izigame.me

First of all I don't understand why the game is trashed the way it is right now.
But will update my review accordingly should I have more points to add either way.
Currently, the review (obviously subjective) is a bit unstructured, I will clean it up later.
I just finished the tutorial and played a bit of the "open world" part within the 1h mark.
Three hours later I still like the game.
The good so far:
- full German voice and subtitles, as well as English can be mixed matched as desired. (I play this game in German)
-- some of the voices I heard feel familiar from the Piranha Bytes games and while not all performances have the same heart and soul I deem them solid.
- The game looks solid, some vistas are actually beautiful, check out some screenshots from the community
-- for those that like this there is a photo mode that allows for even cooler pictures
- Performance is (for me) better than expected on good settings
- game size is compared to other space demanding games quite small with a download of only ~26 GB, so a relatively fast download.
- you get to chose your preferred difficulty
- you can customize your character and even if your armour has a helmet you will still see your face in some dialogues or cutscenes so the customization doesn't feel wasted.
-- further you can disable the helmet on your armour sets that have one
- combat reminds me of the free flow combat of the Arkham games with indicators when a block or dodge can prevent damage, the telling of attacks seems to be fitting
- that asside the "rythm" of the combat feels good to me its more of a chain rather than button mashing so after each click you have a short time to think what you want to do next or how to get to a better position for more options, which enemy to take on next, since so far everything seems to work I could not find a negative here yet.
- the escalation of the weapons with increased momentum getting bigger in size and effects is really fun and I was sometimes sad that all enemies close by were already dead by the time I hit the late stage.
- (sand) surfing is fun (even after a couple of hours further game time)
- looking around is rewarding, as you can find some collectibles and currency that you will not find if you just bee line to the main objectives.
--Some collectibles were hidden around corners or on difficult to reach areas which emphasises exploration.
- You regenerate healing amulett charges by hitting enemies, that makes losing health quite forgiving during combat as long as you hit more than you take damage.
- there is a transmog system in place for armour, dont like the looks but want the other armor effect or stats, no problem. Just put your favourite armor as a skin over the full plate.
- Armors have one deco slot for specitic items, and depending on the armor several slots that can be dyed with colours that can be found or bought ingame.
- there is now some more personal highlights
-- you can spot the wandering trader from afar by looking for a kite in the air, a well done not immersion breaking way to know if the trader is at their spot or some where else
-- you more often than not find relics instead of gold in the world and chests, relics can be sold to traders though some pay better for specific kinds of relics so its worth to hold on to them until you have someone who wants them for that sweet extra. :D
-- in the bestiary it tracks if you already found a creature specific skill stone and marks it accordingly
-- you can complete quests in "advance" and the game can handle it. e.g. if you kill (quest) monster withouth knowing and you get the quest to kill it afterwards, your character can/will say "oh I already did this" and the quest will advance accordingly and you get your reward. Well done.

Negatives:
- the full manual save can only be done on the anvils, so I advise to use this if you surf past one
- the running (hard surfaces) and surfing (sand) is the same button / toggle, I would have prevered it to be separate, I got used to it after a while in the open world aspect. But sometimes if the surfaces are mixed it can look odd.
- At least the tutorial is very hand holding and some parts have active voice cues to "remind you" what you are supposed to do despite you ignoring it actively to look around in your time.
- sometimes the game takes the control away for the plot or banter to unfold. It was done multiple times during sand surfing and I did not like that feeling, speeding past some collectable ressources with no control.
- on the same mark you are often reminded that you could increase your power by crafting new stones or using your abilities, if you dont like this you can change the frequency in the settings :D
- there is one sigil minigame that has a, for me very loud and annoying, audio cue that sticks out a bit too much
I think the game is, at least in the beginning, less action and benefits from a slower approach.
Yes, you can skip dialogues, ignore stuff such as NPCs talking about things in the background and go straight to the objectives to get more abilities and advance the main plot faster but I play such games differently and if the main quest points me somewhere I will actively go in other directions first.
So even with some more hours since the initial feedback I still like what I played and I saw and want to play more, see what new stones I can craft / unlock, what quests are there and what treasure to find.
If the price is to steep for you I recommend checking it out latest during a sale to form your own opinion, for me it is way batter than the review make it seem. But since some claimed completion after 20h I could understand people waiting. I dont see myself being that fast, though I appreciate games not overstaying their welcome.