The combat system itself is rather simple, yet more involved that many other games. To survive, you will need to dodge and parry attacks regularly (especially in the beginning). After an hour or so, it is easily mastered and feels second nature. It employs hotkeys to switch between different weapons and magic attacks, allowing for a fairly streamlined and easy experience.

The game uses a couple gimmicks that in the end don’t work. You can fight from your horse (if you can actually move your horse, that is; I couldn’t), you can modify your weaponry by placing similar objects on top of each other, you can seamlessly transfer from indoor to outdoor (unfortunately, you get random loading stops throughout the game), or you can choose to be good or evil (this aspect is played up a lot from how it really works). In fact, the entire online is a gimmick. If you can find a game, you will probably lag out of it. If you can make it to an actually online game without that happening, you will see countless problems; however, neither of those issues are my main problem: the online is just boring. If we could have done multiplayer quests or something that would have been cool, maybe even use our single player character in the matches. Instead, we are given what seems to have been tacked on just so it could be called multiplayer enabled.

Go ahead... whip out your sword against this cuddly critter.

The graphics are lack-luster. They are not very strong, and often make no sense. While swimming, your shoulder pads will often decapitate your very head (at least they appear to be doing that), you can walk through most trees without hindrance (that’s not that weird, I guess), and a couple times I found myself stuck inside giant boulders. Most the time, your feet aren’t actually on the ground, and your weapon can hit someone without even touching them.

My biggest gripe with this game was the voice acting. With this being such an integral part in an RPG’s storyline, you would think it would help the game shine. Instead, it brings the game down.  This one aspect kills much of the immersive nature of the game. When you combine it with your lack of options when communication it is devastating. Most of the time you have two options when talking (if even that many). The story is your standard stock type, and nothing revolutionary, leaving you with various quests to occupy your time.

In the end, this game could have been amazing, but instead it relied on gimmicks that were unsuccessful. That alone, does not make it a bad game, but it does leave it in the heaps of mediocre content produced. If you have the patience to make it out of the first two hours, you will probably enjoy the title; however, most people will not make it that far.