Recent reviews by Emeraldicus

I was very excited for this game and planning on putting some decent time into it, but then I learned about the water mechanic. Essentially, your base has a water storage that ticks down on and off-line. If you don't get more water, you lose your progress. This is manipulative as ♥♥♥♥, and apparently the devs have confirmed they plan on sticking with it despite a lot of people pointing out it is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ and manipulative tactic to get people to keep playing.

It is a shame, I was very excited for this game but I refuse to support devs who think this sort of ♥♥♥♥ is acceptable.

Now I should preface this review with the fact that I did have a lot of fun in this game. It is incredibly well written, it has a lot of content and some fantastic moments. I should also note that I have played both the Beta and Alpha, the former of which is not included in my playtime but I put about 50 hours into. Suffice to say I have gotten a lot of playtime from this game. That being said, I cannot recommend this in its current state as a full release experience.

Start with the biggest elephant in the room, the polish. This game is incredibly buggy. Acts 1 and 2 are mostly stable, act 2 especially so, which just reflects that it was the most tested, being the only act in both the alpha and the beta. There are still plenty of bugs here and there, but things begin to ramp up in act 3 and then act 4 onwards feels like the game is actively fighting against you. I play this game with the Toybox mod, and I know those who play without it. All of us experienced some softlock in act 4. The only reason I finished this game was because I could use the Toybox to patch things together. It is painfully clear that this game's Beta only was up to act 3, as acts 4 and 5 feel untested and broken. One of my friends at this point has been forced to wait for updates as his problems are so severe, with no companion quests triggering as they should and the main quest now being blocked. I cannot recommend this game until these are fixed.

Now that the main issue is passed, I'm going to also discuss a few other things I did not like about the game. For one, the pacing is not great. Act 1 and 2 are fine, but act 3 is honestly just a slog. It is thematically disjoint from the rest of the game, detracting completely from the point of, you are a Rogue Trader who commands an entire Dynasty with several planets, instead choosing to reduce you back to just some guy. It also does the "All your weapons and gear you had are gone" cliche which while it is not for long, is still just annoying, especially in a Rogue Trader game. It is also too short to be an act, its more akin to just a long location, and the game makes out like you have some sway over the location politics, but really you have one real choice if you're playing a heretic and that's it. Act 4 is a relief to this when it works, though it does not feel that different from act 2 besides a timeskip and the break between them. Then act 5 is just a series of dungeon crawls before a finale. The worst part of act 5 is that they include a faction which I was honestly excited to see and interact with, but they basically establish them as their old lore counterparts that are just mindless enemies.

Now to the companions, the companions are incredibly well written for the most part, however, having done a heretic playthrough, there are a variety of instances where the companions merely express their discontent for what I have said, and then just kind of forget about it until act 4. It makes the heretic runthough feel a lot less impactful and believable when the Sister of Battle is just fine with you outwardly calling yourself favoured by Tzeench. Like sure, she has a line about it, but seriously? It's not like she's portrayed as some more moderate Sister, she is literally just as fanatical and insane as any other, so why does she not do anything about it?

My last gripe is the alignment system. It's bad. Owlcat needs to learn that not every game needs an Alignment system. Like, two companions don't even engage with the alignment system because its so weirdly specific, and as far as I can tell, even when you're full mask off walking around with a Daemon engine, none of this is reflected in your character's alignment. There is no point to it besides to arbitrarily restrict equipment and choices behind whether you have been enough of a heretic.

Anyway, the main important point is that the game is broken and needs a ♥♥♥♥ tonne of patching before being recommended. The other points are just me ranting, I will change this review when the game is actually finished.

No.

I got locked in a room by a guy with a pedostache. He didn't even leave. He just laughed as I yelled at him. 10/10.

Just buy this game.

Great game, Don't buy off Steam, though, it's a rip off, do what I did and buy it in store.

Best zombies map in the game.

Good music and art, crappy writing and decision making. Story is alright, just wasn't done very well.

You can backstab your best friends.

10/10

This game is amazing, the combat system is really smooth, the storyline is really well written and sticks with the universe, and you get to kill orcs. Buy this game.