TLDR: It's not much different from the first game. It's better looking and it feels very good to play. However, it runs like garbage and there are pointless Microtransactions.

Update: After 200 hours, I've beaten the game. Granted, some of those hours was due to the game's executable running in the background randomly after I accidentally caused the game to crash.
I actually was en route to get the true ending on accident, so my review is based on that experience. The game is honestly great. As someone who enjoys traveling through Morrowind, Oblivion, and then Skyrim on foot as opposed to fast traveling.. I fell in love with this game instantly. In the endgame portion, I was impressed at how much and how little things change. Without going into spoilers, I feel like the endgame portion makes the experience worth it, if only because the difficulty spikes up, and now you genuinely feel like you have a purpose as opposed to just wandering around the world looking for upgrades. A lot of care was put into the world, and you can kind of tell simply by exploring the locations you used to avoid previously in order to reach locations that were previously blocked off or impassable. However, I honestly feel like the weakest part of the game is the story. Like yeah, it's a great story on paper, but its execution felt rushed and befuddled. Honestly, there were two points in the story which made me have to go online and look up what the hell I was actually doing because a character would say "Do ABC", your objective marker will say "Do CBA", and then the overall plot implies that you're doing "BCA". It's honestly annoying and I do not believe in the excuse that "It's an issue with translation." Nah, that's just poor quality control and execution. The story has potential, but it feels like your actions as The Arisen literally doesn't matter until the endgame. Your subterfuge, your actions, and the romance in this game feels like it's just set dressing. It feels like the Bethesda games where you've literally killed god, and bandits still go "Dang, I need to loot your corpse." You've become an unstoppable force, yet the plot pretends that you didn't just travel across the continent killing ogres, dragons, and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Medusa before you reach the endgame. It's a typical problem with these kinds of games, but I feel it especially here. I will 100% buy the DLC when it comes out, because if it's on the same level as Dark Arisen then please, take my money.

I've only "played" for about an hour.
My first thoughts were negative because for whatever reason every game since 2020 needs to compile shaders before you even play it which is wild to me.
After I got past that, I loaded up the character I made using their character creator.
I can totally see how poor the optimization is, despite the fact that I'm running the game on the highest possible graphics and the game's buttery smooth due to a pretty damn beefy PC, though the processor and RAM is last gen. You can tell because when I dropped certain things like the shadows or even the textures DOWN to low, my frames go haywire for 10 minutes until the FSR levels it all out.

The gameplay itself is so damn good though. It's almost *Witcher 3 level combat*, but it feels more fluid.
The boss fight had so much going on made it hard to see what the heck was even going on, but I think that's just due to the setting and location.

The graphics are actually really good. I do believe that this industry has officially hit a roadblock in terms of graphical innovation. Games will only be able to go one of two ways now: More hyper realistic, which means uncanny valley and really noticeable flaws in facial animations, and character visual fidelity; or more stylistic, using modern graphical breakthroughs to compliment current graphical abilities to provide more interesting and unique visual representations of every day things.

The sound is good. It's a Capcom game, so they usually have this down.

Microtransactions: They exist, and it's embarrassing. It's a 70-dollar game. DLC it a Capcom staple, but adding dumb gems, shards, or other stupid currencies is a Certified Shareholders Moment.

Overall, it's a solid game, as long as your computer is up to snuff. As the TLDR said, just wait for an update that fixes optimization, as ridiculous as that is. Once again, mainstream publishers drop the ball on optimizing their damn games before releasing it.

*This was a dumb comment. It's more akin to the True Directional Combat mod for Skyrim. Take that how you wish.*

Update: I've played this game way too much, and I haven't even beaten it. Never have I had this much fun playing a game since Monster Hunter Worlds or even Skyrim. I will 100% admit that the game is terribly optimized, but if your computer runs it fine then you'll have fun.

TLDR: It's not much different from the first game. It's better looking and it feels very good to play. However, it runs like garbage and there are pointless Microtransactions. Update: After 200 hours, I've beaten the game. Granted, some of those hours was due to the game's executable running in the background randomly after I accidentally caused the game to crash. I actually was en route to get the true ending on accident, so my review is based on that experience. The game is honestly great. As someone who enjoys traveling through Morrowind, Oblivion, and then Skyrim on foot as opposed to fast traveling.. I fell in love with this game instantly. In the endgame portion, I was impressed at how much and how little things change. Without going into spoilers, I feel like the endgame portion makes the experience worth it, if only because the difficulty spikes up, and now you genuinely feel like you have a purpose as opposed to just wandering around the world looking for upgrades. A lot of care was put into the world, and you can kind of tell simply by exploring the locations you used to avoid previously in order to reach locations that were previously blocked off or impassable. However, I honestly feel like the weakest part of the game is the story. Like yeah, it's a great story on paper, but its execution felt rushed and befuddled. Honestly, there were two points in the story which made me have to go online and look up what the hell I was actually doing because a character would say "Do ABC", your objective marker will say "Do CBA", and then the overall plot implies that you're doing "BCA". It's honestly annoying and I do not believe in the excuse that "It's an issue with translation." Nah, that's just poor quality control and execution. The story has potential, but it feels like your actions as The Arisen literally doesn't matter until the endgame. Your subterfuge, your actions, and the romance in this game feels like it's just set dressing. It feels like the Bethesda games where you've literally killed god, and bandits still go "Dang, I need to loot your corpse." You've become an unstoppable force, yet the plot pretends that you didn't just travel across the continent killing ogres, dragons, and a fucking Medusa before you reach the endgame. It's a typical problem with these kinds of games, but I feel it especially here. I will 100% buy the DLC when it comes out, because if it's on the same level as Dark Arisen then please, take my money. I've only "played" for about an hour. My first thoughts were negative because for whatever reason every game since 2020 needs to compile shaders before you even play it which is wild to me. After I got past that, I loaded up the character I made using their character creator. I can totally see how poor the optimization is, despite the fact that I'm running the game on the highest possible graphics and the game's buttery smooth due to a pretty damn beefy PC, though the processor and RAM is last gen. You can tell because when I dropped certain things like the shadows or even the textures DOWN to low, my frames go haywire for 10 minutes until the FSR levels it all out. The gameplay itself is so damn good though. It's almost *Witcher 3 level combat*, but it feels more fluid. The boss fight had so much going on made it hard to see what the heck was even going on, but I think that's just due to the setting and location. The graphics are actually really good. I do believe that this industry has officially hit a roadblock in terms of graphical innovation. Games will only be able to go one of two ways now: More hyper realistic, which means uncanny valley and really noticeable flaws in facial animations, and character visual fidelity; or more stylistic, using modern graphical breakthroughs to compliment current graphical abilities to provide more interesting and unique visual representations of every day things. The sound is good. It's a Capcom game, so they usually have this down. Microtransactions: They exist, and it's embarrassing. It's a 70-dollar game. DLC it a Capcom staple, but adding dumb gems, shards, or other stupid currencies is a Certified Shareholders Moment. Overall, it's a solid game, as long as your computer is up to snuff. As the TLDR said, just wait for an update that fixes optimization, as ridiculous as that is. Once again, mainstream publishers drop the ball on optimizing their damn games before releasing it. *This was a dumb comment. It's more akin to the True Directional Combat mod for Skyrim. Take that how you wish.* Update: I've played this game way too much, and I haven't even beaten it. Never have I had this much fun playing a game since Monster Hunter Worlds or even Skyrim. I will 100% admit that the game is terribly optimized, but if your computer runs it fine then you'll have fun.