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Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 90.8 hrs on record (4.7 hrs at review time)
Posted: 8 May @ 3:44pm
Updated: 10 May @ 4:10pm

Play the demo! Progress carries over to the full game.

Ignore your first impressions. Yes, the game does not look very clear on screenshots. Yes, the main menu and character creation (in the demo) look confusing. Once you play the game, everything falls into place and it gets clearer what is happening.

The gameplay is gloriously good! Picking a race/class/religion combo will give you plenty of good ideas for character variations to play. Having multiple schools of magic to invest your skillpoints in amplifies the possibilities. Then item drops you pick along the way also add another layer of synergy and complexity. There's a decent pool of items, but their drop locations have a degree of randomness to it. You pick one out of 2-3 areas to advance to, and it'll have a set of enemies and 1-5 items as a reward for clearing the last level. Sometimes there are monsters you really don't want to face, so you have to pick another area.

The result is a game that allows you to setup a build that excels at doing awesome things, and lets you build your own power fantasy. The challenge is in piloting your build to the end, and taking advantage of the build defining items you find along the way.

Each run unlocks new race/class/religion options, so the number of options you have only grows.

Think of this as Tales of Maj'Eyal, but much more condensed. You get to the fun builds faster, which is a good thing.

It took me about 25h to unlock all culture/class/religion options, with 5 victories that increased the difficulty each time, and an equal amount of failed runs. This opens up even more theorycrafting options, so it feels like the game has only just begun.
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