Not a bad game, was quite fun, but the story became a bit of mess :D

Well... I somehow finished this game, and I feel extremely conflicted about it. I’ll try to give a proper review while avoiding spoilers:

Gameplay:
Simple, somewhat dated, and a bit clunky, but still enjoyable in its simplicity. There’s proper RPG progression, although don’t expect it to be challenging on normal difficulty. The leveling system feels a bit wonky at times, almost unnecessarily complex. The inventory system is straightforward, as is potion, magic, and skill usage. Combat controls are fine-ish, nothing great, but functional.

Music:
It’s fine. There are a few nice pieces, but nothing major or particularly memorable. At least it’s not annoying.

Voice Acting:
Oh boy... The main character loves randomly shouting at people to sound like a badass. It’s definitely not cinema-quality, but you can tell the voice actors tried their best, so they get a pass.

Story:
Now for the most important part... and oh boy, where to begin.

- Chapter 1: It's alright. The introduction is rough, with bits of lore scattered everywhere, leaving you wondering why most of it exists. The devs clearly loved flavor text.
- Chapter 2: Holds up decently. You get more background, but it’s still confusing, and there are plenty of plot holes. The main character puts up with a ridiculous amount of nonsense, and some characters’ actions make no sense beyond "the writer wants to push the story forward."
- Chapter 3: The story continues, but you’ll find yourself shouting at the screen, wishing the protagonist would say what you actually want to say instead of random stuff that everyone either ignores or shrugs off. Our "badass" hero continues trying to be impressive, only to get sent on more fetch quests like an errand boy, while sighing constantly about doing them but the game and story requiring him to comply regardless.
- Chapter 4: Finally, things pick up. Some parts start to make sense, and we get answers to basic questions that every NPC seemed determined to withhold for no reason other than to annoy the player.
- Chapter 5: Extremely rushed. It barely makes sense and involves a lot of tedious back-and-forth on a huge map, with more fetch quests and puzzles that feel completely random. You’ll end up clicking around, realizing most of it doesn’t affect the game much anyway.
- Ending: The final boss fight should be epic, but by this point, your character is overpowered, so it’s just button-mashing. There’s no epic music to enhance the moment, which makes it feel less impactful. The ending itself is... underwhelming. It feels incomplete—there’s no real conclusion, and you’ll find yourself asking, "Wait... that’s it?"

Overall:
I’d give it a 6.5/10. I did have fun with this game. It’s not long, and the world is genuinely interesting and beautiful. However, the way the story is handled—the pacing, exposition, and overall structure—is terrible. If you’re looking for something similar to Dragon Age 2, it’s worth a try. I don’t regret playing it, but it definitely could’ve been more. Even a simple slideshow in the epilogue showing the outcomes of your choices would have made it feel more complete. Instead, it feels a bit unfinished. A fair bit of warning, the storywriters seemed to be focused on rather...peculiar fetishes in this game, highlighted numerous times... I would say the game is a kind of demonic almost-incest romeo and juliet full of crazy cultists and randomness thrown everywhere into a cruel blender.

Well, this was an odd little ARPG from 2013. But I enjoyed my time with it, so what the hell, a recommendation it is.

The good:
On balance, the voice acting and script were quite workmanlike. As in "good". I was actually rather interested in the exposition dumps.
I don't know anything about The Dark Eye, but I felt the stats and leveling systems were quite engaging.
Some interesting choices to be made in the game.
Very few difficulty spikes and the puzzles weren't mind-destroying.
Finished it in just over 18 hours, and it ended just where it should've.

The meh:
Combat is about on par with the original Witcher game, which is to say, it's a bit slow and janky at first.
Your "gifts" (which are sort of like Geralt's signs) are very useful, but it doesn't really pay to over-invest in them. You can only really use 4 at a time, and if you choose the most OP ones, that will also eat into your magic points very quickly.
Character design is a bit fugly. It shows its age in that department.
There are some unintentionally hilariously bad cut-scene moments. One, in which our hero gets blessed - but collapses comically because his body is too demon-infested to deal with that - had me belly-laughing.
Our hero has a thing for his sister that is likely only legal in certain southern states. A huge wtf there.
I was dreading a huge boss battle, but it wasn't as hardcore as I'd feared. Some might find that anticlimactic, but I was ok with it.

The verdict:
It's a scrappy little dark fantasy AA game. And though it's got a bit of euro-jank flavor, it's not as punishing as say, the Piranha Bites games - and shorter too. Good times.