This game had so much potential to be great. The setting and lore are awesome; I love steampunk, and blending it with traditional fantasy is great. On top of that, the in-universe justification for Magic Versus Science is excellent worldbuilding.
Unfortunately, the rest of the game doesn't match up to the promise of the premise. The main storyline is not bad: basically, everyone thinks you're the reincarnation of Elf Jesus and you have to save the world, but then it turns out that you're actually not, and the main bad-guy is not who you thought he was. These plot twists are interesting but not groundbreaking. The character dialogues are pretty good, but in my opinion not as interesting as other similar games like Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate II, or Planescape: Torment.
The character building system is...awkward, to say the least. If you don't know what you're doing, it is very easy to accidentally gimp your character into uselessness. Magick and technology are not well-balanced; magick has a lot more breadth and depth, and its harder to make an effective technologist than an effective magician. Guns are sadly underpowered, which contributes to the difficulty in playing a technologist.
The game's difficulty curve is also pretty awkward. Early Game Hell is very much in effect, but once you get past that, the game is relatively easy except for a few spots like the Black Mountain Mines. End-game enemies are just damage sponges which don't provide any meaningful challenge, and it's pretty easy to dominate them using one or more of the things listed on the Game Breaker page.
The game is pretty buggy, but unofficial patches help with that. Overall, it just fails to live up to what it could have been.
So Much Wasted Potential
This game had so much potential to be great. The setting and lore are awesome; I love steampunk, and blending it with traditional fantasy is great. On top of that, the in-universe justification for Magic Versus Science is excellent worldbuilding.
Unfortunately, the rest of the game doesn't match up to the promise of the premise. The main storyline is not bad: basically, everyone thinks you're the reincarnation of Elf Jesus and you have to save the world, but then it turns out that you're actually not, and the main bad-guy is not who you thought he was. These plot twists are interesting but not groundbreaking. The character dialogues are pretty good, but in my opinion not as interesting as other similar games like Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate II, or Planescape: Torment.
The character building system is...awkward, to say the least. If you don't know what you're doing, it is very easy to accidentally gimp your character into uselessness. Magick and technology are not well-balanced; magick has a lot more breadth and depth, and its harder to make an effective technologist than an effective magician. Guns are sadly underpowered, which contributes to the difficulty in playing a technologist.
The game's difficulty curve is also pretty awkward. Early Game Hell is very much in effect, but once you get past that, the game is relatively easy except for a few spots like the Black Mountain Mines. End-game enemies are just damage sponges which don't provide any meaningful challenge, and it's pretty easy to dominate them using one or more of the things listed on the Game Breaker page.
The game is pretty buggy, but unofficial patches help with that. Overall, it just fails to live up to what it could have been.