funny numbers go brrrr

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S→E

based pisi game

One of the best games and certainly one of the best mods for the game I've played.
The game does have its flaws, they are a plenty, but most of them are fixed in patches quickly or come from the limitations of the Skyrim engine. I've finished this game 3 times, 1 before it was on Steam, and despite seeing most of its content - I still love to come back to this game.
Despite the fact that this game is a Skyrim mod, do not expect it to be like Skyrim. Sure, you will see the same battle and vendor mechanics, but leveling system is closer to classic RPG's, and areas in the game are leveled.
I should also say, that this game gets a much higher praise from me because it's done by an indie team. You can tell that people invested a lot of heart and imagination.

PROS:
- Story-telling, quests, dialogues and writing in general. Characters sure are memorable, witty, funny. It was a pleasure to watch the story unfold and rarely I found interactions to be boring. I would also recommend to read the in-game books.
- Atmosphere: a combination of a great soundtrack, colorful palettes and additional mods made this game very immersive to me. Lots of creepy moments. I still remember the first time I talked to a Novitiate only to discover she was possessed and wanted just a piece of my flesh. Only a piece! - and every time I play that moment - it gives me shivers.
- I played a version with English voice actors and I should say they've done a terrific job.
- Enderal raises a lot of interesting philosophical points in many quests, which also makes your choices interesting and a lot of times leaves you pondering over what just had happened.
- Plenty of optional content and funny side-quests, I like that most of the time a typical fetch or go-kill quest turns out to be something more - either funny or dramatic or a downright horror.
- I could see the influence of other games, works of Lovecraft, but honestly it feels more like an homage, rather than a rip-off.

NEUTRAL:
- Uneven content. I understand that this problem mostly stems from the fact that it's an indie game with a small team. But eventually towards the end you would notice that the first town area and main city hub are very tightly packed with little quests and locations around them, but when you start spreading out, in a lot of places there is barely a quest or two, despite their size. I can only hope they are placeholders for possible future DLCs.
- Uneven loot. From total scarcity you go to super rich very fast only because you find a lot of things everywhere. But despite how good items are - they are quickly outclassed or just repeat too often and are only good for selling. So again - it starts very even in the first town, game gives you mostly trash-tier loot so you value every good piece, which you feel is well-earned after exploring a dangerous forsaken crypt or a cave. But after that - it's a rain of constant loot. And while game provides you other ways to obtain money: tabletop games in inns, bank investments, stealing, fencing, extra money in chests based on skill - it seems unnecessary because selling loot is much-much more profitable.
- Uneven character progress - stems partially from the previous issue - pretty self-explanatory really - switching between different armor sets would happen very fast after a long time wearing trash.
- Lycanthropy build suffers from the controls and animations from Skyrim. I was never a fan of the third-person fighting in Skyrim in general, but this supposed machine of death while being very strong is also very hard to aim to (power) attack. That might be my personal issue though, but overall I found the fighting mechanic of it to be very clunky.
- Story-wise your Arcane Fever is a neat feature, but gameplay-wise it's a mild annoyance. Ambrosia bottles are over-abundant and easy to craft with basic Alchemy. IMO it'd be better if it was harder to get rid of, like add a cooldown on consumption of the cure bottles. Now it's like radiation in Bethesda's Fallout series - negligible.

CONS:
- Bugs, crashes, glitches - problems inherited from the base game with additions of new coding. You'll get used to it. Save often, save in many slots.
- You might also get sick of the same stuff people say on the streets or certain vendors constantly greet you like they see you for the first time ever. Also the rhyming spell-vendor becomes very annoying over time.
- Classes/Skills Balancing: my main beef with Enderal. Here is a special list of issues:
- Someone in their review mentioned that this game rewards being stealthy. But in reality this game rewards being a mage. I don't mind that magic is strong, but it outclasses everything else heavily. You can be a very low-level mage and destroy enemies much higher level than you, while on the second run you will struggle a lot with the same enemies being a warrior or a newbie archer.
- Enemy archers and mages are silly strong, which again veers you towards ranged/summon approach. I finished the game as a warrior, though, but many times it was frustrating to know I could easily dispatch same enemies as a mage in seconds with super blunt approach. I would've at least expected a classic rock-paper-scissors balance: knights beat archers, archers/assassins beat mages, mages beat warriors. Not the case here until late-game.
- Some passive skills are trash - save often and test before you purchase a passive. I would even recommend saving up to 5 skills points so you can test a fully powered talent or quickly test some skills from another tree, because this game doesn't have a respec system (without mods) and you don't want to realize you wasted precious skills into stuff that doesn't work or just weird.
- When you read the skills' or synergy classes' descriptions - most sound awesome on paper, but a lot of them fall flat due to either engine limitations, slow animations in combat, enemies being absurdly powerful against certain builds or just poor math balancing. For example - you can have 100 blacksmith and an ultra good custom heavy armor and also cover yourself with the armor spell - and still receive a ton of damage from a simple skeleton with a battleaxe on the highest difficulty - feels like all that craftsmanship and leveling was in vain. Also there are Lords of the Lost Ones - they one-hit kill you in melee ignoring your HP/armor. Either keep distance or bash-stun them. But the game doesn't tell you that it's their gimmick, so you think that your build is wrong, until you Google it.
- Enderal favors elemental spells over other, more tactical psyonics and mental - easier to kill, than to micromanage attacks which are not that powerful. Sure it's super fun to make an enemy mage to suffer a backfire from casting a spell, but only for you to realize it was easier to burn them down with electricity. Entropy is just weaker as an offensive magic: it drains your HP, while having weaker DPS than elemental spells, and it's only good for its summons. Its upside though, that you get two types of skills for the price of one tree and it seems like there are no enemies with immunity against it. Strangely, you get no entropy damage enchantment for the weapons.
- The game also favors swords over other melee weapons in terms of loot. Maybe it's just me, but the best base items and the biggest roster of uniques are in the sword section. The only good axe was an axe of the Blind Miner. No memorable one-hand blunts I can think of. If you play as a classic warrior - once you find Al-Rashim's Legacy it's over. No other weapon needed.

You might not like Skyrim engine for its flaws, but I would still highly recommend Enderal because overall it's a fantastic experience and a carefully crafted universe. I hope at some point this team will have their own engine to work with and more resources, so we could see their full potential.

You love cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic settings?
You prefer Fallout 1 & 2 over 3 & 4?
You enjoy cool electronic music?
You have beaten all Shadowruns or at least played some and want a similar experience?
Then you probably would like to buy this game.

And I can recommend this game only if you are really hungry for something cyberpunk, but if you want a polished, well-done product in all aspects - this is (sadly) not the case.
I cannot really find objective pros for this game, so I will list only things the I prefer personally.

PROS (Subjective):
- Fantastic soundtrack. If you enjoy the work of Michael McCann and Alexander Brandon (Deus Ex OST's) - you will love this too.
- Dark atmosphere with the vibe of despair. I love stuff like that, but I'm sure it is a hit or miss.
- For an indie game - graphics and models are very well done.
- I like the "switch to headcamera" feature, it's quite original for an isometric game, but gameplay-wise it gives nothing, just a neat bell'n'whistle.

CONS:
- The game in its RPG aspect is very unbalanced. Some skills are completely useless, some are extremely overpowered. I struggled at the start of the game, trying one build. After you gain access to certain skills and guns - enemies fall like cardboard boxes.
- Character movement feels clunky, uneasy, not responsive. It feels like you give a command and it goes into a queue to be executed, rather than "stop what you are doing and do this instead". You can get used to it, but it's definitely something to work on. I wish the game could have a "switch to a turn-based combat" feature.
- Melee is OP af.
- Lore is hard to follow, especially if you are trying to get all the endings. Game does have sidequests, which is cool, but information is scarce. Overall feeling that you are just mindlessly doing missions, rather than being part of a story. Some maps pretend to behave like an open-world, but in reality they are not.
- Some story moments with endless enemy spawning are weird and annoying. Especially if you are playing the first-time not knowing about endless hordes of enemies so you run out of bullets.
- Saving system in some missions could drive you crazy. It's quite arhythmical.
- Stealth would be plausible only if in some story moments you won't be forcibly un-stealthed. Enemies suddenly know exactly where you are, so if you try to play a stealthy build, it will eventually be a bloodbath anyway.
- Pale green and pale blue overlay can be very dull and tiresome for some people.
- Game is quite short. I finished one story line with one character in 9 hours, and I was very slow.

CONCLUSION:

I'm pretty sure that every other review says that this game has a lot of potential. I completely agree. I would dare to say, that this type of game is something that a lot of old Fallout/Jagged Alliance fans were dreaming about. Skill tree could be a lot bigger. Weapon selection could be much wider. Instead of just a couple of missions, the game could be an open-world, a true RPG, where you decide what and when you want to do. Or at least some giving some intermission gameplay, in which you do side quests, talk to people, discover lore. I could go on and on with the potential features to add, but that's not the point of the review.

I am very reluctant about giving a negative review to this game, considering it is an indie project and for an indie project it has a lot of good stuff. It just feels undone.

Get this game only with a huge discount, or if you are a hardcore cyberpunk fan and want to add this to a collection. At least for a soundtrack

In short - this game has a great potential and very interesting and addictive gameplay
Pros:
- Dark, murky atmosphere, less shock, more mind-pressure
- Remarkable soundtrack
- Non-standard GUI, interesting solutions in story-telling
- Puzzles
Cons:
- Controls
- Once beaten probably lacks replayability

I certainly would recommend this game, a combination of a good price and a product with a soul