Yes, it is worth playing. I don't love the game, but I like it. I have to agree with the poster who said it looks better than it really is. The videos make it look like the combat flows so naturally that there aren't any frustrations. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Still, it is quite fun, and while the combat isn't quite what the videos make it seem, it's still on a higher level than many other games' combat is.
The game tries to pull off a good RPG element, but definitely fails at that. The game is very linear, the items that can be carried aren't varried quite a lotfor an RPG (The few books you can pick up have little to no in-game need, and aren't even long enough [one page] to justify carrying them around to read for leisure. There aren't very many magic rings you can wear, and some have magical properties that are easily trumped by the few other rings. The weapons are cool, but the skill requirements for some of them don't make sense given the class they're supposed to be specific to, or don't have very well-thought-out damage stats for their requirements.).
Speaking of the skills, they seem a little unorganized in some ways. For instance, the game seems to make you want to see four classes you can work toward emphasizing, each having their primary weapon type: warrior, mage, assassin, and archer; the corresponding weapon types being swords, staffs, daggers, and bows (though all can use any of the weapon types). But the skills for archer are very few, and in practice, the archer just seems like something you can choose to include as a sub-ability to the other three classes. Not to mention the mechanics to the bow are poorly done. Getting headshots can be overly difficult, since the hitbox to the rest the body of the enemies seems protrude out in front of the head. The arrow seems to move in an arch no matter what angle you aim the bow, making even slightly longer distance shots feel like you're aiming tiny artillery, trying to get the arrow to come down at a point on your target, not straight toward the point. And of course, there's the ever-annoying moment when you have your bow drawn, and your character steps off of a two-foot-high ledge, which qualifies as a fall in this game, so he lets go of his hold on the bow, making him have draw the bow again.
The mage class is the most well-organized for skills, but some of the staff weapons require skills of the warrior. The warrior is the most straight-forward and easy class to play in both application and skillset. The assassin can be a pain in the butt to play sometimes, and in my opinion, could use quite a few more skills that help in combat in some way.
There are also certain skills you can choose to unlock that are not very useful in the game, but require a considerable amount of points, such as the skill to lockpick locks, where most places or chests that can only be accessed by lockpicking have nothing truly valuable. Another skill, the poison resistance skill, isn't really needed, since an attack from an enemy that poisons will kill you until you drink an antidote anyway, and the best way to fight poisoning enemies is to never get hit by them (which, with practise, isn't that hard). In the case that you aren't careful to not get hit by them, and you need the poison resistance to stay alive when they hit you repeatedly, chances are you're surrounded so badly at that point that you're as good as dead anyway.
Another of the most annoying aspects of the combat is that your character cannot move backwards quickly at all. He can only walk (very slowly) backwards. This means that if you have to retreat from your enemy, you have to either turn around and run, orstrafe your way back. I can understand making backward movement slower, but come on, at least allow you to trot backwards.
Some of the voice-acting could be much better, too (some of it is reminiscent of the voices from Far Cry, for example), but that's no big deal for me.
That's all I'll say that's bad about it for now. What are some good things about it? The first time you backstab an enemy as an assassin will be one of the coolest animations ever (actually, you're stabbing just behind the collarbone down into the heart). The hand animations to the magic abilities alone make them awesome, and it's pretty cool as a mage to quickly switch between magic abilities in combat.
The combat, while not perfect and smooth-flowing like the videos suggest, is still fun when mastered. Daggers can be a little difficult to use in head-oncombat, but with some slight dabbling in warrior skills as well as assassin, their ability to hit very quickly can be very deadly if you can land every hit. Swords are the powerhouse weapons, with the ability to deliver multiple types of power attacks that are much more useful than those of the staff or daggers, and to be coupled with a shield, which can block arrows and won't ever be overwhelmed by too many melee hits from an enemy unlike just blocking with the blade. The staff is arguably the most reliable weapon, though it certainly won't seem like it until you master it. The first successful hit you land on an enemy with the staff stuns them for a couple seconds, and the second, provided they are still stunned, knocks them off their feet. In this way, you can fight three or more enemies without taking a single scratch by just keeping them off their feet constantly, hitting them while their down, eventually beating them to death. The downside is that it doesn't do very much damage, and has power attacks which don't land hits very accurately.
The enemies aren't quite as varied as I'd like, but it's not a bad selection, with orcs, goblins, human guards, necromancers, vampire knights, zombies, ghouls, giant spiders (and a couple normal-sized spiders), and a few cyclopses, liches, lightning-breathing dragons, a giant worm, and an even more giant spideras bosses.
The story isn't too bad, though many Might and Magic fans complain about the fact that the game has nothing to do with the Might and Magic universe whatsoever. Still, it's fairly interesting, and has a nice twist to it.
Overall, the game is good. It's not fantastic or even great, but it's good, and it is worth playing and enjoying.
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