Recent reviews by MostlyZ

Let me preface this by saying I understand that this game is in early access and is very much still in development. Most of my complaints are minor and will likely be satisfied by future updates. Moving forward, I am almost 20 hours into the game and here is what I think so far.

To start off, the character creator is a huge leap forward from Larian's previous games aside from overlooking a few things like height or physique sliders which are usually present in RPGs nowadays. I also notice it's lacking the ability to lock certain sliders and randomize your character. I am really hoping these features are added in future updates. Due to the fact that I put hundreds of hours into past Larian games, I was not expecting each race and it's backgrounds to have a separate prologues like other games such as Dragon Age: Origins have done in the past.

However, with such an anticipated game, I can't help but feel that it's something the game is really missing. When you choose a specific race like a dwarf, sure you get a few extra dialogue options here and there, but there is nothing about the experience that feels based off of your racial choice in any way other than combat which I will get into later. To expand the issue, choosing your background in the character creator has no real effect on any dialogue other than proficiencies.

My biggest complaint of all though is not being able to camp while members of your party are dead. This means many of my abilities are strictly unusable until I find a way to revive everyone. (not an easy task) I have probably spent 5 of my 17 hours playing the game walking around every town looking for the item to revive my party members. For story reasons, towns can be rid of a majority of their traders and lock you into a situation with no way to bring everyone back. All in all, I will not be surprised if I have to spend another couple hours to find a revive item. Edit: Turns out there is an undead npc you can find that will remain at your camp if you need to revive someone.

To end this review, the game is great overall. I was disappointed they decided not to launch with controller support or split screen, but the new combat has made up for it. It combines everything I liked from DOS 2 while discarding the feeling of unbalanced gear and turn-based buff timers. Most buffs now require concentration from a character, but they can remain until you camp for the day. This made the game feel like it was using the turn-based system strictly for combat versus it being a limitation to every mechanic the game had. In fact, the stealth system also takes advantage of turn-based now and makes for a pretty nice thieving experience. Anyway, I hope the few things I have shared help someone decide on whether or not to buy the game. I could have made this review several paragraphs longer, but I'd rather get back to playing the game. :) Cheers

(I didn't talk much about bugs because I have only crashed once in my experience, and the only other issue worth mentioning is slight visual oddities during dialogue)

I have to say I am absolutely stunned by how great this game. It is extremely refreshing to finally have an original combat system that is actually enjoyable. In fact it's so enjoyable that the only disappointment I have about this game is the lack of opportunity to experience it. Having played through to the end of the campaign I felt sort of slapped in the face at the end. You mean to say I made all of this progress just to be thrown into a small area with a couple of npcs that repeat the same dialogue? Now don't get me wrong, the experience was definitely worth what I paid. However, I was expecting at least some sort of system where I could enjoy randomized dungeons and build on to all of that progress. If you are like me and enjoy gameplay over dialogues you will be gravely disappointed by this game's replayablity factor. No one finds it exciting to replay encounters on a higher difficulty consisting of the same enemies slapped with higher resistances and damage capabilities. Now sure if you're a sucker for the story and want to see what the other three follower's have to offer then you'll likely have another enjoyable playthrough. That is as long as you don't change the difficulty and become frustrated with encounters that used to last ten minutes or so now lasting about a half of an hour. I think this feels really forced and isn't the kind of "difficulty" we are looking for.
The only other complaint I have regards the party customization. You mean I can't join a friend's game and create my own character to play how I like? Was it supposed to be fun to play as one of their undergeared side characters that recieved little attention in regard to how their skills were allocated? As if that wasn't enough, you are only able to make one completely customized character for your party throughout the entire playthrough. Why put these limits on such a beautiful game with great character customization?
Overall this was a great game that just deserves a little more thought in terms of replayability. Don't let these things sway you against buying the game. You likely won't be bothered by any of these issues until you've spent about 100 hours travelling about Rivellon or until you finish exploring all it has to offer. If you're a fan of RPGs, get it. DOS 2 is likely the best release of it's genre in the last decade