Fully convinced that the conception of this game was similar to that of Thief: The Dark Project, where deep down so much of the juice of this game revolves around moral decisions, conversation trees and so forth - sort of like if you merged a point and click adventure game with an RPG game, and the RPG mechanics are incredibly solid and precise in this one. The flipside to this is that it also exists as this streamlined version of Baldur's Gate (both this and that game revolve around the Dungeons & Dragons universe), featuring a bunch of mechanics (most notably the combat) where it's not necessarily bad, but you get the strong impression they were added into the game because the designers weren't fully convinced that they could carry a game purely on conversation trees and so forth.
Really, so much of why this game works comes from how it does so much to immerse you in these environments - and all the little subversions to gameplay mechanics and how it twists out the concept of an RPG game. For instance, your character is immortal - meaning your character can literally not stay dead, and it interestingly renders death into this really cheap and meaningless thing - something that can be equally exploited to your advantage, but also where I got the strong suspicion from the get-go that something was up. The writing is the strongest aspect of this game, and I like how so much of it has this sense of unfolding to it - both where everything you do builds up these pieces to discovering what seems to be very tragic circumstances, and how this game probes themes of regret and characters coming to terms with either do bad things or wind up making terrible perspectives. This can all be approached from either a good, evil or neutral perspective - all of which manages to oddly fit the backstory. The Nameless One is a really well-written character, both where he has enough texture and character on his own accord - but ultimately where there's a lot of room for you to apply your own perspective of the character - and where you have to weigh all the moral consequences of the decisions you make throughout.
Could probably go on about this game. Really, a must-play for anyone into RPG games.
Really, so much of why this game works comes from how it does so much to immerse you in these environments - and all the little subversions to gameplay mechanics and how it twists out the concept of an RPG game. For instance, your character is immortal - meaning your character can literally not stay dead, and it interestingly renders death into this really cheap and meaningless thing - something that can be equally exploited to your advantage, but also where I got the strong suspicion from the get-go that something was up. The writing is the strongest aspect of this game, and I like how so much of it has this sense of unfolding to it - both where everything you do builds up these pieces to discovering what seems to be very tragic circumstances, and how this game probes themes of regret and characters coming to terms with either do bad things or wind up making terrible perspectives. This can all be approached from either a good, evil or neutral perspective - all of which manages to oddly fit the backstory. The Nameless One is a really well-written character, both where he has enough texture and character on his own accord - but ultimately where there's a lot of room for you to apply your own perspective of the character - and where you have to weigh all the moral consequences of the decisions you make throughout.
Could probably go on about this game. Really, a must-play for anyone into RPG games.