Recent reviews by Aku

For me, thew biggest downside is the apparent lack of long term progression. When I think of games with a class progression system like this, i absolutely think of Final Fantasy Tactics, where you had classes on classes on classes, making combos all around. sort of in a web.

Here, you've got 2 very small trees, adventurer and scholar. From that point, you are no more than 3 or 4 branches until you're at the end of any one limb. Scholar > acolyte > cleric for instance. in FFT you (I think) need to take levels in knight, to make that into a paladin. Here? nope, just a different break point at acolyte, and the path seems to stop there.

The other major issue, is a unit seems to only have 1 main attack option, by class. Choice of weapon just amounts to bigger numbers.

The game is good, even more addictive for me than StS

TL: NR Wait til it's on sale

So first off, if i could give a sideways thumb, I would. It is not a horrible game, in the least, however it is, by and large, a very poor part 1 of three. i would've preferred to see the whole series in one game @ a $30 price point, instead of 1 of 3 at ~15.

There were are a number of hooks just left hanging in nothingness. The write up of the game makes it sound like you've got a lot of choice. I can count on one hand the number of story choices I made, and none of them really seemed to make an impact in how the game played out. The key to an episodic or trilogy style series is to have enough immediate answers, to make you want to know what the longer term repercussions are. Here, none of my choices had any immediate impact, and so I can't say I have faith that anything i DID choose will resurface later.

"6 playable characters" well, yes. you have 6 people in your party. However, you lock yourself into 1 based on your starting choice, and there is only one main tank, and one main heal type character, as far as I could tell, out of the remaining 5, with only 3 allowed in the party in combat, and no in combat switching, it boiled down to me quickly finding a party and sticking to it.

Graphically, this one is a tough one, for me, because while yes, the graphics are pretty, there is something off about them, at the same time. The best I can say, is it didnt look like the perspective was right.Buildings looked abnormally tall/stretched, compared to the size and shape of the roofs for example. Everything, more or less, looked flat. I had a difficult time, especially in cities, telling one level from another.

Steam says i played almost 11 hours, the save game file said just over 6, to give you an idea how of much time i lost sitting through the same cut scenes since they can't be skipped or even fast talked through.

Community is going to be toxic. Had been playing for about an hour when i said i was bad at judging distance (was still learning ranges after all) on a "newb ranked server" mind you, and instantly got a kick vote.

All the fun of ruling the middle ages, without the need to go weeks without a shower!