mbuddha
Sentinel
I really enjoyed the first area. It felt very open ended and mysterious. Many little quests that could be solved in a different order and certain things remain unsolvable until the right conditions are met. I like that. There were even some speech skill checks.
Spoilerish from here on:
Moving on to the next area wasn't bad at first. The city is acceptable. It doesn't have the ambience and characters found in The Witcher's city areas but it's not bad either. I enjoyed the investigation, but then I realized not once were any skill checks used when interrogating all those NPCs, what a wasted opportunity! Especially considering I created a character with buffed social skills.
Then the dungeon crawl 'deep below Ferdok' - it's probably optional but it's so unimaginative. No secret areas, nothing interesting whatsoever. Just 'wolf rat' spam attacks for four levels until you fight a large boss wolf rat.
Going to get Dranor out of jail, there are two guards facing away talking about hearing something, so I think naturally I have to sneak past. When leaving I decided to run past to see what happens and there's no reaction! They just keep repeating the same conversation. Another wasted opportunity.
And if an NPC has a problem that only you can solve, they'll keep obnoxiously repeating the same line over and over again until you take the quest.
I'm starting to wonder why this game is so acclaimed. I do like some aspects of it, and I'll press on a little longer in hopes of some improvement, some more use of non combat skills, and a little more creativity like in the first area. Am I expecting too much from the rest of the game?
Spoilerish from here on:
Moving on to the next area wasn't bad at first. The city is acceptable. It doesn't have the ambience and characters found in The Witcher's city areas but it's not bad either. I enjoyed the investigation, but then I realized not once were any skill checks used when interrogating all those NPCs, what a wasted opportunity! Especially considering I created a character with buffed social skills.
Then the dungeon crawl 'deep below Ferdok' - it's probably optional but it's so unimaginative. No secret areas, nothing interesting whatsoever. Just 'wolf rat' spam attacks for four levels until you fight a large boss wolf rat.
Going to get Dranor out of jail, there are two guards facing away talking about hearing something, so I think naturally I have to sneak past. When leaving I decided to run past to see what happens and there's no reaction! They just keep repeating the same conversation. Another wasted opportunity.
And if an NPC has a problem that only you can solve, they'll keep obnoxiously repeating the same line over and over again until you take the quest.
I'm starting to wonder why this game is so acclaimed. I do like some aspects of it, and I'll press on a little longer in hopes of some improvement, some more use of non combat skills, and a little more creativity like in the first area. Am I expecting too much from the rest of the game?