Perhaps the most conflicted review I've written, after playing over a longer period of time, I now see what other's frustrations, regarding combat, were all about. Skills hit inconsistently, and the execution thereof is clunky at best.
So, I thought at first that perhaps this was merely a mistake on my end, but now that I've seen this happen 3 times in a row and watched the "saved" message appear in the bottom right-hand corner I can confirm the game does not always save when you do. That's incredibly awful.
My weapon was inexplicably erased from my inventory/equipment screen. It was completely gone.
(Developer answered this---I'm using a controller and I suspect there's a combination of buttons/a button to switch weapons. It would be nice, however, if the item in question still showed up in your inventory, perhaps under a secondary weapon icon in the inventory screen.)
The main quest (slight spoiler) involves you traveling with a companion for a way, in a series of cut-scenes, at the end of one of these cut-scenes the companion dematerializes and seemingly cannot be located. Main quest is therefore perhaps broken? (Okay, I found her. She appears on the other side of the nearest town out in the woods--quite a way from where you last parted company. It would be helpful if the quest companion gave you a line of dialogue indicating where they intended to meet you, aka, "I'll catch up with you south of town, by such and such.")
The writing is rife with grammatical errors, poor phrasing, and awkwardness. The voice acting sounds like it was done by a computer. The dialogue sounds like it was written by a 3rd grader; I am, I think, safely going to assume whoever wrote the dialogue speaks English as a second language.
On this last aspect; I applaud indy developers for their ingenuity and resourcefulness, but there seems to be a trend where the same people coding the game are those writing dialogue, etc. I know there are exceptions, but typically coders are god-awful authors, and in an RPG--where story is king, refusing to hire on someone who can write engrossing dialogue is incredibly detrimental to immersion. (Fair enough, though from what I've seen, thus far, at least as far as the English translation is concerned, you might want to find someone with a writing background/whose first language is English. The grammatical errors I'm coming across are clearly grammatical blunders typical of non-native speakers, such as "We make it safely across" instead of "We made it safely across.")
To the developer specifically: Is there a way I can click out of/disable the pop ups informing me that I should take a screen capture of an error report and post it to STEAM? The game doesn't seem to provide me with a mouse-arrow to close out of this box, though I do see an x. Although I'm sure many users are happy to play along, in this regard, I'd like to point out that I paid for the current version of the game, I'm not a beta tester who you've given the game to for free. I'm not an employee---play test your own game, and don't try to co-opt me into doing it for you. Because I won't.
Kudos:
The game's environment is a lot of fun to explore, and from what I can tell thus far, albeit I'm only a few hours in, it seems exhaustively large. I did at one point hit an invisible wall, which irked me, but apart from that the landscape is captivating and vibrant.
This title encourages you to go your own way, the "main" quest is there, but the game doesn't compel you in any way that I have seen to stick to it. Far from it, you're immediately drawn to explore nearby mountains, forests, and riverbanks. Stylistically, it reminds me a great deal of Breath of the Wild.
The character building/stat system. I saw a negative review by a user complaining of their inability to diversify, or to master all skills; the developer explained they wanted, for the sake of roleplaying, to limit the player to being good at two things or great at one, and I cannot agree with this philosophy more. I hate playing characters who have no weakness/sacrifice nothing; they feel artificial and seem to exist outside of the game's world/unbound by its rules.
I hope this game continues to improve--as many users have rightfully stated, this title has a great deal of potential and could really make something of itself. And for the love of God, hire a competent writer, PLEASE!
(I'm apologize if I appear overly critical or brutal in my assessment of the writing, but as a writer myself I can say with a fair degree of certainty that it's the game's weakest link. I really enjoy your title thus far, despite the hiccups/growing pains, and were it not for this one issue I'd have no qualms with recommending as is.)
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