I mean, the game is amazing, has amazing dialogues, atmosphere and all that, but damn… the combat is surely a downer. Feels like theres no “real” tactic to the game other than just keep on (mindlessly) trying until the battle is won. And yes, I’ve done all quests, sidequests, with a “non-meme” party on the balanced difficulty and I’m -still- having lots of “please don’t use (x) skill or else my whole run is done for” moments.
Don’t they have an story mode for people that don’t like the strategy part of the strategy RPG?
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good strategy RPG. Loved the first Baldurs Gate games. Love Tactics Ogre games, played the original XCOM games, loved the Front Mission Franchise. The enemies made logical moves in that game, which is fine.
Larian Games play more like someone whose playing chess. The actions of the individual units don’t matter to that individual, but to the whole. It’s like all of the immersion is broken by every fight because enemy units will do illogical things for that enemy character. Oh, your healing my disguised, undead character on your first turn? Oh yeah, that’s logical. No one in this village knew my guy was undead, but because we get into a fight, you just immediately know?
The enemy AI knows all of your weaknesses and exploits them. This isn’t about difficulty of the game, it’s about the bullshit mechanics of the game. Larian Studios gets lauded for making an amazing strategy RPG, and I agree that the RPG part is great…I just don’t think that the Strategy portion of the equation is all that it’s cracked out to be.
If I just want a story, I’ll go read a book. The strategy portion of this strategy RPG is just rough and it’s all due to the AI. The game has ita moments, but the AI plays exactly like a vindictive DM that is willing to exploit every one of your weaknesses. I want a challenge, but I want it to be contextually accurate, not this weird chess-like sidepiece.