So, right to the point.
Yes, I do recommend Realms of Arkania, but with a number of caveats.

Realms of Arkania is definitely "budget," definitely indie, and most definitely rough around the edges in places. RoA still has a couple of UI glitches, and isn't always pretty to look at. The English voice acting is atrocious.

However, the game-stopping bugs present at launch have been fixed. The visuals are adequate; not great, but not terrible. The voice acting, luckily, can be disabled.

As for gameplay, RoA is almost more of a management sim than a typical RPG. I actually appreciate that. The preparation you have to put into traveling during the winter months is possibly more important than how well-equipped your party is for combat. You just don't see certain kinds of brutal gameplay concepts (exposure, thirst & starvation, exhaustion, sickness & disease) in these kinds of games anymore. Unless you play smart, your adventure can easily end during the first winter, with your frostbitten party starving to death on a mountain trail.

How many fantasy RPGs have you played lately in which a winter coat is more important to your survival than a +3 sword?

Now, I didn't buy RoA at release. In fact, I didn't begin playing it until after the final major patch was out. So I didn't experience how badly broken it was at release. My only experience of RoA is with the game in its current state.

So, how is it currently? As far as I can tell, RoA is feature-complete compared to the original Realms of Arkania game from the '90s. Every quest present and working in the original is present and working in this remake. In fact, the devs have added new bits of content to the game (quests, encounters, etc), so the game now has MORE content than the original.

Again, RoA isn't the prettiest game to look at. But the gameplay itself is just what I was looking for when I bought it - unforgiving, difficult, oldschool, and based in the Dark Eye universe.

At over 100 hours ingame, and having finished the main questline and nearly all side quests, I can honestly say that I got my money's worth out of Realms of Arkania. Your mileage may vary, however, depending on how tolerant you are of outdated graphics, general lack of polish, and brutally unforgiving gameplay straight out of 1992.

So, right to the point. Yes, I do recommend Realms of Arkania, but with a number of caveats. Realms of Arkania is definitely "budget," definitely indie, and [i]most definitely[/i] rough around the edges in places. RoA still has a couple of UI glitches, and isn't always pretty to look at. The English voice acting is atrocious. However, the game-stopping bugs present at launch [b]have[/b] been fixed. The visuals are adequate; not great, but not terrible. The voice acting, luckily, can be disabled. As for gameplay, RoA is almost more of a management sim than a typical RPG. I actually appreciate that. The preparation you have to put into traveling during the winter months is possibly more important than how well-equipped your party is for combat. You just don't see certain kinds of brutal gameplay concepts (exposure, thirst & starvation, exhaustion, sickness & disease) in these kinds of games anymore. Unless you play smart, your adventure can easily end during the first winter, with your frostbitten party starving to death on a mountain trail. How many fantasy RPGs have you played lately in which a winter coat is more important to your survival than a +3 sword? Now, I didn't buy RoA at release. In fact, I didn't begin playing it until after the final major patch was out. So I didn't experience how badly broken it was at release. My only experience of RoA is with the game in its current state. So, how is it currently? As far as I can tell, RoA is feature-complete compared to the original Realms of Arkania game from the '90s. Every quest present and working in the [i]original[/i] is present and working in this remake. In fact, the devs have added [i]new[/i] bits of content to the game (quests, encounters, etc), so the game now has MORE content than the original. Again, RoA isn't the prettiest game to look at. But the gameplay itself is just what I was looking for when I bought it - unforgiving, difficult, oldschool, and based in the Dark Eye universe. At over 100 hours ingame, and having finished the main questline and [i]nearly[/i] all side quests, I can honestly say that I got my money's worth out of Realms of Arkania. Your mileage may vary, however, depending on how tolerant you are of outdated graphics, general lack of polish, and brutally unforgiving gameplay straight out of 1992.