Sooo i just finished it,and here are my thoughts.
In short the game is a good AA action RPG with some expected flaws. Would recommend for spider fans and story fags.
In longer....well lets begin with mechanics and the level design. Mechanically speaking the game is pretty solid,an evolution of spider's own type of game focused on dodging and counter attacking. The combat is solid with no invincibility frames and responding attacks,there is a decent variety of enemies tho the most annoying(dogs that roll toward you) are also the most used by the main campaign. There is also three types of bosses excluding the last one,they do offer pretty interesting challenge early on up to the mid game,but later on they are pretty easy. Human enemies are maybe the easiest and the hardest one at the same time. Most of the time you wipe the floor with them,but then end up facing a strong group that kills all the companions in a few hits and end up chasing you around,they don't wait you to finish them one by one and attack as a group,pretty incline. The duels must be the best part,it is a game of dodging,parrying and attacking. The biggest problem if the combat is that you have far too big window to parry and you being able to ignores most attack that way. Do hope that they make it scale with the difficulty level. With increase of difficulty level the parry window should be decreasing.
Armour...i almost forgot. Everything have some,light weapons are shit at removing it unless upgraded,heavies are better at doing it. The more armour something have,the less damage takes,with decrees of it the more damage it is taken from hits. Also magic ignores it.
The difficulty is pretty good in the game,would recommend starting on normal and ramming it up to extreme as the game progress. The difficulty level affects the stats of both the enemy and your companions,but it doesn't affect your own damage and armour. Another thing that affect is the AI and the skills that it uses,high difficulty enemy are more aggressive and attack as a pack,while using some ability that they don't on normal. On normal you could frequently see enemies or companions spacing out in mid combat,waiting to be attacked,on higher difficulty they don't. So in the end guys,just ram up the difficulty for more fun!
Level design is......good and very bad at the same time. The environments and the cities look great and feel logical and real in way,when it comes down to interiors there is a lot of reused assets,but i don't see it as a problem since a lot of other rpgs use that tactic to save money. We have one set for houses,one for government building and one for the coin guard/tavern building oh and one for tribal huts. Still not a big deal for me,but it is up to you. The bad part of the level design is how much of pointless travelling there is. You spend a lot of time running around,wasting time. The fast travel points/camps are daftly put,either far away from important building,or in pointless places that you will never travel to. The main building like the government and the coin guard do miss such points and thus forcing you to run there every time you have a quest to progress,it is simply retarded! I also noticed that many times there is artificial obstacle that forces you to go around it,thus increasing the travel time. The whole thing could be purposeful,to increase the play time....sad.
The levelling system on other hand is pretty good. We have six skill paths, light weapons,heavy weapons,two magical ones,bombs and fire arms. From what i have seen there is no op rout,it just depends on the players play style. You would be able to fuck your enemies as long as you get used to the chosen style. I played with light/heavy weapons and magic,i did managed to max three and a half paths,i assume that you will be able to max four if you get max level. Light and heavy weapons also unlock the ability to use a two handed light/heavy weapons,they are slower but do more damage. As a whole pretty good skill tree.
Then there is the attributes and the talents. The attributes are the main thing that holds you back from equipping the best shit and killing everything. They are six attributes,strength that effects heavy weapon damage,agility that affects light weapons,endurance that affects the armour you could use and health,accuracy affecting firearms and tow magical attributes that affect the magical damage,the ring you could equip and the mana points. You get points to invest around every 3-4 levels,i managed to get 13 and i assume that you could get 15. Thus maxing three of the six attributes. Seeing how Endurance is a must,you are left with only one other attribute to max and that is what sets you on your path of mastery. You may have 4 skill trees maxed,but seeing no difference because you can't equip better weapons because you don't have the needed attribute. When it come down to talents,you still get a point every 3-4 levels. But here you could mitigated its scarcity with equipment or companion's bonus. Thus optimal way is to one point in everything,prioritizing vigour and lockpicking,then adding more for convenience. There are six talents,charisma that makes your dialogue a lot easier and makes your companion better at fighting...generaly not very useful,then we have vigour that lets you traverse blocked paths and access more areas,crafting...useless there are people that do the job for small amount of useless money,science..don't need more than one point in to open some closed places,lockpicking is good for loot and unique items and insight finally is pretty good skill it lets you see and get more loot and have an effect in dialogue. Ass a whole the levelling system is pretty solid and good.
Exploration is....meh,there is some pretty things to see and some unique items to find,but generally it is pointless. You may get some decent boss fight or page for the worst quest in the game and that it is. Don't really bother,see the locations of interesting items and enemy on the internet,also most of the side quests make you explore the level so it is pretty redundant to go on your own.
Now the story and the characters,the best part of the game really. The setting is an unique take on cliche idea of taking a time period and adding magic. You are pretty much colonising Ireland,if you feel like killing irish or becoming one,this is the game for you. There are five factions excluding your own,most of them are pretty dislikable at the beginning and end up good or even more dislikable by the end. They all have their interesting parts and a quest line that you end up doing. That sound pretty generic,but it is well written and the side quests are very interesting,also interwoven in to each other,the same way the companions and the main quest are. Some quests my get another option if you have X companion or had finished X side quests. It is pretty well done and i must say that i haven't seen it in another game. There is also five companions,each representing their own faction. They are all pretty interesting....except africa,which is just boring. They are well written with their own problems and views,my favourite ones are the priest dude and the savage wifu.
The main story is about fallowing the main character(not playing really) and his cousin on quest to Ireland to find a cure for a HIV. You play as a diplomat that mainly goes around and talk with people,eventually beating the shit out of people when the checks fail. The good things is that it is well written and interesting,making you want to continue and get the ending of the story. The game in that aspect feels more of a book,since you don't get much of a choice on how the main character to react or do. I personally don't mind it,because it was quite some time since i played narratively focused rpg with a developed character. But most purist will not be very found of it. The main character it self is competently written,but sadly by a woman. In many cases his actions and worlds felt like something a woman will do....maybe it will be better if played with woman character tho. He did lacked any masculinity and felt strange at times,mainly during time where he should be angry and beat the shit of X faggot,but ends up whining. Thank god that this happens only a few times and could be ignored.
In the end it is a good story with good characters and competent writing. Side quests are where the game shines in my opinion,it have been a long time since i was surprised at where quest ended up going. It is a good choice for storyfags like me.