I have a bit of a mixed feeling. I love the look, I love the vibe, I love the concept.

First thing I struggle with is the world. As ttrpg player, I love to delve into the setting. And while there is material to delve into, it misses identity. It builds on classic high fantasy, tries to bring some twist here and there, but subjectively speaking it wasn't enough to capture attention and love. My understanding is it was drafted by legendary Ch. Avellone and I have to say, he can do better.

Sadly, overall narrative design - main plot, side quests, characters - also struggle to have more identity and step out of cliche.

There is a feeling a potential which has not yet been fully realized. The combat is fun, although more variety of enemy moves/combos is certainly necessary (I played it immediately after release, I write the review very late after my playthrough and maybe some things have been already improved).

I am also not a fan of grand map littered with small playable areas. This was e. g. difference between Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2. In 1st game, all areas were directly interconnected and formed together coherent region. In second Pillars, it's sort of pointcrawl - large map, where specific points have playable scenes/locations. Alaloth takes the approach of the second Pillars and I am very sure it would be better the other way around.

I absolutely dont understand why people call this game clunky. I didnt have a single technical issue, gameplay was responsive to my controller, it also worked fine on the Deck.... UI wasnt something revolutionary, but I found it functional, non bothering, perfectly fine.

To sum it up - it could be better than it is now, but I believe this studio and its vision is what gaming culture should be about. The developers definitely have plenty to offer, they had great idea about the combat twist in classic isometric RPGs and despite all my criticism, I did stay with the game till the end and went through all content I found.

Since I listed so many negative things, let me point out again - it looks great, it has a great vibe and a wonderful concept. Those three things are as big, bigger even, than the shortcommings above. They just dont need that much explanation.

This game and its creators deserve support, opportunity to grow and I am looking forward for their next project.

Excellent game. It was exactly what I hoped it would be based on the videos I watched.

The map implementation is fun and engaging. It's cool to jump into quick skirmishes or hunt specific enemies if I only have a few minutes. The "fighting areas" are all very well done, and each one has a distinct, interesting setting. Great variety of enemies and locations.

Loot has been great. There's plenty to collect, with a good amount of stats to consider without being overwhelming. One feature I really appreciated is the ability to toggle on an advanced tooltips-style feature in most menus, giving you extra details about each stat or ability. Very well done. I think there's probably still some balancing needed on quest rewards based on the stats of the gear versus the difficulty of the task. There could be more to it that I'm missing or not understanding; I mostly just took the bigger numbers and pressed on.

Consumables are handled perfectly to my taste. They're easy to buy or craft (which I strongly prefer). It's great that I can stock up on potions, baked potatoes, etc., and actually use them without feeling like I need to hoard everything.

Build variety — The game uses a classless system, which is always fun. There are quite a few different skill lines you can mix and match. I'm running a robe-wearing, dual-wielding melee character who uses a ton of Arcane magic, and it's working great! There's a lot of room to dream up different builds since it's wide open. You don't have to spend tons of points in a tree to unlock a specific spell — if you see a spell you like, you can unlock just that one. Then you can level up the spells or abilities too. Best of all, respecs are very affordable, so you don't have to stress too much about potentially messing up a build.

I rarely pay full price for a game (normally a patient gamer), but I took a chance and did so on this one, and I'm very glad I did.

Repetitive combat with fake rpg elements. The game is boring and limited at the start and becomes repetitive in the end. You don’t really get more powerful but you can make builds that nullify most other skills.

But the worst parts are the devs who seem to always argue and disagree with feedback. I recommend playing Drova. Such a great game. This game is 10% content and 90% reused content. By reused content, you'll be fighting the same enemies in "maps" that function similarly. Maps are a giant still, it's like having moving pieces on a boardgame for DnD. The bosses are unique which is a plus, but you'll get very tired of the overworld threats, the non-unique boss fights, and running into the other champions that want to murder you but can't and yield useless rewards after the first win. Bloated for no reason other than the allusion of a big world. The Original Baldurs Gate hates way more content than this game. This is an overweight beat ‘em up with fantasy skills that go on cooldown. And, if you play as an Orc, you are signing up for the most depressing experience ever.

Free DLC to my Review
As you can see, the devs responded and proved my point. They even have a review tracker on their discord so they know when someone leaves a review. They seem to only come through and bark at the negative reviews. They had made a post about doing better with responding to negative reviews, which to be fair, I get this is their lovechild, but negative review doesn't mean the game is bad. This review from my standpoint is that I've spent a similar about of cash on a better experience. If I could middle-thumb it I would. I say this game has about $13~15 of actual content and multiple playthroughs are going to be painfully boring.

Again, Drova, STELLAR GAME that you will get 2 playthroughs to see legit content that you can interact with like in Baldur's Gate (where you shape your engagements by what you say and do).