A great experience that I enjoyed from start to finish. Combining the turn-based combat of XCOM, the worldbuilding and narrative decisions of Dragon Age with a gorgeous hand-drawn art-style (which I've never seen in a game before, but I haven't played that many) results in a really addictive experience that can be completed in around 10 hours.
10 hours might seem short for a narrative RPG, but considering that this is the first part of a trilogy that isn't an issue. In fact, after playing so many 50-hour RPGs that often contain a lot of padding, it is refreshing to play a game that is so lean and well-paced.
Due to its shorter length, there are probably less than 20 combat encounters in the entire game (I'm just guessing at this number) but it's because of this that I never felt like the combat got repetitive. Granted, I am definitely a casual turn-based strategy game player (the only other game of this type that I've played is XCOM: Enemy Unknown) so I found the combat to always be delightful and satisfying to play. However, I've read that veterans of the genre may find it too simple, so that's important to bear in mind.
It's hard to really say anything about the story, because in terms of plot it's mostly just setting up the later installments. By the end of the game, we're not even sure what the real threat is. Overall, the story really just consists of you and your caravan travelling to different places, trying to escape the enemies pursuing you. The strength of the writing really shines in the smaller stories that occur during your travels. While your caravan is travelling through the world (which you watch happen on the screen in real-time, which may be boring for some players but the beautiful landscape art was always a joy to watch for me), sometimes text will pop-up informing you of some conflict that has happened in the caravan or some discovery you've made on the journey (I'm not sure if this is randomly picked from a list or scripted). You then have to make choices, as the leader of the caravan, of how to deal with the problem. There never seems to be a right choice, but there are always multiple ways to approach the problem that can fit the type of leader you are role-playing as. The choices never have an immediate effect on the story, and the game purposefully delays the effect so that you can't save-scum and have to live with your choices. Without spoiling anything, I made a choice towards the end of the game that led to an awful consequence which I had not expected at all and almost made me want to restart the chapter just to get a different outcome. I ended up stopping myself because that would take away the impact of that ending, and I think that the game wants players to accept the consequences of their action, not just game the system to get the most optimal outcome.
The characters are all strong enough to get you to care about them, but due to the short length of the game and the small number of interactions you have with them, the relationships are not as deep as some longer RPGs like Mass Effect or Dragon Age. I'm sure this won't be a problem after the roughly 20 hours of gameplay that the next 2 games promise.
10 hours might seem short for a narrative RPG, but considering that this is the first part of a trilogy that isn't an issue. In fact, after playing so many 50-hour RPGs that often contain a lot of padding, it is refreshing to play a game that is so lean and well-paced.
Due to its shorter length, there are probably less than 20 combat encounters in the entire game (I'm just guessing at this number) but it's because of this that I never felt like the combat got repetitive. Granted, I am definitely a casual turn-based strategy game player (the only other game of this type that I've played is XCOM: Enemy Unknown) so I found the combat to always be delightful and satisfying to play. However, I've read that veterans of the genre may find it too simple, so that's important to bear in mind.
It's hard to really say anything about the story, because in terms of plot it's mostly just setting up the later installments. By the end of the game, we're not even sure what the real threat is. Overall, the story really just consists of you and your caravan travelling to different places, trying to escape the enemies pursuing you. The strength of the writing really shines in the smaller stories that occur during your travels. While your caravan is travelling through the world (which you watch happen on the screen in real-time, which may be boring for some players but the beautiful landscape art was always a joy to watch for me), sometimes text will pop-up informing you of some conflict that has happened in the caravan or some discovery you've made on the journey (I'm not sure if this is randomly picked from a list or scripted). You then have to make choices, as the leader of the caravan, of how to deal with the problem. There never seems to be a right choice, but there are always multiple ways to approach the problem that can fit the type of leader you are role-playing as. The choices never have an immediate effect on the story, and the game purposefully delays the effect so that you can't save-scum and have to live with your choices. Without spoiling anything, I made a choice towards the end of the game that led to an awful consequence which I had not expected at all and almost made me want to restart the chapter just to get a different outcome. I ended up stopping myself because that would take away the impact of that ending, and I think that the game wants players to accept the consequences of their action, not just game the system to get the most optimal outcome.
The characters are all strong enough to get you to care about them, but due to the short length of the game and the small number of interactions you have with them, the relationships are not as deep as some longer RPGs like Mass Effect or Dragon Age. I'm sure this won't be a problem after the roughly 20 hours of gameplay that the next 2 games promise.