Das Schwarze Auge! For traditional RPG addicts, even this strange German ruleset/interp delivers, despite quirks
-Surprisingly good voice acting for a subpar story, a subpar script, translated from German, no less (perhaps the German is a tad better, and lost in translation).
-[Usually] good graphics, atmospheric effects
-Surprisingly complex battle/endgame. Unlike other RPGs I have played where a methodical player will have a GOD at the end (pretty much an untouchable character) - which = boring, the law-of-dimishing returns approach applies to Dark Eye rules, which means things get rougher when tough opponents show up at the end. Otherwise, opponents are generally easily dispatched during the game
-I suppose if crafting must be considered a major plus, the crafting in this game certainly matches if not exceeds many competitors, despite there being major - and I mean major - holes in terms of availability (i.e. some item "lines" have many recipes, others have not a single one).
Now, the cons:
-A snoozer of a storyline. In fact, just hitting escape for most of the dreary/overwritten dialogue makes for a much quicker game.
-Another RPG where the developers only have so many hours so... we get to fight rats and spiders almost the entire game! fun! fun! (NOT).
-Mostly a bug free game (had complete failure at one point, easily fixed by deleting all but one game in the save directory), but not the translation: you will get funky German on the screen from time to time, and have no idea what it says.
-The Dark Eye rule set - or perhaps this game's interpretation, is just plain silly/broken.
Some examples of oversights:
1) Completely unintuitive. Almost every single "trait" (attack, parry, spells, "hit points") are based on three (or more) of your basic stats rather than one, and some of these connections make no sense whatsoever. And your basic stats are a bit cloudy to begin with. All of these leads to a sea of "washing out your stats" ... i.e. any particular class really doesn't differ that much from another, with the only clear cut lines drawn in the sand is due to abilities like Armor I, etc. which require a specific strength. A quick web search on the details of the rules for calculating hits/misses etc. leads to even more confusion.
2) Although interesting in concept, wounds are simply an annoyance to the party, and much too easily manipulated against opponents in later levels. This is because wounds take a major chunk out of player stats, and after 5 wounds - hit points lost doesn't matter - the player/npc is dead. This means: a) every char in your group will have/must spend on high willpower. To do otherwise invites an insta-dead event for that char. b) opponents later on are easily insta-killed using multi-wound attacks, or not at all (hmmm, sudden wound immunity shows up, I wonder why...)
3) No one in their right mind would be a thief, burglar, or any other "lightweight" without spells. Charlatan would be a good choice, except you meet one to join your team really early on. (Charlatan is OK). This is because: in the endgame, the only course of action for a spelless thief is to become a fighter (i.e. daggers in this game are more than useless, and there are no special fighting moves that are thief only)... i.e. to spend your experience points, you will be beefing up your character to look suspiciously just like a fighter (including abandoning daggers), since there are no spells available for a pure Thief. In which case - why not just begin as a fighter? There is no backstabs, no duel-wield, no complex feat list like in D&D.
4) One must take pause even choosing a fighter class in this game. Why? Because the main hero, starting a bit way into the game, gets awesome armor which allows one to cast spells... and if the armor allows you to cast spells, even having an extra heal option for the party is worth it.
4b) Be a spell caster? More of a choice, but the penalty (draining the game's equiv. of mana really early on in fights) means you really should be more of a fighter/spellcaster - ranger, battlemage, etc. In other words, fights last a hell of a lot longer than your spellcasting does without potions.
5) No resurrection. In the endgame, if one character dies, you are pretty much toast. Add that spurious 5 wounds you are dead problem (along with a few other crazy spots where one char can get hammered to instant death), and you are reloading a save game, rather than, in other traditional rpg games, pulling yourself out of the hole using a cleric.
6) Mysterious skills that seems like point sinks rather than valuable in the game. Example: Dwarf nose. I can think of only 5 or so places in the entire game where this trait shows anything (I can think of only one places that should have shown, but make require 20 skill), and the places are easily discovered without the talent. Same goes for many of the spells (e.g. upgrading them seems to make no difference whatsoever)
7) Resist magic = completey foobar'd? Hard to tell... upping this seemed to make no difference against hard chars (when you need it) zapping you with lightening.
-some of the constructs in the game are really old fashioned. I mean really old. Like going to a world map, and having a "unexpected encounter". That harks all the way back to Ultima days...
tips for players:
1) have several healing chars
2) have at least one char with ice cold warrior
3) have at least one char that can summon
4) max willpower
5) look for a potion of power (part of a quest). this potion is just plain crazy, and makes the end game much, much easier (or, for a challenge, ignore this potion).