The most recent game from Spiders is, as expected, a marked improvement over their previous one in many ways.
Visually it’s reminiscent of a cross between Dragon Age: Inquisition and PoE Deadfire, while gameplay is essentially Technomancer‘s with a few minor DA:I (the camps) and Witcher 3 (the ‘investigations’) influences.
Skills are pretty straight-forward and you’ll get more than enough over the course of the game to try out all sorts of combinations (assisted by the 6-7 optional repecs the game gives you). Attributes are a bit trickier since you’ll get significantly less points to spend there. I’d suggest maxing out one of the damage-dealing ones (Strength/Agility/Mental) and then splitting the remaining points among the supporting ones (you only need 3 Endurance to wear the best armor, and 3 Willpower will cover all but 2 of the available necklaces). Talents, as in Technomancer, are sort of a trap: You can get +1 on all of them from equipment (except Intuition if you don’t have the Adventurer’s Gear DLC; I got it automatically for some reason) and another +1 on all of them (except Lockpicking) from companion bonuses. Meaning there’s little need to put more than 1 point in most of them and pretty much no point in getting the third level of Vigor/Lockpick (they only gate some generic loot… though L3 Vigor will let you avoid a mini-boss fight in one late main quest). At the start of the endgame, if all sidequests have been done, you’ll probably be level 34-35 and have 48-49 Skill points, 12 Attribute points, & 9 Talent points.
Combat flow along with the overall graphical quality have once again been improved as has the writing and voice acting. The most significant improvement this time around however is in the questlines, as quest order now seems to be quite important with later quests specifically referencing your actions in previous ones. It really gives the impression the choices have actual consequences. Companion AI also seems to have improved and they behave quite sensibly in combat for the most part while general playtime seems to be a bit longer.
There are some notable negatives however. For one, the AI system in general seems to be prone to overloading, often resulting in NPCs (and occasionally enemies) who just stand in place staring off into the distance. This can be a problem in the few stealth sequences when it results in patrols getting stuck (a quicksave/load will usually unstick any nearby ones). The loot situation is a bit uneven as well, with there being quite a number of interior areas completely barren of anything interactable (I’d strongly suggest not exploring any buildings quests don’t explicitly send you to). Worst though, worst by far is the persistent bane of apparently all Spiders’ games: The backtracking.
The backtracking is a massive, massive issue even with the increased number of fast travel locations. There’s no excuse to have you running from the top of the governor’s mansion to the basement, and then back up to the top again. Multiple times even! The church’s city is a nightmare to navigate as well, a state of affairs made worse by the complete absence of a minimap (which caused no end of anxiety while exploring). The game’s fun, absolutely, but also utterly exhausting.
So it’s going to be a while before I try a second playthrough, on Extreme difficulty for the related achievement, in order to see just how much switching up the quest completion order changes things.