40+ Year old Gamer, Played All the RPGs.
So instead of writing a lengthy review, I'm going to try to make a litmus test statement for each broken mechanic in this game. To me each one illustrated Obsidian's total misunderstanding of what game design mechanics should be prioritised.
Imagine being skilled enough to ironman mode Severance: Blade of Darkness, but being totally incapable of controlling the camera in this game. And there's 3 different versions of the camera - but they're all broken.
I can ironman mode Fallout 1 and kept Dogmeat alive the whole game, but my mages regularly die in this game because the cutscenes teleport everyone into conversation mode from across the screen.
I can ironman mode my way through every Mechwarrior game released on the PC (with the rocking effect in MW4, and the weapon effects of MW5: Clans) but with all the glowing weapons, exploding weapons, magical effects on spells and weapons, etc I can't see what's going on with my party in combat, and they typically die.
I can ironman mode Shogun Total War 2 + all expansions, but can't control a party of 4 in this game because the keyboard keys keeps reassigning themselves, and the party formation/order keeps reassigning randomly.
There's a recurring game designer mechanic with old Obsidian games that we accepted back then, where basic stuff like the above was broken, but the game designers chose to prioritise on other less important things or (MORE DAMNINGLY) on things that worked perfectly in other games that they chose to break under the guise of better game design. E.g. Allow the camera to zoom out (which it only does as a glitch) and the game is almost playable. But they probably chose not to allow this because of (maybe) the memory leak in the engine, or "Muh game balance" with ranged damage.
I put $1,800 into Obsidian and InXile Kickstarter games expecting some evolution and it never happened. They either didn't know what worked in previous titles, or didn't have the opportunity to implement what did.
I've only played this game a few times since release. Thought I'd give it a go again because of the re-release. But I remember now why I've mostly ignored it. I don't regret the time I've put into other games over the years, but NWN2 was a disaster.
I played MW5:Mercs recently and I thought it was unpolished, but playing this again makes me want to buy that latest expansion pack and jump right back in.
Edit: Oh yeah - the Warlock class was one of the only times this class made it into a CRPG and they totally bodged it because they couldn't be bothered. Or maybe the class just didn't fit within the game design of "Muh balance".
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