Very old engine equals bad graphics. Storyline not obvious
Graphics: 3/10
Unfortunately Piranha decided to use the old engine from Gothic to design their new game and that resulted in very bad graphics for 2009. you can see edges everywhere and your screen is cluttered with all sort of stuff and textures feel old and without detail especially at night.
Combat system: 4/10
Furthermore the combat system is also quite poor and if you are engaging more than one enemy at a time you will most probably have to run for your life. Even though realistically speaking, in the real world if you confront more than one enemy the result would be the same you cannot move in a similar realistic way. For instance a seasoned warrior would most easily dodge some farmer attacks instead of getting hit all the time. Blocking is only good for one on one encounters but if you run into multiple enemies then side-stepping is the best option...but still I think they made the combat system a bit clumsy and very hard.
About magic attacks I haven't used them as I opted to be a warrior kind of guy with a knack at stealing
Sound: 8/10
Music and effect are ok, nothing special but they are acceptable. However Voice dialogs are very good and all dialogs are voiced.
Story: ???
I am still playing Chapter 1, but I can't say how the main character fits in the plot. Ok you learn of what is going on in the island from 2 different perspectives (the inquisitor vs the don) but really our main character is out of place in the story as it doesn't seem to have a solid storyline. To be frank if I was a survivor of a shipwreck I would have as a main quest to continue my journey or return to my homeland instead of meaninglessly meddling in the island's stuff. I don't know if later on the story improves but for the time being there is no story really.
Gameplay: 6/10
It's almost a classic RPG in the sense you kill & loot and it's quite open world with treasures and chests waiting to be opened with the addition of gaining experience when visiting prostitutes, hmmm maybe if that's the case maybe i should go to prostitutes to raise my stats.
Now that I mention stats there is a good side and a bad side. The good side is that skills have to be learned from trainers which is closer to reality as nobody can really learn a lot by himself suddenly.
However other stats such as strength should also be learned which I think is kind of stupid, since I believe through working out with your sword killing mobs in your way should be exercise enough on its own. But overall it's a welcome change. Generally quests are not so hard as puzzles and are really a no brainer but fights are tough and should be extremely wary when confronting multiple enemies at the same time. Also the map isn't really helpful and lacks details, also i haven't yet been able to mark things in my map but I like the feature that you must obtain first a map rather than just reveal the map of an area (I don't think all adventurers are born expert cartographers in the first place)
Overall 5/10
If the graphics were better, as least i find them horrible the game would be passable and I believe enjoyable. Now I don't know why piranha used the old (and by my opinion also a failure at the time) engine from Gothic. Maybe they were cash-strapped and could not afford it, but still... they should produce better results, especially with upcoming super hyped RPG games coming in soon.