I don't write reviews very often, as I tend to connect very personally to certain games in a way that's hard to explain to other people. However, I think this game (and I mean game, not just a mod) genuinely deserves it. For starters, it is a completely free offering, which is honestly a criminal deal with how much quality it offers. I wanted to offer this review as my way of supporting the passionate team who headed this project, and took me on such a wonderful journey.

I've played a lot of RPG's by now, both old and new, with varying mechanics and subgenres. From Fallout: New Vegas and Chrono Trigger to the more recent Baldur's Gate 3, more action-oriented experiences like Cyberpunk 2077, and even open sandboxes like the Mount and Blade series. Yet Enderal truly captivated me in a way that I never thought I would experience.

My primary praise is in the writing. Bless Nicolas Lietzau and his team, as they achieved a story that genuinely moved me to tears. This game contains it's own world, history, and legends, and I loved absorbing that all in. It has its own characters too, and I genuinely loved Jespar and Calia as some of my favorite companion characters in any rpg. The way they are handled is excellent, they have their own lives and struggles rather than just following you at all times, and you'll often have interludes to sit down and talk with them. I am trying very hard right now to not spoil anything about the plot, but the main word that comes to mind is... ambitious. This game goes for some high concept ideas, and absolutely achieves them. It's a narrative that is personal, and psychological. It's the kind of story that invites multiple playthroughs, with layered clues and meaningful choices.

On the gameplay side of things, I'd say this game is harder than Skyrim. I think that does lead to one of my pain points, in that early game is very difficult and can turn away a lot of new players. However, I do praise the fact that there's no enemy scaling, and that areas/quests are separated by difficulty which is indicated to the player. You will improve, and it will feel amazing. A major departure from Skyrim is that skills are now leveled through consumable skill books. Each time you level up, you get an amount of learning points and crafting points, which you can use on these books to level. Similarly, you gain memories, which is a resource used to gain class perks and abilities. It is a balanced, and thoughtfully designed system that encourages thinking about your builds.

The world design of the continent of Enderal is excellent. There is no in-menu fast travel, but you can travel between Myrad towers for a fee. Each area feels distinct, with its own contribution to the world, whether actively or by lore. There are a couple areas which do indicate cut content / questlines, but they are still littered with clues as to what happened. There are some wonderfully designed areas and visual combinations that really push the creation engine to its limits. While it's still held to the limitations of the vanilla engine, you can of course download your own shader/graphics mods if you really want more fidelity.

I have to mention the music, and the team did excellent work in this department. These tracks are so memorable, and I love that the main leitmotif of the game is repeated in different ways. There's area songs, character themes and variations, overworld music, bard songs, and all in between. The game is fully voice acted, and you can tell that voices were reused for generic npcs. However, the main cast has some great talent (especially Tealor).

This is one of the few games that I personally consider a 10/10 experience, and I highly recommend giving it a shot. Thanks for reading, walk blessed, and thank Malphas :)

Downloaded it and cant even play it i keep getting a no license error whats the point of having a game on steam for download if it cant be played I have looked up solutions for fixing this but still nothing

Tedious intro, Unskippable conversaations, and unskipaapble movies (which also causes my PC to blackscreen with no fix but a restart, when i Alt+tab)..i didn't even have the patience to "play" for more than 5 minutes.