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Since some people had already beaten the game, while others are in a very early chapters I've decided to make a spoiler thread so that people who finished the game, or just don't give a damn can post without using spoiler tags all the time. Here are my impressions of the game. It's rather long so feel free to just ignore it and talk about the game. It’s not a review, just ranting.
The game starts, I move to the character creation, and I must say that I don’t think I’ve ever been offered so many options in a DnD based games I know that it's technically a different game system, but it's so similar it might as well be just another 3rd edition revision. More classes than we've ever seen, including some which inclusion was long overdue. For example the Cavalier. Might and Magic 6 released back in 1998. On a cover we see a knight on horseback charging at a red dragon. Unfortunately despite having a class called cavalier the game doesn't feature mounted combat. HoMM games had dragons and cavalier units but it’s just not the same. Over 20 years had passed and AFAIK this is the first one that finally lets your recreate that cover to some extent. I feel that some classes are overlapping thematically. Do we really need bard and a skald, a hunter and a ranger, arcanist and magus etc. They seem distinct mechanically so I won't complain. I love the fact that every race has it's own sub-class representing the spirit of the species. Halflings get silly dog riders, dwarves get paladins that actually feels like paladins of dwarven gods etc. Can't say the same for new racial additions. I guess Dhampirs are ok for people who really wanted to play an undead character but couldn't, which is kinda redundant in a game where you can become a lich. Foxes seem rather pointless, and I'm not sure what's their deal. Oread don't really feel like people made out of stone, unless they take their racial specific class. Remind me of Genasi from NVN2 which were similarly underwhelming. Overall, the new races left me disappointing, so I just sticked to my old favorites without even trying the newer ones.
After the character creation is over I’m cast into the prologue. After a brief introduction to local transgender spymaster a super special demon lord one shots a silver dragon (which he wouldn't be able to do in-game, but whatever), after that MC fires a few shots from a crossbow and actually manages to hurt him. This implies that we're also super special but of course as it's later revealed that it was all just a trick. There’s some solid classic dungeoneering with some decent bossfight and watch a touching lesbian hug. That scene alone probably made at least a few rise a grade by 1 or 2.
Now it’s time for chapter 1. It's the best chapter and the worst chapter. I walk around a city occupied by conveniently low level demons and follow orders of woke lesbians that barely make any sense. Apparently the big bad just left and despite being a demon lord from hell he forgot to bring some heavy hitters on the way. The plan seems to be to randomly walk around town hoping that we'll somehow bump into someone who knows a secret way into the enemy fortress. Which we actually do. On the way I’m being tortured by some of the worst companions to ever be forced on a player. A possessed flamboyant bisexual slut which is the best argument for both full party creation as well as Putin's ban on promoting homosexuality. Most stereotypical black woman ever. Noblegirl who's a bit of a cunt, ater revealed to be the biggest cunt ever. Furrybait redditor. A low T supportive beta male companion, great successor to such classics as Khalid, Sky from Jade Empire, Carth and Kaidan. Ember is a shining star in a sea of shit, but she's just an elderly little girl who can't do much on her own. I won't comment on Wenduag since she wasn't in my party. There's also Woljif, who's kinda bland and inoffensive. Unless you cheat yourself some cash you are forced to endure at least some of these faggots.
On the flipside it also has some of the best encounters in the game. If you release a high-level Vrock trapped in a pentagram you then get to fight him on the streets. Fire breathing demon is hiding behind a trap. On the third game there’s attack on tavern which actually feels like an epic struggle. Clearly te best encounter in the game. Grey garrison is interesting to explore and has some varied combat encounters. Enemy progression in the act simply great. At the start we bash low level cultists and demonical equivalents of goblins, at the end the game starts to roll-out minotaurs and such. The only issue is a final fight. After struggling through the fortress we're handed a magical autowin button. Then comes a victory party and congratulations from the queen, lesbians and Daeran. Yep, everyone with a speaking part is either gay, woman or both. Owlcat probably knew that this is as far as most journalists will get before finishing their reviews, so they wanted to leave them with something nice to remember.
Now it’s time for chapter 1. It's the best chapter and the worst chapter. I walk around a city occupied by conveniently low level demons and follow orders of woke lesbians that barely make any sense. Apparently the big bad just left and despite being a demon lord from hell he forgot to bring some heavy hitters on the way. The plan seems to be to randomly walk around town hoping that we'll somehow bump into someone who knows a secret way into the enemy fortress. Which we actually do. On the way I’m being tortured by some of the worst companions to ever be forced on a player. A possessed flamboyant bisexual slut which is the best argument for both full party creation as well as Putin's ban on promoting homosexuality. Most stereotypical black woman ever. Noblegirl who's a bit of a cunt, ater revealed to be the biggest cunt ever. Furrybait redditor. A low T supportive beta male companion, great successor to such classics as Khalid, Sky from Jade Empire, Carth and Kaidan. Ember is a shining star in a sea of shit, but she's just an elderly little girl who can't do much on her own. I won't comment on Wenduag since she wasn't in my party. There's also Woljif, who's kinda bland and inoffensive. Unless you cheat yourself some cash you are forced to endure at least some of these faggots.
On the flipside it also has some of the best encounters in the game. If you release a high-level Vrock trapped in a pentagram you then get to fight him on the streets. Fire breathing demon is hiding behind a trap. On the third game there’s attack on tavern which actually feels like an epic struggle. Clearly te best encounter in the game. Grey garrison is interesting to explore and has some varied combat encounters. Enemy progression in the act simply great. At the start we bash low level cultists and demonical equivalents of goblins, at the end the game starts to roll-out minotaurs and such. The only issue is a final fight. After struggling through the fortress we're handed a magical autowin button. Then comes a victory party and congratulations from the queen, lesbians and Daeran. Yep, everyone with a speaking part is either gay, woman or both. Owlcat probably knew that this is as far as most journalists will get before finishing their reviews, so they wanted to leave them with something nice to remember.
Chapter 2 continues the best/worst trend. It adds Regil, who is the best companion and also the shitty crusade system. I don't want to write too much about the crusade. Everyone saw it for what it was after the first 15 minutes. It's a slog, it's boring, it's braindead, it's a waste of time. The game would probably be 10 hours shorter if it wasn't included, and much better for that. Regil is kinda of a phenomenon. Form what I’ve seen he’s liked pretty much everywhere: here, on reddit, on 4chan, whenever. In a normal game he’d just be an edgy manlet who hates the world, but here he’s our only ally against the poorly written woke garbage. What’s funny about the character is that he doesn't only criticize other characters but also the writing. He points out that the organization of the crusade has no sense from the military perspective, he notices that random garbage Nenio does in her free time isn’t science etc. Feels as if some writer used him to vent about the plot.
Besides these two points, it's just a blander version of chapter 1. Combat encounters are good, but not as good, the writing is still horrible but not that horrible. Battle for Drezen is ok, and it's nice that there are multiple ways to start the assault. We get another gay party member, and our fist mythic selection.
Besides these two points, it's just a blander version of chapter 1. Combat encounters are good, but not as good, the writing is still horrible but not that horrible. Battle for Drezen is ok, and it's nice that there are multiple ways to start the assault. We get another gay party member, and our fist mythic selection.
Third chapter feels a bit like Kingmaker. You run your little Kingdom, but there is a bit of a problem going on which requires investigation. Main quests is completely forgettable, save for some early trip to the abyss. However side locations is where it's at. I've especially enjoyed an angry spirit in Wintersun stalking the party and assisting the mobs.
Finally I’ve met Greybor. A really, really decent companion. He’s not a pervert, not a sadist, not a joke, not a nerd, not a psycho, not flamboyant, etc. Just an honest dwarven assassin doing his job. Alas I didn’t have a spot in my party for him. If only he was a cleric or a wizard I’d kick out Sosiel and Nenio in a heartbeat.
Of course I couldn’t forget about Arueshalae, the waifubait. She’s pretty, she’s pure, she’s vulnerable, she’s caring, she’s cute. Basically if you’ve ever played any JRPG you’ve probably already met a character like that. The only difference is that she used to suck mad dick back in the day and you need to kill her evil ex boyfriend. Most male players will probably romance her (if anyone) simply because all other options are way worse. She has higher base stats than any PC could have, mythic feats and abilities work great with bows and if you want trickery it’s either her, Woljif or Camellia. I don’t see why someone wouldn’t want her in the party. Wish I could finish her companion quest, unfortunately if was bugged to shit.
The second half of this chapter is where two big problems become apparent: stat bloat and demon fatigue. I won’t write too much about the bloat since it was discussed to hell and back already. Perhaps a separate thread should be made just for that. Excessive buffing becomes mandatory for me if I wanted to consistently hit anything. It’s so bad there’s even a dedicated mod just for automating buffing.
The second problem is a bit worse. Up until the end locations of the third chapter the enemy encounters remained pretty varied. There is a valley with locust, there are undead here and there, there is an entire story location filled with gargoyles, there are treants in Wintersun etc. But after that majority of these are demons. And often they are the same demons you’ve fought before, just bigger and better. You fought a Vrock in chapter 1, and you will keep fighting them right until the final chapters. I’ve killed dozens of by the end of the game. It makes every Vrock I met, bot the one in Chapter 1 and every Vrock I’ve ever met in any game feel less special. Babau will be among the first demons you encounter, but he will also be supporting some of the last demons you meet. Even Balors start feeling like shitmobs since you plow through so many of them. I know that it’s an adaptation of an AP that is strictly about killing demons, but it makes me feel that making a campaign about killing one family of monsters might not have been a be a very good idea.
Finally I’ve met Greybor. A really, really decent companion. He’s not a pervert, not a sadist, not a joke, not a nerd, not a psycho, not flamboyant, etc. Just an honest dwarven assassin doing his job. Alas I didn’t have a spot in my party for him. If only he was a cleric or a wizard I’d kick out Sosiel and Nenio in a heartbeat.
Of course I couldn’t forget about Arueshalae, the waifubait. She’s pretty, she’s pure, she’s vulnerable, she’s caring, she’s cute. Basically if you’ve ever played any JRPG you’ve probably already met a character like that. The only difference is that she used to suck mad dick back in the day and you need to kill her evil ex boyfriend. Most male players will probably romance her (if anyone) simply because all other options are way worse. She has higher base stats than any PC could have, mythic feats and abilities work great with bows and if you want trickery it’s either her, Woljif or Camellia. I don’t see why someone wouldn’t want her in the party. Wish I could finish her companion quest, unfortunately if was bugged to shit.
The second half of this chapter is where two big problems become apparent: stat bloat and demon fatigue. I won’t write too much about the bloat since it was discussed to hell and back already. Perhaps a separate thread should be made just for that. Excessive buffing becomes mandatory for me if I wanted to consistently hit anything. It’s so bad there’s even a dedicated mod just for automating buffing.
The second problem is a bit worse. Up until the end locations of the third chapter the enemy encounters remained pretty varied. There is a valley with locust, there are undead here and there, there is an entire story location filled with gargoyles, there are treants in Wintersun etc. But after that majority of these are demons. And often they are the same demons you’ve fought before, just bigger and better. You fought a Vrock in chapter 1, and you will keep fighting them right until the final chapters. I’ve killed dozens of by the end of the game. It makes every Vrock I met, bot the one in Chapter 1 and every Vrock I’ve ever met in any game feel less special. Babau will be among the first demons you encounter, but he will also be supporting some of the last demons you meet. Even Balors start feeling like shitmobs since you plow through so many of them. I know that it’s an adaptation of an AP that is strictly about killing demons, but it makes me feel that making a campaign about killing one family of monsters might not have been a be a very good idea.
After that it’s chapter 4 and demon town. Owlcat’s first true explorable city. I must say that it’s really well done. Camera rotation gimmick was fun, locales and quests were interesting, NPCs weren’t too bad either. Wish the portals weren’t bugged and the game actually registered which ones I’ve used. After three chapters of hanging out with the female empowerment squad we finally get to leave them behind. The problem in the city is that it completely fails at being what it’s supposed to be: a town populated by demons. Did you ever wonder what do demons do when they aren’t being summoned by cultists or trying to invade peaceful kingdoms? Turns out they aren’t much different from us. They’re also ruled by strong female characters. They work in shitty jobs, for shitty bosses. After their shift is done they spend their money in the arena or brothel. When they go home they need to be careful to not get mugged. If they’re unlucky they might end up on the streets as demon beggars. Makes you wonder if there is a demon church running a soup kitchen for impoverished demons.
The encounters aren’t anything we haven’t seen before besides for these fucking rock creatures I had to push into holes because my party members just couldn’t get past the will save. Perhaps I forgot about some critical buff, perhaps they were bugged. Who knows?
The encounters aren’t anything we haven’t seen before besides for these fucking rock creatures I had to push into holes because my party members just couldn’t get past the will save. Perhaps I forgot about some critical buff, perhaps they were bugged. Who knows?
The last two chapters are just more of the same. Go to a location, clear room after room of the same copy-pasted demon encounters, clear the boss and fuck off. What I’d like to emphasize is how lazy it feels. The tavern attack back in Chapter 1 had it all: small army of friendly NPCs to protect, elevation, chokepoints, surprise attacks, dramatic ending with a boss tearing down barricades etc. It actually felt like a proper adventure. In contrast I fought Mephistopheles in a random meadow in the forest. He summoned some shitmobs, then I just whacked him until he died. Demon lord Deskari was just chilling in some ruins waiting for me to kill him. A bug screen filter from chapter 2 is reused so I guess that’s something. There were some ruins which seemed promising, but sadly they bugget out and I couldn’t access them. Nenio’s dungeon was actually unique but used so many copy-pasted encounters it became a slog by itself. Endgame is basically just one repetitive demon encounter after another.
Mythic paths is probably the best original idea Owlcat had so far. They let people play as character concepts which are rarely seen in games, like actually letting players become a lich. They also tie role-playing choices to the mechanics and bring some nice choices and consequences. My only complain is that for being so hyped-up they feel very budget. You get some OP abilities and feats, you get a per or two and your model changes slightly. Look at your supposedly epic, godlike endgame angel or devil. Now look at actually epic character like Hand of Inheritor or Mephistopheles. Steel feel special? Aeion’s got shafted particularly hard. You get 2 glowing balls around your head and that’s it. You can select a mysterious looking cosmic being as your portrait, but your character looks nothing like that. Writing a separate endings for all companions just for this one route was a really nice touch though. Still it’s a step in the right idea and I’d much rather replay the game to see what playing as a demon was like rather than replay it to see what happens if I’m “the man guy” like in most titles.
Speaking of epic. Is the game THE most epic western RPG ever released? After all our MC gets godlike mythic powers and if he chooses the legend bath, he can level to the 40th level. Not really. Nothing we never do is any more spectacular than the things we’ve already seen. We can become an angel or a demon? Fine, but we’ve been summoning these as meatshields already. We can turn into a mighty dragon in endgame? Divinity 2 allowed us to do that from the beginning of the game. We kick butts of some demon lords? In JRPGs it’s the oldest cliché ever. Fabled Lich transformation? M&M did that. Preventing terrible events form happening by time travel? Chrono Trigger did that over 20 years ago. We can become gods in a super-secret ending? Already seen that in Age of Decadence, Throne of Bhaall, Wizardry 8 and probably some other games. We meet a god face to face? Mask of the Betrayer already did that and so did Temple of Elemental evil, and it was executed much better in these games. Guess becoming a bunch of bugs is novel, but hardly epic.
We need a game where we become a god in the beginning, not at the very end. Though since I’m an asshole I’d point out that Act Raiser already let us play as a god back on the SNES. The point is that WOTR still isn’t the most over the top, mythical, epic, superpowered wRPG. That title still belong to either Throne of Bhaal or Mask of the Betrayer. JRPGs are left unbeaten since in some Shin Megami Tensei games we fight against the YVHV himself and you can’t get more epic than that.
One thing that actually feels properly grandiose is the game music, the Mythic theme is particular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uITaghKWMMM
We need a game where we become a god in the beginning, not at the very end. Though since I’m an asshole I’d point out that Act Raiser already let us play as a god back on the SNES. The point is that WOTR still isn’t the most over the top, mythical, epic, superpowered wRPG. That title still belong to either Throne of Bhaal or Mask of the Betrayer. JRPGs are left unbeaten since in some Shin Megami Tensei games we fight against the YVHV himself and you can’t get more epic than that.
One thing that actually feels properly grandiose is the game music, the Mythic theme is particular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uITaghKWMMM
The writing in general is very uneven. Majority of it ranges from terrible to mediocre. At the worst it fells like reading a fanfic or late Bioware. Nothing makes sense, development aren’t believable in the slightest. characters seems to exist solely so that they can fit some diversity category or cater to a particular fetish and you can hardly believe that any of these people would join a crusade against demons or be of any use. A logical thing for an MC to do would be to just send the entirety of his party home before they hurt themselves. Much of the main quest falls into this category. On the other had of the spectrum we have comfortably bland. Not particularly novel, not very interesting, but gives us enough of an excuse to bash some demons and doesn’t get in the way. Most of the big side quests not related to companions fall into this category. Regil, Ember, sci-fi dungeon and Aeon mythic path (I’m yet to see the other ones) are some of the rare exceptions. The writing of these is just good, and I have nothing to complain about. As I’ve said I don’t know what other mythic paths look like but from the reactions I’ve seen they seem to be at least decent.
Combat itself is on the oposite of the spectrum. It ranges from straight-up good (early fights), to mediocre (copy pasted shit later on). What is inexcusable is the sheer amount of things that were broken on the game release. The charge attack didn’t work half the time and even after extensive patching there were still many occasions where it either didn’t trigger or the charge bonuses didn’t apply. The spell AOE inditcator is still too small and sometimes spells effect characters they shouldn’t. It’s especially annoying because it was already an issue in Kingmaker. Back then game I it wasn’t as noticeable due to lack of TB mode on release. If our party member gets afflicted with a status effect that doesn’t dispel on rest we still need to memorize a correct spell, leave our main city, go to some adventure location and only then cast a spell to cure it. Exactly like in Kingmaker. Can’t we just be allowed to explore friendly cities with our party members like in every other RPG?
One of the things that annoyed me especially is how much of players time the game wastes. The game took me over 100 hours to finish and I don’t think that all of it was quality entertainment. Crusade fights, crusade management, watching your party icon sloowly move across the map, copy pasted encounters, side locations with a bunch of enemies and minor loot. All of these could just be removed and the game wouldn’t suffer from it. I wish there was some arcade mode in this game where we just get teleported from one major adventure location to the next.
Also it’s clearly just my impression but I have a sense that nothing in the game is really fantastic or mysterious. Members of all fantasy races act just like humans. Irabeth acts nothing like a half-orc. Why wasn’t she just a normal human? Same goes for nearly all party members. I wouldn’t even be able to say which race they are without checking their character card. I only realized that Ember is an elf because she had an option of picking a mythic feat which eliminates her racial penalty to CON. The only reason why I even registered that Regill is a gnome is because he mentions bleaching from time to time. Arueshalae’s species is actually important to the character. But aside form her most demons don’t even act like demons, they act like bullies with epic levels. The godess Iomede is just another strong fermale NPC. She lacks any ompf, that Iuz & St.Cuthbert or Kelemvor had. They all feel like humans in make-up. Even the mythic powers turn out to be a result of an experiment of a mad scientist. Why is the game trying so hard to make fantastic feel more mundane.
All in all I can’t say that it’s a good game or a bad game. It’s certainly interesting and every RPG fan should try it some day. At least to check-out their mythic path of choice. I wouldn't say that it depends anywhere near the Codex Top 10, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw it there after the next pool. I’m eagerly waiting for BG3 to drop so that I could finish it and join the Larian vs Owlcat religious war.
