Review StrictSnow 2/5 · Jan 9, 2020
Visual Novel with RTS Elements
Now this is a weird one. I greatly enjoyed my time with this game. But I absolutely have to admit, it's not a good RTS. RTS games aren't exactly my forte, but I can make assumptions and guesses. The strategy is quite simple: "rush buildings, try not to lose, dragon." Maybe "rush enemy base" if you're feeling frisky. The unit …
Now this is a weird one. I greatly enjoyed my time with this game. But I absolutely have to admit, it's not a good RTS. RTS games aren't exactly my forte, but I can make assumptions and guesses. The strategy is quite simple: "rush buildings, try not to lose, dragon." Maybe "rush enemy base" if you're feeling frisky. The unit variety is kind of low. It's kind of a meh RTS. The one saving grace of it is the Dragon.
You play as an unnamed half-Dragon prince in this prequel to the Divinity series, with the incredibly powerful ability to transform into a dragon in battle and rain fiery death down upon your enemies. Playing as a dragon in the RTS bit feels great. You're overpowered. You're basically a god. It feels like you're cheating.
So overall, RTS is kinda meh but has a really fun gimmick.
The next phase of the game is the strategy phase. This is pretty barebones, it's basically fantasy RISK, except you play RTS battles instead of rolling dice. It's not fantastic, the main gimmick is that your can play strategy cards to bolster your ranks with mercenaries, devastate the enemy's ability to produce for X amount of turns, increase your production, and various other things.
The most interesting catch about this phase is that you can only choose to manually play one battle. That means you'll have to leave it up to the AI generals to auto resolve the conflicts if you fight more than one battle. Or if you get bored of the RTS aspect like I did in the 3rd chapter. The autoresolve is quite interesting because you can get buffs and debuffs from actions you take in the third and most interesting phase of the game.
The most interesting phase is the glorified visual novel aspect. You are on an airship and you get to talk to all of your generals, ambassadors from the various races represented in Rivellon, your technology and magic advisors, your spouse, and
The stand out characters are the generals. They are heavily flawed characters, but through your actions they can change for the better or the worse. They're fun to talk to, have actual character development and are genuinely interesting.
The ambassadors are quite interesting as well. They present various policies for you to ratify or veto, and all have different ideals. The Undead are incredibly religious and resistant to change often to the point of ludicrousy. The voice actor for the Undead ambassador does a fantastic job of not laughing during the takes. The Elves care about the environment and personal liberty above all other things, like your standard Tolkienesque Elves. The Dwarves are much the same as the Elves in as much as they are basically the standard no-deviation stereotype: greedy, business-like, with a rigid sense of morality. I found the Elves and Dwarves to be quite boring.
The Lizards are all about democracy, and self-reliance and actually put forth a motion to convert your empire to a republic with a presidency. I found them to be the only faction that was serious and not a flanderized version of a modern day politics. They were by far my favorite faction. The Imps just wanna blow stuff up which is fine too.
The most interesting thing about the diplomacy is how many real world topics it broaches, from gay marriage to public breastfeeding to violent games (yes really). This is the exact opposite of "not having politics in games" and may turn off some gamers. I found it absolutely fascinating.
I can't comment much on the spouses because you only interact with one per playthrough but the Lizard wife I chose was an interesting character until I apparently messed something up and she flandarized herself.
Overall, the story is fun, tongue in cheek, and a joy to experience. I would always dread going back to the strategy and RTS phases of the game, because the characters were so much fun to interact with. Unfortunately with 2/3rds of the main gameplay loop being kind of meh, I can't really say that this game is good, but for 4.99 which is what it usually goes on sale for, it's not bad, if only for the story and characters. Also the game just kind of ends abruptly.
EDIT: The soundtrack is great too. That is all.
