Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Review (10.000.000 Voices)
Boy, is this a janky experience.
For the context, I bought and completed full editions of previous Owlcat games, and WoTR is my Top-5 favorite game of all time. I also played basically everything meaningful from CRPG genre, so I know a bit about what I am talking and I am not just hating on the developer either.
So, first impressions.
Pros:
+ best RPG experience in the WH40K universe by far, nothing comes even close;
+ great immersive visuals, the environment and some of the dialog pays tribute to the universe really really well;
+ overall performance is good for me (but the graphics are nowhere near impressive, so it should be a given).
Cons:
- if the visuals and the atmosphere are immersive, some of the dialog and the plot just outright break any immersion;
- especially the romance. it feels so "shoehorned", "afterthought" and "lack of effort" at once, that I can't even. Like, one minute ago half your family/clan dies, the next minute you have butterflies in the stomach for a person, who you have known for like 10 minutes in-game time combined (in case you though BG3 rushed things, here it's worse);
- verticality: Owlcat, can't you damn learn from Alushinyrra? Great level visually, terrible when playing it. Feels like a complete chore. And in this game it's the same: damn ladder animations take 5 minutes to get your whole team one level up, look terrible visually and just stretch your game time without adding anything of value;
- in combat there are delays and stutters everywhere, if you try to end turn before completing animation or just click through any actions fast enough. Overall, technically this game didn't have any gamebreaking bugs for me, but it feels very unpolished;
- autosaves: they freeze your game and maybe that's why there are literally nearly none meaningful autosave checkpoints (like you could play an hour without a single autosave);
- text bubbles, that contain actual story bits or companion interactions, have no voiceover or any indication that they are going on, if you are not looking at your characters, and are very easy to miss.
Personal cons:
- lacklaster/rushed story: this might be more of a personal preference thing, but it feels like there is a timeskip between every dialog with your companions, where all of the bonding/interesting stuff happens and your relations progress;
- hate grid based combat system.
Wouldn't say it's hopeless, and I haven't completed the game yet.
But feels like a 6.5/10 so far (that's an okay score, but my expectations were way higher story/character wise, that what it is delivering)