You have to bare in mind I have not currently completed the game nor am I sure on how far exactly I am within the game story. By the achievements I have unlocked (majority of them hidden), it seems I am probably nearer to the end of it. Some sections may involved some spoilers, I will try to keep anything major within spoiler tags.
Main Points
The game centres around two main characters. These are fully customisable, with either being male/female/either. There are no set 'classes' so you can go free for all with your skill points, however, you do not get as many as I like within the game, so you will be limited.
The combat style is turned based, working from an initiative stat and goes in order around that. You may 'delay your turn' to go last.
A lot of the higher level skills and abilities are limited by cooldown, so you will hotbar a mix of low and high-end spells.
Screenshot of a random combat scene with notes on in the spoiler.
The environment plays a big part in the game and there are many effects you can do to alter it to your favour. Such as, fighting fire-mobs, make it rain, to weaken them. Set fire to a patch of oil to make a 'fire-wall' forcing your enemies to go around or through it. Elements can be used in multiple ways such as water can increase the potency of electric attacks.
The game doesn't handhold you that much in the slightest, so if you are getting laid back, you can find yourself running into trouble sometimes, which makes you read through the quest-log to find out where exactly you may consider going to. A patch added a few basic quest markers for some 'critical' quests due to number of complaints, but I have only seen like 4 and I done hundreds of quest stages.
Exploration/Open-world is limited by the levels of monsters and the number of them. Things like character combinations, teamwork, setups can play a very big part on how difficult the game will be, yes, there are a few 'very cheesy/exploitive' methods but they make the game dull.
Questing is pretty much 'Quest-hub' format, where you go to an area, they have a number of quests, they all end up continuing in similar places at various points whilst the 'main-quest' hops around between these a little. Before you think this is completely linear, Lets say I ended up doing steps 1,2,4,8,12,13,14,9,5,10 .. pretty much the main quest out of order. There are many ways for steps to advance too, which is amusing when you later come across alternative steps.
A lot of quests have twists and strange results with them able to end in different ways, or even have them fail. There are even quests where one path may fail but you can complete it by doing something else entirely (but related). Best way to describe it, remember those books where your different options lead to different page numbers? Questing at times are a lot like those.
As for size of the world. One of the big areas you will be spending a lot of your first hours in is a place called Cyreal. I am currently on a 4th area of that size, and as I said, I am 65 hours or so playing this game and still going. This is mostly because I have been doing a co-op game and a single-player playthrough.
As for co-op, basically, you have a 'host' who has the saves, and the player 2 can customise one of the 2 starter characters. Ultimately, the 'host' owns/runs the game, there is no drop-in/out of different characters.
Companions: As far as I have met, there are two fully fleshed out companions which you can pick up early on, and a host of 'henchmen'. I have not used any of the henchmen, but the game has a backstory written for them, but that might only be it. I simply don't know. As a tip for variety when making a new character, I will say what those two henchmen are in spoiler tags.
[spoiler] Madora: 'knight' men-at-arms and two-hander. Jahan: air-magic, water-magic (can do heals). [/spoil]
Recommended starting character:
Archer - Basically, you have 30+ different arrow types, you have a range of powerful/useful skills and abilities, all within one skill-tree. This gives you a really good ranged all-rounder who brings a lot to the table.
The second character can be down to preference in whether you want diversity or specialised. I would say to go for a magic-caster, due to there being 5 different magic-skill trees.
Game Rating:
I find it difficult to do, not because of the game being bad quality, but it is entirely down to the tastes of the gamer. This is a old-style RPG which I would throw in the same league as Baldur's Gate with a modern UI and much needed fresher graphics.
I would say the release is 8-9/10 and with the open modding and further development, I think the game could hit a 10/10 easy enough. Things I don't like would be the crafting system and inventory sorting which are both basic. So if you like an RPG with a lot of talking and running around, it may be for you.
However, if this kind of game is not your cup of tea, it can very easily fall to 6/10 and lower. Basically, cue those who go "It is isometric view like Diablo 3! It must be like that!", it is nothing like Diablo 3 in the slightest and you would be sorely disappointed.
Feel free to ask any specific questions and I will see about answering them for you.
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