overhaul to make them feel a bit less like a negative stereotype from colonial-era adventure fiction. I genuinely nearly stopped playing the game when I reached the Garden of Delights because it did not feel good. This and the lag are the two things that would give me pause before recommending the game to a friend, I think it's a very major issue.
I think one main thing that could help without needing too massive a content change is just making the dialogues a bit more three-dimensional and detailed. Presumably their life in the desert but as great herbalists involves them, say, having really intricate mundane or magical irrigation systems, and different designs of house, and that feels like more the kind of thing people might comment on than just "ah it's all sand where we come from". Also when they talk about the journey, rather than just making it "a long way", having them discuss the actual hardships of the travel might help emphasise that despite the "decadent" image actually anyone who walks across a continent to trade is a pretty tough customer (and in this case, a tough proprietor). And maybe comments on what is and isn't available might humanise them a bit - like, I dunno, some Rillows complaining that nobody in Isilmerald grows the fenugreek they want for a recipe or something. I think also presenting the Garden of Delights a little more cyncially from the Rillow perspective might work: you could maybe work into some dialogues a bit of an admission that the reason the whole place feels such a stereotype is more about what sells easily to people with money in Isilmerald than it is a "real" reflection of culture in the east (like it'd be sort of fun someone in the dancing tent mentioned that actually Rillow dances are typically much more lively communal things and the belly-dancing show is just what the locals here expect).
Otherwise, most of the story was fine, occasional things struck me as odd. I did like having plenty of vineyards and things, that made Isilmerald feel a bit less generic somehow. At the beginning there is a weird moment where someone mentions a cold mead if I remember rightly: this is really not usually how you serve mead, which should be room temperature or actually served warmed up! It felt a bit weird to me that the people in some of the outlying villages like Fasitgrove are referred to as "settler" in the text - surely Isilmerald is a pretty old/settled landscape.
The ending felt a bit strange to me. I wasn't clear whether I had done something wrong or not, because the whole thing ended with a "well the good things aren't lasting, Zoria is free and the dark moon rises" - I mean, a cliffhanger for a future game or DLC like that is fine, but I wasn't sure from how it was presented if it was implying that there was some better outcome I should have been aiming for or anything like that. I also wasn't really sure how the greed mechanic factored into anything at the end, I'd been working pretty solidly on trying to keep party and world greed down as low as possible and it wasn't clear to me what the consequence of that actually was.
Smallish content and gameplay additions I'd like to see:
> Slightly bigger range of clothing and bigger recolourings. It felt weird that I couldn't get a turban anywhere despite my character obviously having one in his portrait. Also it would've been nice if the primary/secondary colours did more for the main look rather than just tiny bits of the trim of a garment (so if you get two sets of Rpbes of the Prodigy, you can't make them look different enough to be at-a-glance different on two separate characters. Also would've been nice to have my noble robes in a main colour of my choosing.
> It would've been nice to be able to camp or tavern-stay until the next dawn/dusk rather than 8hrs every time, even if it's an 8hr per rest system still: this would make city things where people only appear in day and night cycles easier in particular.
> Multi-level dungeons having a menu or system to allow you to skip through to later sections as long as you've reached them once would be very useful. Especially as the loading screens aren't that quick, turning back for supplies then having to load through all the level's of Amanuel's Hoard is a slog that feels unnecessary.
> I didn't like the fact that Jade and Bjalla will not share a party after their showdown about their tiaras. I can see a character leaving if you fully favoured one over the other, but I didn't favour either when facing the spirit. Jade stomping off in a huff felt very earned at that point, no complaint there, but if I can't persuade the friend I got a curse lifted from to make it up with my girlfriend then I'm really not sure what I'm carrying around maxed Bargain and Persuasion stats for - so I'd have liked some way to get a reconciliation there with appropriate stat checks.
> It'd be nice to add some text on what your companions do next to the end screen, maybe with some variations based on their quests, unless that needs to be kept in the dark for a future game or DLC.
Anyway, sorry if that was a bit of a ramble, I thought it was a fine game but with a couple of major issues that I hope will improve with future versions and hopefully someday more entries in the series :)
