Pros:
* amazing quality of life features
* evolving aRPG genre
* perfect solution to item trading
* offline mode
* awesome map with time travel
* fun, detailed build/skill system
* great loot filter
* great variety between classes
* functioning minion builds (Necro is not just weaker Sorc)
* good crafting system
* environment and affix variety in endgame. Don't need to repeat same dungeon forever.

Cons:
* level transitions can be a bit long
* graphics and sound design not as good as D4
* could use more story and side quests
* current endgame can get a bit boring after a while
* you have to replay same story each time with every new alt you make

Last Epoch is the best aRPG since Diablo 2. For the first time in more than two decades we see proper evolution in genre. LE fixes couple decades old aRPG problems in very creative way. I think we will see many aRPGs in near future that will "borrow" many of mechanics introduced here and make them a new standard for the genre. Game does not threat you like an idiot and it does not stand in a way of having fun. And all of this was made by relatively small indie company. You can feel passion and creativity in every aspect of the game.

First of which is map and game's story. You will be able to travel not only around the map, but different time periods as well. This makes exploration fascinating, to see how things change through time. And it's accompanied by interesting story that utilizes this mechanic. Sadly the story does not have an ending at the moment.

Gameplay itself is easy to get into for new players, but it`s deep enough for in-depth meta gaming. Each skill has it's own skill tree, that allows you to customize, how it works and what it does. And you can take it to the next level when you make them synergize with other skills. This allows for huge amount of different builds. Every skill is useful and powerful, so you cannot make useless builds by experimenting with skill trees. You don't need 3rd party websites to follow powerful pre-made builds. Just by playing and experimenting, you can make character that will feel powerful and destroy even more powerful bosses.

Item system is unique and prioritizes having fun over inventory tetris and running to town every few seconds. All items sell for very low cost, so it's not worth gathering trash just to sell it. No need to jump back to town to sell stuff. Your focus can be on killing monsters. This is also supported by very powerful loot filter, that you can easily make yourself or copy and share in xml form. It will be easy to set up loot filter in a way that will let you see only items useful for your build.

And even lower quality items can become very useful thanks to game's crafting system. Each item has different amount of crafting points that item will lose every time you modify something on it. You are able to add/remove/improve affixes and even make items into higher grade and even unique items. It's detailed and fun minigame that will take your build to next level.

LE has solved item trading problem by giving you two factions to join. One will let you trade every item you find and buy items from other players. Other will not allow any trade, but improve your drop rates. You can level your position in each faction for additional bonuses and to be able to wear better items from that faction.

Between seasons endgame can get a bit repetative and boring after a while. But at least you dont have to repeat the same dungeon over and over. There's some variety in environments that you will visit and unique bosses, each with their own mechanics. And your character will gain passive bonuses when you progress through endgame tiers.

Overall LE is a must buy for any aRPG fan. This is pretty much the best one at this time. It sits nicely between Diablo 4 and Path of Exile in complexity. It's not as overwhelming as PoE, but still provides much deeper systems than D4 or Torchlight. It's beginner friendly, but surprisingly deep if you want to meta game. And the best part - it has plenty of quality of life features and creative solutions that just makes LE really fun to play.

Pros
* If your PC can handle it, it looks great
* Story is one of the best in the series
* Much requested setting
* Environment feel natural, lived-in
* Music is creative
* Combat is good and brutal
* Variety in side activities
* Much improved stealth system
* Seasons
* Can make giant cat litter box in base building
* Nice weather system

Cons
* Two flawed characters are good for the story but bad for open world collectathon
* High system requirements
* English voice over is terrible.
* Movement to slow and restricted
* No interactions with wild animals
* Exploration approach to finding objectives is not fleshed out fully
* Game sometimes threats player as a drooling glue eating idiot
* Does not do immersive beautiful feudal Japan better than Ghost of Tsushima
* Putting MTXs in this kind of game is just embarrassing


Story is significantly better than most AC games. It's more personal, moving and stupid assassin/animus bs is kept to minimum. Both characters are introduced in interesting way and despite political mess around them, they actually fit in the story and both are written well.

However they don't always work so good as playable characters. Naoe is nimble, stealthy, but has no proper ranged attacks and is glass cannon. While Yasuke is slow tank that Hulk smashes everything, but have difficulties climbing, hiding. The way you have to approach objectives with each character is different and freshens up gameplay in main story missions, but in open world roaming the whole concept falls apart. It makes sense that both have limitations, but most times I really do miss one man army power fantasy character that can do everything. Yasuke messes up the whole AC concept and turns game into a brawler. Not to mention that he is utterly useless outside boss fights. The biggest issue here is that lot of open world objectives require you to climb places, and giant heavy armor tank covered in weapons don't climb very well. Also you cannot swap between characters in restricted locations. If you have to gather something on rooftops or assassinate targets, always pick Naoe. She is typical AC character minus the bow.

Combat is good, intuitive. There are not to many unique active skills, but most of the fights consists of different combos that you can unlock in skill tree. Fights are really brutal. You can chop off body parts. ACS took out Ubi game's typical enemy tagging by drone. This time, you have to find enemies yourself and sneak all around fortresses to see what's behind different walls or go in blind. This new approach forces you to improvise more, since quite often you will run into enemies you did not spot while surveying the place.

Entire detection system has been updated. Now Enemies actually have to see or hear you to attack you. That keeps combat within fortresses localized. Entire place will not go after you if only couple guards spot you. It is possible to adjust stealth difficulty so that AI can see you everywhere within their cone of vision, including vertically. Even if you are above on the ledge in front of them. Forcing you to move around even more and change tactics on the fly.

While the combat has been improved, movement feels worse. Traversing rooftops, jumping on/off places is slow and way worse thanks to improved stealth mechanics that require you to be quick and coordinated. Also it is possible to use your climbing hook only in pre-defined places limiting movement. And Yasuke does not have climbing hook at all.

You cannot clear fortresses. Enemies keep respawning when you fast travel. Which makes it feel like you are not really doing any progression on the map other than ticking checkboxes. Interaction with wild animals is missing. You cannot hunt or be attacked by them. There are not even bears in the game. Devs tried to explain this lack of feature with respect to culture, but it's clearly just an excuse, as Ghost of Tsushima showed.

There is disconnect between the things game asks you to do and tools it provides. It tries to be more immersive and asks of you to explore and find things yourself from description, but at the same time gives you target's location with press of a button. With one button press you can see through walls where are the items you supposed to find. Or it asks you to find person by following instructions, while giving you scout mechanic, which literally points on map exactly where the target is. It wants you to explore and figure things out yourself, but also thinks you are to dumb to accomplish anything without training wheels. It defeats the purpose of those features.

Dramatic weather adds a lot to atmosphere and is nice new addition to series. Reminds of Witcher 3 weather system. Paths, farms, villages all feel natural, lived-in and believable. Except for some unclimbable hills that require you to go long way around, stay on nicely crafted paths instead of looking for shortcuts through forests.

Graphics can vary wildly. It can look gorgeous if your system can run it, but optimization is not great. Unless you have a very expensive GPU, you will be looking at a blurry image and muddy textures, if you want your game to run smoothly. ACS does not scale very well and have mandatory Ray Tracing. On 3060Ti to make it look good you will have to run native 30-40fps with framegen to 60-80fps and play with controller to not feel input lag. Otherwise it will all be blurry and look significantly worse than Witcher 3. DLSS looks significantly better than FSR in this title. FPS in cutscenes is always 30fps or fewer no matter the settings.

UI was designed for looks, not conveniency. Especially on ultra wide screens. The new animus menu system is horrendous nonsensical mess. ACS UI has tons of pointless time wasters, popups etc that just slow things down. Devs don't respect your time. Even map loads several seconds each time you open it, like it's trying to sync the progress to slow Ubi servers. Speaking of which Ubi servers are barely working and give error messages in single player game. As for MTXs, just ignore them. They can't hurt you.

Leveling, skills and inventory system hasn't changed since Origins. It's pretty much the same here. It has simple base building, reminiscence of AC2. Upgrading buildings in it will give you passive bonuses.

English voice over is really bad. Many actors don't feel right for the roles. Vocal expressions and emotions don't match up with animations. There's certain detachment from how lines are delivered and what is happening in scenes. Sometimes characters will even be voiced by AI or different voice actor in couple sentences during same conversation. It's jarring and immersion breaking. You will be far better off playing with immersive mode turned on (audio settings), which turns all VOs into Japanese and Portuguese.

Music is very good and interesting. It will sometimes switch from calm traditional few instrument Japanese background sounds to something right out of 80s kung fu movies with electric guitars and electronics.

Despite some shortcomings, this could be one of the better AC games. It's definitely better than Valhalla. You are still gonna play the same way you did Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. It is an Ubisoft game after all and they have their formula. But when it comes to smaller details, ACS is more creative, varied and captivating than previous few. It does not do immersive beautiful feudal Japan better than Ghost of Tsushima, but it borrows few ideas from it. Time wasting grind of map completion is still there, and the packaging is nicer this time. Splitting character abilities between two is not the best idea, but Naoe is basically your regular Ezio, so just ignore Yasuke. If you like that one game Ubisoft has, here's another one, but it will probably run and play better on console. I still don't understand why there are journal pages on roofs.