I posted this on a few forums I frequent, and thought I'd add it on my blog for $&^$ and giggles.
Just played the demo from start to finish, here are my impressions.
Honestly, the game isn't bad, but it didn't really blow me away either. From a graphical standpoint, much like Risen, it's painfully obvious that this is a PC port and I'm afraid to say it's not an excellent port either. I understand the graphics have to be toned down for consoles, but this seems sort of... extreme. The textures are quite muddy, it almost feels like I'm playing the game in 480p resolution.
The frame rate is decent enough, better than some other PC ports I've played. I've heard some rather nasty complaints about the voice acting, well it's not that bad. I've heard worse, seriously. I didn't mind them. The main character is well voiced, some of the others are a little off, but it's nowhere near as bad as Two Worlds was. If you think it was, please do me a favour, and fire up Two Worlds and then compare them to refresh your memory. I played with subtitles and there were quite a few discrepancies (a quest asks for 6 items, yet 5 are displayed in the subtitles, etc, not a big deal).
I only heard music during the menu at the beginning, it was decent, but strangely absent for the entire demo itself. Sound effects are nothing special, but do the trick.
Combat is mind numbingly easy, and honestly so is the rest of the game, come to think of it. You can hold the left trigger to lock on enemies and just mash X to attack. Hit Y a few times to roll away from danger and you're golden against all enemies in the demo, anyway. Hold Y to block a % of the damage received, but honestly it's just easier to roll and mash X.
For some reason, during combat the enemies I was fighting would sometimes just run away from me, apparently heading back to their spawn points, right in the middle of combat. Pardon the expression, but the A.I. is basically retarded...
Bows and spells are super powerful as well. You can get a zoom skill for the bow, combined with sneak, and snipe enemies from far away and deal crazy damage even with normal ammo types. Spells like lighting allow you stun enemies, and it didn't take me long to figure out I could permanently stun-lock enemies with a lightning strike, followed by melee attacks, and more lightning, etc etc.
The skill system seems very basic, but it allows you to focus on a certain aspect (melee / magic / ranged) if you want or spread it around. Not very complex and quite easy to understand. Honestly it seems to work for this game when considering the overall difficulty and almost RPG-lite elements.
Crafting seems as easy as finding a recipe and combining ingredients, but it's difficult to tell since there wasn't much of it in the demo. Still a decent addition, allowing you to scrounge around for mushrooms / herbs and combine them for potions, etc.
It's quite obvious this is an RPG designed for the casual gamer. It's pretty much the polar opposite of Risen. Now I understand the comments of people who hated risen, and seemed to like this. I'm at the other end of the spectrum; I prefer Risen, by far. In just about an hour+ of gameplay I had several powerful weapons, tons of healing items of all sorts, some armor, shields, a bow, a crossbow, special arrows and bolts, etc. I remember how long it took me to get a freggin vest in Risen (first armor piece) and a decent weapon. Like I said, polar opposites.
This game is devoid of challenge, at least in the demo's playable difficulty levels (easy and normal; I played normal). There doesn't seem to be much exploration involved. The dungeons are A to Z with an exception of having a key found just after you pass its locked door.
Honestly, I was rather bored during the demo. I'm still not going to give up on it, I'll eventually play it being the RPG whore that I am, but I'll certainly put it on the highest difficulty and hope I won't fall asleep. The PC version seems far superior in graphics, but the console's graphics are by no means terrible but they aren't gorgeous either.
In any case, it will be interesting to see the reviews, and much like Risen I imagine the PC version will be quite a few notches ahead of the console versions. Definitely not a bad effort, but nowhere near the masterpiece that was Risen or the earlier Gothic games by piranha bytes. Arcania is after all, made by a completely different developer (Spellbound).
If you're like me and you enjoyed Risen and its difficulty, you will be sorely disappointed in Arcania, I'm afraid to say :(
- Jorlen