Games Of Thrones: RPG - Special Edition (PC)
First Impressions
So far, I have spent a somewhere around 7-8 hours or so with the PC version of Game Of Thrones: Role-Playing Game (GoT: RPG). It makes sense I'd spend this kind of time with this game, given that this game was supposedly around 7 years in the making. So far, GoT: RPG feels like a throwback to games of yesterday and yesteryear, in numerous ways - at times, that's for better and/or for worse. And also while it's at it, it also tries to put its own spin on the RPG genre, as well.
In GoT: RPG - at least so far, anyways - you will be switching between two characters, from chapter-to-chapter. One character you will play as is Mors Westford, a member of the Night's Watch - who is a "Skinchanger" that can take full control of his dog for stealth-like attacks and finding treasures. The other character is Alestar: a Red Priest (master of fire) who returns to his land and family, which are all in utter chaos - because of the death of his father. I'm just waiting and hoping for these two stories to actually intersect, at some point in the game. Each character has 3 specific classes for each of them that you take, in which you can decide where to take their characters' skills and abilities in certain specific directions. In one interesting twist, when deciding upon your character's attributes, you can take up to 3 additional special bonus Traits - but, for which you must also take something else that will give you a negative effect.
If there's anything that this game actually excels in and actually puts many other games to shame on - it's the actual storytelling, plot, and Lore. There is a very heavy focus on this stuff in this game. This game-world and universe feels like The Witcher's world - very mature, bleak, and dark. This is very refreshing, when compared to many of the huge assortment of typical traditional RPG's and sci-fi RPG's we've had over the years. While I have not read R.R. Martin's "A Song Of Fire And Ice" books, I have religiously watched the HBO TV series since it first aired. While you do not play as any of the characters from the TV show - this game is absolutely very true to the actual style, story, and Lore of the TV show. All of the Codex entries and letters that you find, they're worth a read - whether giving you insight on locations, areas, characters, and anything else in this game. In short - all of this stuff is absolutely excellent.
Since I mentioned the game's chapter-like nature, the game is split into chapters. This gives the game a very-focused and very-linear nature - which seems to suit this game absolutely fine. You might have a few, if that even, side quests to do per chapter - but they usually involve weighty decisions or something that feels very important. Do not expect the typical "kill 5 guys" or "find X items" that ARPG's and many other RPG's might use for side-quests often here in GoT: RPG - side-quests often feel like they could've been main quests here, which is excellent.
Combat feels like a throwback to some of the older-style of RPG's. Namely, the combat feels like the days of Neverwinter Nights (NWN) and Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) - more or less, it feels somewhere between the two. The combat feels deeper & more strategic than the original NWN (base game), yet nowhere as deep as DA:O. Groups here in GoT: RPG feel more like the original NWN, at least so far - where you might have control of one or two characters. Sometimes others will accompany your character, sometimes they do not. Sometimes you'll have control of others, sometimes you will not. When in combat, you can't highlight an area with your mouse or pick both characters in your small group at once - you switch between them. Combat plays out in a "pseudo" real-time with turn-based combat, in which you have a pause mode that you can issue tactical orders in - which sounds very reminiscent of NWN, DA:O and many other older BioWare RPG's. You can make up to 3 tactical decisions at once and/or as much as your energy bar will allow the moment. What's interesting is this game has a nice little spin on tactical decisions when in pause mode - combat slows down to a crawl, but it still is on-going. You can't just pause, wait and decide what to queue up for moves in combat like in many older BioWare RPG's - this game is trying to still keep you involved in the game's combat. And since you don't have full control of massive parties of 4-6 party members, this makes a lot of sense - as this gives the game more of an action-y feel. While I do actually like this game's actual combat, it just lacks something.
The game's combat lacks some kind of "oomph." Like the original DA:O, combat just does not look spectacular here. Unlike DA:O, combat doesn't sound spectacular here in GoT: RPG - the weapons, attacks, and kills just lack the "oomph" to make it sounds like it's making a major impact in battle. Since this game's combat feels somewhere between the original NWN and DA:O - i.e. somewhere between action-y and tactical - one might wish the combat in GoT: RPG actually looked & sounded as flashy, as showy, and as awesome as Dragon Age 2 (DA2), as this would've absolutely made this game's combat actually great.
Graphics are...absolutely nothing special. While I am absolutely fine with the game's look and art direction for the GoT universe - in terms of technical quality, the textures themselves just can be a bit all over the place. Sometimes they're nice (like on a lot of the main and important characters in the story), while sometimes they just look downright bland. Sometimes, they look downright muddy. Sometimes, especially in cut-scenes, they look decent. For the most part, they are absolutely serviceable and do their job just fine. If this GoT: RPG game was released around the time of DA:O, this game might actually look good for that actual time of release.
The mini-map seems...quite useless. As a mini-map, it's not much help - because it doesn't lay-out the map within the circle in the upper-hand corner. The mini-map actually feels and works more like Skyrim's compass - in which it's there to, more or less, try and point you in the right direction. Just like in Skyrim, you're better off switching to the big map here and there, to point yourself in the direction you'd like to embark on - and that seems to work just fine.
While the dialogue for the most part is fine, it's the English voice-acting that is all over the place. Most of the main characters - such as the two leads that you play as - in the story do a fine-job delivering their lines. The actors that played Varys and Joel Mormont from the excellent HBO TV series reprise their roles in the GoT: RPG, they also deliver pretty good performances. With some of the lesser important characters in the game: the voice-acting can be all over the place, it might be good, it might be bad, it might be decent - who knows. This is worth nothing, though - from the Options menu, if you like, you can even mute the voice-acting. So if you'd think the game might be better off without it, the option is always there. If you feel you'd really like to give this game the "old-school" feel with no audio voice-acting, the option is always there.
Despite Cyanide not likely having the kind of money to make a RPG to compete with the likes of Bethesda being under ZeniMax's wing and BioWare have by being affiliated with EA, there are some things here they've done that they bring back the old-school feel of RPG's back - which feels like we've been missing a lot of this, in recent years. And also, they have put their own stamp on things, by putting their own spin on doing something different with the older RPG staples. While Cyanide certainly should take note on some things from what other RPG companies have done, other companies might want to take note on what Cyanide is actually doing here. Even despite my assortment of minor complaints with this game - the actual care put forth into the story itself, storytelling, plot, characters, GoT universe, and actual Lore has made it VERY HARD for me to even put down this game.
$6.79
$14.99
about Game Of Thrones. Not the books, not the TV show, and definitely not the video game(s).
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