This game is killer and I was not expecting it to be this good. There are elements of several other excellent games all mixed together here such as Wartales and Darkest Dungeon as the first ones that come to mind. The soundtrack is not the most varied but it is passable and IMO for the dark ambiance of strife in the world that this game tries to portray, the music helps it along quite well.

Combat is good - there are some really well done enemy skill designs that force you to move and position regularly while still being well-paced. In that vein, I am seeing a lot of character archetypes with abilities that have various ways to doing damage while moving, so that you can reposition out of terrain that the enemy has debuffed, while still doing damage and moving combat forward. All the usual tried and true combat elements of flanking, cover, etc. are here, with a few nice tweaks as well.

You can tell they really wanted to focus on the game systems, party/resource management, and combat. The dialogue is nothing special and no voice acting is present, no real cut scenes - but NPC interactions are clear enough and honestly for a game like this, they are correctly positioned in the background, as the bread and butter of this game is definitely party management/character spec building/combat. Be forewarned there is a fair amount of depth to all the systems they throw at you here, so you will probably not like this game if you just want to relax with some basic turn-based combat. It does require you to think - there is wage upkeep for mercs, aging/retirement (which can be turned off i think), and time limits on game events that force you to think about how long to rest and recover, and really focus on making sure you balance your fights with a variety of characters. You can't really rely on just the same 5 characters for every mission due to the fatigue system. You have Darkest Dungeon-style dungeons where you can buy limited supplies and refund them partially if you don't use them, there is a renown system that can be used to upgrade your company in many ways, much of which will be very familiar to you if you played Darkest Dungeon.

Honestly I bought this game when it came out immediately and just started it this weekend, and I feel almost criminal for letting it sit this long.

The game is fun with a great plot and more forgiving resource management than similar games, but it has its flaws. The game is LOT of fun and interesting mechanical elements, but because the game has no combat log and really lacks on screen feedback for the amount elements it has going on at the same time, there is no way to tell what is working and not, and that is by biggest gripe. Through trial and error, I just figured out some thing dont work and others looked like they didnt work because it was so hard to tell...

Mechanics:
You travel the world map from location to location (Fallout 1&2)
The battle system is turn based and uses hexes (HoMM3 / Bannerlord)
In towns you recruit characters to your band, heal them, buy gear
Your characters level up and you get to upgrade your governing skills from time to time as well
While wandering around the map sometimes you go straight into battle but sometimes you go to a dungeon where different events occur (which is in a way the true essence of the game)
The quest system is very simple. Most of the time you get a dungeon or a fight (Diablo 2)
Sometimes you make decisions in dialogues that influence you and your party in some way. Sometimes you can participate in the world events
The main unit of the game is days. When you travel or heal your team, the days go by. You need to learn to utilise them wisely

Pros:
The game is fun
If you like turn-based strategy / crpg games, you should definitely try it
There are a few classes but you can progress them differently, rebuild your characters, try different mixes of classes in your team
You can actually redo the appearance of all your characters, rename them etc
The plot isn’t bad. Just enough to glue things together and keep you engaged. The game is pretty simple so don’t expect it to be BG3
The dungeons are pretty fun to play, even after 40h of gameplay
The game is pretty difficult (on level hard) and there’s still two levels up
The characters can get injured or even die. On hardcore mode it can be devastating but also pretty cool
At first the game might not always have a perfect pacing but after a few hours there’s more and more events happening and quite a lot to do

Cons:
cloud sync on steam doesn’t work
There are some bugs
The game might be a bit expensive for such a niche title
The game is pretty simplistic. I think it’s a great thing but some people will hate this
If the game would have a few more layers, a few more things to do, a few more details, plot twists, dialogue options, classes, random events, it would probably one of my favourite games of all time


Overall score:
8/10 I think the game is great. It’s obviously not a AAA game but a good indie game. Not everyone is going to love it but I do. I was waiting for a game like this for a long time. I really hope the studio will continue the series and develop a good sequel with a bit more depth (but not too much depth!).