So this game has a lot of pros and cons. For me, personally, the cons outweigh the pros. Overall, the game is very Meh. The game play is OK, and it certainly has SOME entertainment value. I took the time to 100% it afterall. Well let me go over some of the pros and cons.

**edit** Bonus negative points for adding a payed DLC that included more achievements. I 100%ed it before phantom liberty came out.

CONS

The difficulty curve is not very well laid out. I played the game on hardest difficulty and found that the beginning was too hard and the end was too easy. I had to play the beginning almost entirely through stealth and sneaking up on people, but by the end I could just storm through everything. And when I say the end, I mean pretty early on. In fact, most of the quests in the game begin to feel very quickly monotonous and a lot more like a chore than a challenge. And I could have gone about doing it in multiple ways, whether I wanted to do it through hacking or slashing, pun intended.

And this leads to a second con... The level cap is stupid. Why design the game so that you can't get everything. I understand why you can't respec as it would open up too much cheese, but preventing people from experiencing all the possibilities in one play-through is dumb. Especially considering how repetitive the game becomes.

A third con, the story ending all kind of just plain suck in my opinion. Like, there really is no happy ending. There are just some that are less bad. This, to me, just feels really not good. If I am going to invest so much time and effort into a story and working for something, for it to end in such a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ way kind of feels like the whole thing was just a waste of effort. "Congratulation, you get a month of kind of happiness before you die" as the best ending is just crap. Seriously, F that.

So when talking about story telling flaws, I have to touch on some personal pet peeves of mine. The fact that I cannot romance the girl as a guy is just dumb. Hear me out here. This is a fantasy game. A game people play to experience a fantastic or phantasmal reality. Please, someone explain to me why anyone should be blocked the option to experience what they want to in the fantasy game. girl on girl, guy on guy, girl on guy... why not just let them all be options? To purposefully block a relationship option is doing nothing but pandering to the people who like that particular relationship option and blocking out people who prefer different choices. If you want to put in gay background NPC's, sure... who cares. Especially in this wold where people can change genitalia and reproductive systems with the sit of a chair. like true gender swapping, not the lies that exist in the world today. You can do that kind of stuff in a fantasy game. So honestly, having a gay romancable NPC that limits her sexuality is actually anti woke really, as she won't even accept a gender swap as ok, because of what? You voice hasn't changed? The whole thing is just dumb. In an attempt to cater to the woke mob, none of it makes sense. And speaking of over-woke bs that annoys me, how does a "trans" character even make sense in this world. I understand that trans issues are all over the place in our reality, but what the ♥♥♥♥?? This is a world where people are swapping their genders all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time. Sit in a chair for 5 minutes and get new organs. How the ♥♥♥♥ do trans issues even come up. It's a FANTASY GAME. Don't project this worlds issues into it. Like, if it's not obvious by now, I am super anti-woke... but it's a fantasy game. LET THE TRANS PEOPLE HAVE A WORLD WHERE THEY CAN GENDER SWAP AT WILL AND IT"S NOT A BIG CONTROVERSY??? Why project all the drama of our world into the game??? Just let people play out a fantasy.

Honestly, who ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ goes, "I want to play a fantasy game. In that game, I want to be bullied, harassed, and have no love partners that I like return interest in me. Oh also, I really want the ending for the character I am role-playing as to be super ♥♥♥♥♥♥" There is no grand satisfying payoff, at least story-wise, and we have this worlds drama shoved in our face. It's unnecessary, and takes away from the goals of playing a fantasy game.

Also, all of the cars are dumb. SO many cars, so much money, all very similar. Buying new cars, apartments, in general was just a chore that felt overall very dissatisfying.



PROS

-Interesting skill tree... which is part of why it is so annoying that there are so many limitations on it.

-The game, at the times when the challenge level was OK, was fun. Unfortunately most of the time it was too hard or too easy.

-It's pretty, if not a little repetitive at times



Anyway, I feel a little bad leaving a negative review since the company worked so hard to make-up for all of the games other problems it had at launch (bugs and such). But honestly, overall, if given the chance to wipe my gameplay completely from my mind and know what I know now (like seeing this review) , I would have never played it. So with that said, I have to mark it down.

So this game has a lot of pros and cons. For me, personally, the cons outweigh the pros. Overall, the game is very Meh. The game play is OK, and it certainly has SOME entertainment value. I took the time to 100% it afterall. Well let me go over some of the pros and cons. **edit** Bonus negative points for adding a payed DLC that included more achievements. I 100%ed it before phantom liberty came out. CONS The difficulty curve is not very well laid out. I played the game on hardest difficulty and found that the beginning was too hard and the end was too easy. I had to play the beginning almost entirely through stealth and sneaking up on people, but by the end I could just storm through everything. And when I say the end, I mean pretty early on. In fact, most of the quests in the game begin to feel very quickly monotonous and a lot more like a chore than a challenge. And I could have gone about doing it in multiple ways, whether I wanted to do it through hacking or slashing, pun intended. And this leads to a second con... The level cap is stupid. Why design the game so that you can't get everything. I understand why you can't respec as it would open up too much cheese, but preventing people from experiencing all the possibilities in one play-through is dumb. Especially considering how repetitive the game becomes. A third con, the story ending all kind of just plain suck in my opinion. Like, there really is no happy ending. There are just some that are less bad. This, to me, just feels really not good. If I am going to invest so much time and effort into a story and working for something, for it to end in such a shitty way kind of feels like the whole thing was just a waste of effort. "Congratulation, you get a month of kind of happiness before you die" as the best ending is just crap. Seriously, F that. So when talking about story telling flaws, I have to touch on some personal pet peeves of mine. The fact that I cannot romance the girl as a guy is just dumb. Hear me out here. This is a fantasy game. A game people play to experience a fantastic or phantasmal reality. Please, someone explain to me why anyone should be blocked the option to experience what they want to in the fantasy game. girl on girl, guy on guy, girl on guy... why not just let them all be options? To purposefully block a relationship option is doing nothing but pandering to the people who like that particular relationship option and blocking out people who prefer different choices. If you want to put in gay background NPC's, sure... who cares. Especially in this wold where people can change genitalia and reproductive systems with the sit of a chair. like true gender swapping, not the lies that exist in the world today. You can do that kind of stuff in a fantasy game. So honestly, having a gay romancable NPC that limits her sexuality is actually anti woke really, as she won't even accept a gender swap as ok, because of what? You voice hasn't changed? The whole thing is just dumb. In an attempt to cater to the woke mob, none of it makes sense. And speaking of over-woke bs that annoys me, how does a "trans" character even make sense in this world. I understand that trans issues are all over the place in our reality, but what the fuck?? This is a world where people are swapping their genders all the fucking time. Sit in a chair for 5 minutes and get new organs. How the fuck do trans issues even come up. It's a FANTASY GAME. Don't project this worlds issues into it. Like, if it's not obvious by now, I am super anti-woke... but it's a fantasy game. LET THE TRANS PEOPLE HAVE A WORLD WHERE THEY CAN GENDER SWAP AT WILL AND IT"S NOT A BIG CONTROVERSY??? Why project all the drama of our world into the game??? Just let people play out a fantasy. Honestly, who fucking goes, "I want to play a fantasy game. In that game, I want to be bullied, harassed, and have no love partners that I like return interest in me. Oh also, I really want the ending for the character I am role-playing as to be super shitty" There is no grand satisfying payoff, at least story-wise, and we have this worlds drama shoved in our face. It's unnecessary, and takes away from the goals of playing a fantasy game. Also, all of the cars are dumb. SO many cars, so much money, all very similar. Buying new cars, apartments, in general was just a chore that felt overall very dissatisfying. PROS -Interesting skill tree... which is part of why it is so annoying that there are so many limitations on it. -The game, at the times when the challenge level was OK, was fun. Unfortunately most of the time it was too hard or too easy. -It's pretty, if not a little repetitive at times Anyway, I feel a little bad leaving a negative review since the company worked so hard to make-up for all of the games other problems it had at launch (bugs and such). But honestly, overall, if given the chance to wipe my gameplay completely from my mind and know what I know now (like seeing this review) , I would have never played it. So with that said, I have to mark it down.