Disclosure: This game copy was bought by the reviewer. This is an archived video of a stream, including replayed sections and system interruptions. Unedited.
- Covers Killing the freaking Bulette, Wiping out the Duergar, Killing Glut, and Sailing on the Skiff (End) -
Thank you for making it to the end! I hope the videos have been useful! I will have a final verdict curation on Early Access Watcher, but I will say the game runs well outside a few crashes and some slowdown. In terms of bugs, however, there are plenty with many being game breaking (end turn button staling so you cannot progess, unresponsive items (such as the bedroll so you can sleep), and quest items not working (key example is the scroll from Dead Gale's quest). Obviously the texture quality, amount of pop-in, clipping of models, missing characters and borked camera positioning is evident during cut scenes and on the map was to be expected. A couple of other issues, such as flailing enemies, still models, missing audio/sound effects, and misplaced text, can be seen during dialog. It is also important to note that several reoccurring assets make an appearance from Divinity Original Sin 2, from item icons to environment textures, which feels lazy when you consider how similar the story is for both games at the start.
Combat is probably the most polished aspect of this game with dice rolls and hit percentages performing properly (as far as I can tell), but it is also heavily imbalanced due to the developers trying to apply the Divinity Original Sins 2 system with elements of DnD that just falls short when applied. Another major issue with it lies in the face of the AI, which will get hung up on a movement or action phase. This is the single most annoying aspect of my time with the game and hopefully it will be refined more to account for blocked ladders or out of reach companions. Gear variety isn't that much right now, but there is a great selection of protective and attack spells that will help hold off the increasing number of enemies in certain scenarios. Weapons are okay, limited most likely by the current class selection.
The weakest aspect, sadly, appears to be the characters you are forced to ally with if you hope to stand a chance. Ranging from insufferable to tolerable, the situation has everyone (even Gale) treating you with contempt, making interacting with them feel like a belittling chore. I showed portions in this play through, but in my first, I managed to get far enough to have Shadowheart open up a bit and she still has this condescending tone that grates on the mind. It might be due to them being written more for a evil playthrough (making most of your decisions met with disapproval unless your acting like a douchebag). It would help if their were some faceless allies to recruit (or someone that isn't a overwritten, mysterious archetype). They would be less of a jerk to you anyway (and be somewhat more relatable).
World building is annoying, mainly for the amount of available lore being underutilized and books not offering much. This is just Act 1, I get that, but at least offer some more influenced books (the game certainly has plenty of empty book cases) to fill the void. I also feel the use of telling over showing has made a lot of the cut scenes feel hollow. There is little excuse outside time constraints for it (or just not being implemented yet). There is also no sense of urgency outside a quest or two (the quest involving the gnolls and the merchants). They basically used the excuse of the stasis on the tadpole to get around the issue and removed all tension as a result.
There are other issues to address, like the lack of natural direction (even for a small game world at the moment), limited state of leveling up and class variety, the save and die situation for several scenarios (will admit I save scummed a bit for this reason), the inventory manage issues (also refuses to let you move items to other characters while others work), but the critical problem is watered down to the state of the writing. It has a long way to go before it becomes suitable for the $60 price tag, both in quality and in terms of content (it took 15 hours (three of which were idling as seen in the saves of part 2). Granted, I skipped a few quests (several I finished in the first play through (the Wetlands, Owlbear). It is going to be a toss up, but you do not lose out if you hold off for now.
