You've probably already heard about this game. But I must say this - the less you know before playing it, the better!

So I'll keep my review of it as spoiler free as possible while trying to share my thoughts on it and it's facets : visuals,
soundtrack, voice acting, characters, writing, gameplay and performance on a technical level.

TL;DR - It's a masterpiece transcending the RPG genre. Definitive recommend and the less you know the better.

Now onto the aspects of the review, and I'll kick it off with the 2 technical aspects - performance and gameplay.

It's an Unreal engine game, so it's not the best optimized game on the market, but it isn't too demanding of your hardware either - some areas/maps of the game are much more demanding than others though so you might notice some frame drops and slow downs in certain parts - besides that it very rarely crashed and I encountered zero game-breaking bugs.

On the gameplay side it heavily focuses on reflex-based gameplay, consisting of timed inputs and quick time events. Changing the difficulty can mitigate some of those requirements and another way would be to use helpful items that make those mechanics less important, though they still do and will always play a big role in the game.

There are no real quest markers nor is there a compass (only an overworld map), so you're left to your own devices to explore and unearth the world and its mysteries. And while there's a main quest of sorts, there are also
side-main and side-side quests that can enrich or explain some elements you might've been curious about. A lot of the game is optional and in most other titles I would not really bother - but here it's definitely worth it - to be fair there are some extremely difficult enemies recently added that I've been unable to defeat, but that's like 0.01% of the total content.

On the gameplay RPG side the game is decently deep, offering many types of builds and playstyles as you progress through the game, there are many possibilities in the order of your combatants as well as their roles during combat.

Once we leave the combat we can focus on everything else the game has to offer, firstly the visuals.

It's a beautiful game. Beautiful fails to completely capture it's charm and allure. The game world is vibrant with many distinct areas and unique motifs mixing surreal, supernatural, fantastic and realistic - the game page screenshots veritably represent the game. Exploration is a big part of understanding the game, so enjoying your traversals is a big plus. The characters look magnificent, certainly not flawless in the polygon department (yet more than good enough) but the motion capture on them just brings them to life in the first few minutes of the game. It's the game with the best character animations/motion capture I ever played - you can just feel it while you play. The cutscenes - literal cinema, art. No need to say more.

Voice acting is superb, for the main cast at least. Most of them are already top tier actors and voice actors, and they convey their characters in their scenes extremely well. I've played the game in English, but I took a gander at the French voiceovers and it sounds really good as well, though I prefer the English version.

The soundtrack is one of the few ones where I actually bothered and wanted to listen to it outside the game (another example would be The Witcher 3). It is really fitting and really ties it all together (visuals and voice acting) to bring it all to the next level. Art.

Characters are masterfully written. No real stereotypes, they all feel like real people (the motion capture, voice acting and soundtrack certainly help but they do not overshadow). It didn't take too long to have me invested in what they're doing and what's going on.

On that note I'll finish this review with what I think about it's writing in general - as characters feel human, so do their dialogues - it goes down like a smooth spirit from start to finish, no unpleasant surprises.

I won't talk about the plot at all, but what it does it does really well from start to finish, it's compelling.

There's an added part to the game as a free DLC - and while it's thematically opposite to the main game it's not so in a detracting way, it remains cohesive - though i do wish for more content in line with the main game in the future (if more content ends up coming out).

Mes amis, I rate this a piece of art worthy of all the accolades it received.

33/33.