The subject matter caught my attention imediatly, and I resolved to buy this the day of release. Being a student ( and degree holder ) Of History I was really looking forward to a game thatFinnaly did not invole just running around shooting everything etc.

Finally i hoped, a game that made you think and refected True Hisroy.

I always said a game, ANY Game thats starts with a cut sceen or in this case over long and boring pointless Prologe, that you can not skip, is a very bad sign, and this game demostrated that in the worst possible way.

First it started in Polish? ( i dont know) after i managed to get it to show Englsh. I had to suffer the over long prologe yet again without ANY option to bypass.
That in a nut shell is crime number one in ANY and all games that start like that.

The sheer stupidity of the Devloperes is given away in that one instance as far as i am concerned, but what do i know ive onlty been gaming and building computers for over 30 years (Thats right i said 30) The so called "Ai" is a living joke and has to be experienced to be belived!

This game will go down as the fastest refund request i EVER made. Thank God for GOG and thir solid refund policy!

So apart from the over-long cutscenes (which they have apparently already patched on steam - as usual GOG gets to wait for it) - the gameplay is crap too?

Asking because I have this wishlisted, but was waiting to see how deep it was. So far the general feeling appears to be that they exposed too much stuff (e.g. you can see exactly what your decision will impact before actually making it) - therefore making the game an exercise in balancing bars and charts and other numbers. Was that your impression as well (apart from the points above)?

BTW since I'm asking stuff - is the whole "match up the question" thing really as lame as it looks? Because it looks really, really simplistic. Without having played it, it looks like something they put there just to give players something to do - it looks like pointless busywork.

Also - not sure if you've played enough to answer this, but anyway - does your family really influence things as much as it would appear? It seems like pissing off your wife (for example) seems to have this ridiculously massive negative impact on your reputation/support, which seems kind of stupid (unless she's supposed to be some kind of super-behind-the-scenes-networking-wonder-woman or something?).

I was hoping they'd go more with an approach like King of Dragon Pass - where you have choices but have to rely on the advice of others (who may be biased and/or not great in that area). If everything's laid out for you then it's too gamey for me.

I was prepared for it to be yet another one of the many, many half-assed "political" games out there - they pretend to be all "mature" and provide "difficult choices", but in the end they're ridiculously simplistic with just some political theme draped over the top. That doesn't mean I'm not still disappointed...


TBH I would have been quite happy if someone told me it's at least on the same level (in terms of depth etc.) as ancient political games such as:
- Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator
- Hidden Agenda
- Crisis in the Kremlin

I realise in all of those your effectively a head of state (or similar) and not a judge (making this game somewhat unique AFAIK?) - but I would have at least expected a level of depth equal to games developed in the late '80s early '90s.

Its mostly political game where you have try to find balance with 3 factions. With too low score you get guillotined. Different faction favours different sentences and the game shows how much does the favour of faction will change. At least on big cases.

You need to read documents regarding the case, from that do this mind map kind of stuff and you get bunch of questions, which will affect jurys opinion on the sentence. So you can figure out the truth in the cases, but mostly its better to ask certain questions so jurys give the opinion you want. Playing by the books will in most cases hurt you.

Low influence with family members give reputation & faction penalties, with high influence its vice versa. It kinda makes sense, with low influence, it gives your political enemies a tool to use it against you. There are these events where you also are trying to find weak points on enemies via their family members.

It gets harder to keep right balance with factions and keep family members happy. Story is interesting enough with all this political intrigue. Seems that there are 3 acts and I'm on act 2. Its has same feeling as Papers Please, but without it time limit.

Ah, that makes things clearer - especially the comparison to Papers Please, which I thoroughly enjoyed despite it seeming quite simplistic. Good to know there aren't time limits though, that was the only thing I didn't enjoy as much about PP (although I don't see how PP could have worked without it).

It makes sense that it's more about balancing than actual "justice", so I guess the fact that the resulting opinion shift from your questions is known in advance is a good thing. In that if it weren't known in advance, I could see it leading to continuous save-scumming. The main problem with it the way it is though, is that it reduces the whole thing to carefully matching a pair of bar charts...

They could have done without the pointless question-matching mini-game thing to unlock questions, and just given the player the questions straight away, or alternatively come up with some other (more logical, less pointless) method to unlock questions. This seems to exist simply to waste time.

Those events to find weak points - are these the "intrigues"? From what I've seen, these look to be interesting. Are there generally multiple options to proceed, or is it generally pretty linear or binary like the trials? Does it change the plot depending on choices?

Also, how are the "battles"? There look to be some tactical battles, which look to use tactics from the period, albeit in a very simplistic manner. Are they as simplistic as they look?

I'm still on the fence atm - though I may get it at some point, since it looks to be interesting enough to play through at least once.

I guess question matching is trying to be a certain puzzle. You can mess them up if you don't read them carefully, like locking most of the questions, only influecing jury opposite you would want or even worse, not enough questions to deternime if subject is quilty or innocent. I rarely play these kind of games, so I "like" it.

Yes, those intrigues are part of the main storyline against your foes. Its mostly certain actions, you choose one and select best course of action. There is a chance that intrigues are success of failure. There is also a certain minigame where you speak to the people or important people and try to win them on yourside. Its mostly minigame, where you choose right reaction depending on personalities etc.

Battles happen now and then, and they are pretty simplistic. Differnt type of units and you choose best way to attack. Meaning, people with pitchforks should choose charge attack instead of defensive stance (musket cover fire or something) type of thing.

Its a nice game, and I bought it for its setting and production value. Atmosphere is good, but its still better to buy from sale, or if you don't have any other game going on.

EDIT: Just finished the game and act III is the weakest and rushed. It left sour taste, in gameplay and in story. Just get if from sale.

Hello

It's not fun to hear because I am a shareholder of this company
I'm not a gamer but I'm interested in whether the quality of this game is cool and the story is addictive

Alvare Materace