I’ve been playing this game and even though i’m not too far in the game, this is a disgrace and i can’t believe this game got 9s or 10s. It’s not only the identity politics that are everywhere (for example i’ve only found 1 human white male guy, and it’s the evil greedy major, the rest are merry multirracial elves), but in terms of gameplay:
1. There’s only ONE single path in every level, no open levels, nothing. It plays like an action adventure game or like Gears of War original games or fps campaigns, i couldn’t believe you have 0 options to explore or do anything else than follow the only existing path. You even get teleported to the next zone when you finish a mission, no world travelling to reach your next objective like every other RPG.
2. Puzzles are stupid, either use crystals to activate or move laser rays, that’s it.
3. You can’t even talk to NPCs!!! They’re not even npcs, they’re decoration. I reached a elven camp and you can’t talk to anyone other than the shop keeper. Even Mario and Luigi games 15 years go had more talkative mushrooms than this.
4. You can’t start conversations with your companions, they talk from time to time but afaik, there’s no way to start a conversation with them.
5. Conversation options don’t do anything, you don’t see your character or events changing with your decisions.
6. The character design is a disaster. This is a strange mix of ultra realistic World of Warcraft / Disney characters, they have exaggerated face features like Bellara ridiculously long ears that are much closer to WoW than Dragon Age lore.
7. Very limited combat, you issue ability orders to your companions and that’s it, no strategy or anything. The rest is the usual attack / abilities / parry / roll mixup that’s been done to death and much better in souls games and the like.
8. Graphics are too shiny, this is supposed to be dark fantasy, but i’m only finding bright beautiful forests everywhere.
I could go on but i leave it there. Maybe things wil change later on, but as it is i wouldn’t even call this an RPG, there’s no character development, no exploration, no interactions, no hard decisions, it’s a bare bones action adventure game and that’s it.