Posted July 20, 2019
Being the huge fan of Titan Quest (and diabloids generally) I was rather disappointed with what they did here.
First, I'm not much impressed with the setting and the lore part. I feel not much satisfaction while trifling with items in my inventory (that always was a big part of enjoyment of playing diabloids for me), I just don't like these rusty heaps of something that look almost identical to me. So, as a consequence, I feel no enjoyment in reading/learning items prefixes/suffixes (as I used to feel in Diablo, Titan Quest, Hellgate London etc), no joyful anticipation while looking at loot being dropped, and so on.
Then, I don't like skill trees much, both their layout (I like Diablo/Titan/Hellgate vertical orientation and can't get into new horizontal one) and the effects of skills themselves. Actually, I just don't see any interesting or original skills, they all seem... I don't know, generic?
Further, the constellations system seems too excess for me, it feels made just for being original-like (since we have no original skills in regular trees) but they are just pluses to some stats. So what such serious 'new' system was invented for? Just for scarce pluses and for the sake of 'looking original'?
Lacking of 'saving anywhere' option is a flaw for me too, though rather minor one.
On the whole, I just can't feel myself at home in this setting. This and some design decisions that are dubious for me - all prevents me from enjoying this game so far. And I realize that this won't be mended from developers' part, this is my own disposition that plays the main role. And it's a pity because Grim Dawn should be the perfect game for me 'on paper'.
Oh, I'd completely forgotten about the constellations part of the game probably because it is such a cluttered mess that I spent as little time as possible there so much so I just ignored it! I think at the end of the game I had quite a few points waiting to be spent...
The setting/story was quite good (although not on par with Titan Quest) but I did feel that some of the quests could have been recorded better as they felt quite vague by just giving a name of who/what should be killed. But I know that's a personal thing as many gamers don't like quests being too obvious. Would have been nice to have a setting though to adjust quest details.
Apart from the flaws (to me) that I've mentioned I thought the game was good, it mostly kept me entertained but I doubt I'll go back to it as it stands.