how many bugs in 1 playthrough?
on a scale of 1 to 10 how much did you enjoy it?
do you think lobar is right in his crusade?
Bugs: the game still feels clanky, especially in staircases / slopes going up. Bunny hoping helps. Some small obstacles still mess up your character's ability to move forward. The AI can still be broken with ragdolls creating hilarious moments ( you hit a skeleton and it suddenly goes flying head-on into the ceiling ). The main difference between Update 4 and the original release, is that most of these bugs are not game-breaking anymore. Some are midly annoying, but overall the game works. I finished it, while I wasn't able to finish it 8 months ago ( quests were broken, objectives not marked on the map, changing the water level simply broke levels, etc.. ). I haven't seen any of these big bugs any more.
Design-wise, there's been massive improvements. My #1 issue in the original release was that the dungeon didn't feel interconnected. But now they added proper connections between the levels, even though the "grand staircase" isn't worthy of its name. Special mention to the loading times that went from 3-5 minutes per level, down to ~10 seconds now. This helps a lot in terms of immersion when you're travelling between levels. You now feel like the dungeon is a proper interconnected dungeon. They also revamped level design in a lot of places, and most of what I've seen is a definitive improvement. Saving seems to work.
They added NPCs into the levels, but the design stays simplistic. They all correspond to optional quests. They all follow the same pattern: 1) Get a materia core to drop the water level; 2) Get into a cave / door which otherwise wasn't accessible below the water level; 3) Solve a mini puzzle ( laughably easy ), 4) Free the NPC, which will give you a bonus ( spell runes, hints to loot, access to a new ship, etc.. ). They never deviate from that pattern as far as I could see. Lost opportunity and very lazy. Feels like they added NPCs just to add a check on a feature list.
They added variations to the monsters. The bellum is a beast-like creature with lots of teeth. It's a lot more agressive and faster than the slow skeletons and can outrun you. One variant is invisible, which actually makes it the creepiest / most dangerous foe of the game. Especially when fighting in the dark ( they never fixed the ability to carry the game with a weapon at the same time, so when you draw your weapon.. you're fighting in the dark. Retarded ). They also added a more dangerous variation of the skeleton, with red eyes, which can poison you. Overall, the bestiary is limited, just a bit less than last year.
They also did some work on the loot, which is a bit better now. By the end game I eventually reached magical weapons, which were sometimes more exciting than another "pristine mace" or "pristine boots". Unfortunately, it's still very far from being in a good spot. From what I can see, they added a lot more random items, like new types of food with various effects ( that's one part of the game I actually like, food is unknown at first and you need to taste it one or multiple times, to figure out the effects ).
The RPG elements are still very lite, feats are still there ( as the only way to level up and get abilities, totally retarded, because the more you specialize your character, the less feats you're able to accomplish, so in a way specializing your character punishes you ).
They streamlined the interface, but again, it's not exactly an achievement considering how it was at release.
So overall, the game's massively improved, there's no doubt about it, both technically and design wise. So the good news is that it went from a 2 out of 10 ( at release ) to, maybe, a 5 out of 10. It went from a trainwreck to a mediocre game. And no, it's still not a proper Ultima Underworld sequel.
I might recommend it for the exploration part ( some of the level design is pretty cool ) and only at a very light price, like less than 10 dollars, if you're looking for a dungeon crawler with level design a bit more interesting than what you typically find in other games. And of course, keep your expectations low.
As for Lobar, considering Otherwise's dishonnesty and betrayal of its backers, I can't blame him, although his opinions are on the extreme side.