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[Rannen]

This game has a fairly high rating among users and even the admin, but I'm gonna have to disagree. It's true that the game has some great positives, which I'll get out of the way so I don't have to worry about them while I discuss the problems.
-Truly unique and expansive cultures for each of the peoples introduced during the game. Each new civilization you're introduced to has a wealth of background information for those who are interested in finding it. Furthermore those who are not interested never need look for it in the first place, most of the cultural background is completely optional data. (However I highly recommend that you immerse yourself in each new culture you find, it's one of the strongest points this game has to offer)
-I very much like the idea of magic that gets stronger with use. Basically you can buy or simply learn new spells, as in Ultima, but when you do they begin weak enough to be called useless. Only by practice will you become a master of magic, which appeals to me as a nice character customization feature.
-Animebona/Animenka story bit was well thought out and quite interesting. I won't reveal the details, but I will repeat that the story and characters in this game are extremely well done.
-Dungeons were very interactive, puzzles were difficult enough to keep it interesting. Example: There's an enourmous gaping mouth in the floor, blocking your path. What do you do? Toss in a rock? Feed it some meat? Try to run straight over it? Although most puzzles in the game have only one solution, it will usually be a unique solution that you've seen nowhere else in the game as of yet.

Good positives gave it the potential to be a giant among games... however, it seems some rather nasty MAJOR flaws got mixed in as well.
-Every monster gives you exp more or less on the same scale, based more on how many monsters there were in a fight rather than how strong they were. The range of exp given for completing a battle successfuly is small, ranging only from 25 at the lowest to about 300 at the highest. This means that you can become very powerful by simply fighting weaklings forever, which I feel is a bit of a cheat. It also means that characters you don't use often will be impossible to level up quickly, and that the rest of the group will always be significantly ahead of them.
-A most serious flaw follows... one of the characters has a 'win every battle' spell called frost avalanche. It paralyzes ALL enemies for 3 rounds and makes it impossible to lose any normal battle. Why are you playing if you know you'll win every battle no matter what?! The story and puzzles become the only serious components to the game once this spell is learned.
-The quests are often ambiguous... I spent much of my game time wandering about the cities trying to figure out who I was supposed to talk to/kill/find/ect. to make the story progress. At one point, you actually don't have any specific quest. Your characters essentially agree to wander about and see if they can find out anything interesting. This can be very frustrating for gamers who need at least a bit of structure.
-Being able to cast spells using life points once you run out of mana was, I thought at first, a plus. Unfortunately you can also use this ability to cast healing spells. Towards the end of the game, I mowed down a whole army of powerful enemies without using one single potion... need more magic? Use life points to cast, then heal right up! It makes you able to use your most powerful techniques and heal for free indefenitely... just another 'win every battle' technical flaw.

and minor complaints:
-The music for certain cites, like Umajo, is bad enough to make me turn it off.
-Giving weight to the money is more realistic, but it can be irritating. Especially if you happen to have many items worth MORE than their weight in gold. You can try selling them only to realize that you have to dump have your money in order to move (at this point you may want to reload). The addition of some type of bank would ease this problem.
-The developers made a whole bunch of nothing to explore down in the southern desert... it isn't a game stopping flaw, but it does seem quite pointless.

Because I was enthralled by the depth given to the different cultures of Albion, I gave the game a 3/5 despite all the severe problems with the game. Without it, it certainly would get a 2 (or 1 if I was in a bad mood).