went back and actually finished it. it left me with a worse impression? so much stuff is non-obvious ("curses" are never explained anywhere I found), easy to miss, or just janky (I bought more buildings than are actually possible to build). There's auto-scaling but not for the loot you get so you will fight for your life to get a shitty tier 1 unique when you're on tier 3. and the ending did not satisfy me at all.
I like the concept of like "hey you're in the perspective of a Prince not just a murderhobo" and there is legitimately good roleplaying in there. there are interesting design decisions. they just don't work over the whole course of the game. the good news is that the core tactics RPG fighting is still pretty OK? it's relatively quick. it's interesting. managing your meagre resources is good, wiping out a clustered group of enemies with a single fireball feels awesome. it's just the less-OK news is that the long term game makes that feel repetitive. by the end i was eager to click the "Yup, let's make a deal and get out of here" button.
I like the concept of like "hey you're in the perspective of a Prince not just a murderhobo" and there is legitimately good roleplaying in there. there are interesting design decisions. they just don't work over the whole course of the game. the good news is that the core tactics RPG fighting is still pretty OK? it's relatively quick. it's interesting. managing your meagre resources is good, wiping out a clustered group of enemies with a single fireball feels awesome. it's just the less-OK news is that the long term game makes that feel repetitive. by the end i was eager to click the "Yup, let's make a deal and get out of here" button.