Steam Community :: The Virtuos Foresk¡n

54.0 hrs on record (40.6 hrs at review time)

The moment i finished the demo of the game i already had many thoughts regarding it. After just finishing the tutorial and just barely exploring the open world i felt like i was ready to share them in a review, however i decided to play more and ultimately to finish the game before i lay out all of my thoughts.
First thing that you notice about the game is that it borrows or takes heavy inspiration from many other big titles. However, i think comparing the game to any of them - takes away a lot from the game's identity, which i personally think is prominent enough to respect. The game has an amazing introduction, great world building, legitimately interesting lore, solid voice acting that never takes you out of the immersion, wonderful sountrack that never feels ill-fitting, great implementation of a wide array of playstyles and a very prominent and endearing artstyle. I fell into this game neck-deep. I got the game 5 days ago and you can see how many hours i already have. The game feels like home in a comforting way and at the same time it feels like something new, something fresh. I didn't skip even side quest dialogues up until middle of Act II, which i think is a big indicator of masterful writing.

However, the game is not without flaws. The progression system and power level are very graceful from tutorial all the way through Act I and II. The Act III is where we get into most of the issues. Enemies feel somewhat challanging with Bosses often taking several tries. That's the way it was until end of Act II where there is a sudden spike in difficulty after which nothing in Act III seems to pose any sort of danger. Bosses were challenging but fair, then at the end of Act II they one-shot you when you play a total heavy armor tank build, after which suddenly you 2-shot some of the bosses.
Act I is full of content, quests, the entire world feels alive, undiscovered, challenging and rewarding. The Act II might not be quite as perfect, but it is by no means bad, it has the best boss fights in the entire game, it has some of the funniest jokes in the entire game and (almost) none of it feels empty.
The most disappointing part about Act III is that i entered it in my final gear, across the entire act there was only 1 *slightly* better weapon (with the exact same dmg but different special effect) and not a single piece of armor that superceded mine, even my cloak, amulet and rings were all from previous acts. Most of the caves suddenly had no reward, just a cave with ~5 skeletons and a chest with, i kid you not;- 3 gold coins, 2 iron arrows and a cabbage. Why even make a cave if it isn't worth going inside of it? A whole lot of loot is worthless, the map feels empty and much smaller than previous 2. In Act II there is a massive desert in the map that has nothing in it, but at least it looks like desert. In Act III there are settlements, structures, altars, caves and shrines with enemies in it with no loot, bosses, quest destinations or POIs. Most of the quests don't feel unique, some of the main quest feels like a chore and powerscaling kinda just dies. The most challanging fight in the game was in Act II, which was WAY harder than final boss. The second hardest fight was in Act I and that's a problem. You arrive in the capitol of Act III and the game literally tells u: dont go inside itll be too hard and it just isn't, go right ahead trust me, you won't struggle. None of it compared to what you already went through. And the worst of all: bugs. My first bug was in Act II when some guy didn't aggro on me after a quest. My 2nd and the rest of the bugs were in Act III where almost none of them could resolve without help of internet. 2 of them actually didn't resolve at all and 1 of those is THE MAIN QUEST. You literally cannot progress through certain parts of the main quest just because.
Not only do you not get any worthwhile gear in Act III, you also don't get new ways to upgrade it. The final upgrade material is introduced in Act II. The economy in the game is broken, a single upgrade of a weapon from +11 to +12 should never cost more than the most expensive house in the game(67k vs 50k). I was so excited about Dal Riatta area and lore, it was a huge disappointment that it has almost no memorable characters or quests. The Duel boss fights in Act I and II were some of the most fun, challanging and engaging fights in the entire game, which granted immense feeling of accomplishment. The fact that they just didn't make one for Act III feels almost like an insult. I'm ranting very much about Act III like it's not even worth playing, but that is not true, it just feels like a big loss of potential. The Acts I and II had so much greatness that the expectations just got too high for the conclusion of the game, which I feel like wasn't delivered.

In the end the game is very much worth every minute of your time and every penny of it's original price, at the very least for the Acts I and II. Now i will go into the game again with a new build and see how much replayability value does it hold. (You can judge the answer by how much time i have between "hrs on record" and "hrs at review time".)

Posted 3 June. Last edited 3 June.

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