Recent reviews by Jänus

I picked up the first game a while back and I never really fell into it. I'm not sure exactly what it was - perhaps only being given 2 characters to create was a little lame for me. I enjoyed my companions, but I didn't get far enough that I felt any of them quite mattered.

Then 2 came out, and a few friends were playing so I grabbed it. Other games captured most of my attention, and since I wasn't enamoured with the first one, I didn't bother. However, a drive to play an RPG pushed me to boot it up for the first time.

Firstly, what you need to know about this game is that you can make your own custom character (without an "Origin") - Don't. I normally love the freedom to make my own character, but essentially what you are giving up is a unique story, quests, and a lot of entertaining voice lines and dialog options.

After playing around for a minute as a custom Elf character, I realized very quickly that the names of the folks on the boat you begin on are the names of the "Origin" characters that you could play as. I groaned internally. All my characters are going to be predetermined, and I can only truly customize one of them.

Boy was I wrong. What I found instead is that each character can be any class - when you recruit them, they pretty much brag about how cool they are and how they can do anything, and then ask what role you want them to fill, and then you can customize them each level up however you'd like. Suddenly, I had hope.

After recruiting a few people, I realized NPCs were reacting to my companions. Some were legends, some were villains, etc. I realized what I had done by making a custom character, and promptly started over.

After listening to the origin stories, I decided to go with my main character as Lohse, a red-haired Bard and singer who is host to some kind of demonic entity living inside her, sometimes controlling her actions. Well, something about crazy people with two faces intrigues me (I don't know why) so she was chosen. Once I realized any character could be any class, I decided to play to everyone's strengths. And here's what I ended up with:

Lohse, the demonically-possessed quick-talking Bard as an Enchanter, using water, earth, and air magics. She is my group's healer using Hydromancy (and Poison for my undead pal), but also controls the elemental effects on the battlefield and buffs party members with evasion.

The Red Prince, a lizardman prince who immediately gave my main character the pleasure of being his new slave (and then setting me free). He is the cheekiest of pompous ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and absolutely my favorite character. He is my Tank, and by tank I mean he is a Polymorphing Necromancer Fighter with sword and shield and lots of armor. Raising the dead, stealing health, growing weird body parts like horns and tentacles, and rushing across the battlefield to be in everyone's face is cool, but my favorite ability is "Chains of Torment" where he links himself to an enemy so all damage he takes, the enemy also takes.

Next I have Ifan, who is a weird mix between former loyal soldier and now hired assassin, plus a wolf that he can summon. He is a member of a group called The Lone Wolves and I immediately began laughing at the huge oversight in that name. However, I was wrong to judge, because despite being built to be the gruff, badass cliche, he's likely the nicest and deepest party member I have. I set him up to be my Summoner and Pyromancer - summoning minions on the battlefield and then lighting everything on fire.

Lastly, I have Fane. Not having Fane in my party, I think I would be missing out on a lot of the lore. Fane is a super old Undead that is missing a lot of his memory, but every time he sees a statue of one of the Gods, he feels like he knows them - not as Gods, but as fellow members of his forgotten race. Fane is my rogue - part dual wielding backstabber, part crossbowman. While strategically he is the least complicated, it's great when I can put him behind an enemy and then have people throw flasks of poison at him, hurting the enemy but healing the undead guy. Then I just teleport him to the high ground when he gets low, light the poison fumes on fire, and have Fane shoot them with a Crossbow from up high.

I have to say that they didn't change TOO much of the original game's mechanics, but the game just feels so much more alive. There is a beginning that gets you motivated more than "We are here dudes that were sent to investigate a murder." I'm legitimately liking the characters (The Red Prince and Fane both think they're the greatest beings to ever exist, and surprisingly, it's hilarious) and the combat has been tactical and rewarding.