Now that I've finished Moratheia, here's my review.
Simply put, I really enjoyed this game. The 2+ years worth of work Ben put into it really shows. Every area looks great, and the character and item models are all superb. This game is quite an accomplishment, as it is the only SOM game I know of that uses entirely custom resources. Just about everything from the consistent art design to the soundtrack work perfectly in conjunction to convey a unique dark fantasy atmosphere that you just don't see in many modern games anymore.
The combat is surprisingly refreshing, as you'll encounter new enemies throughout the game that often force you to change up your tactics, so you can't always rely on the usual circle strafing and hit & run tactics like in most other King's Field type games. The saerirs are a good example of this; they are extremely fast and can kill you quickly, the only way I found to deal with them is to use a fast weapon and low cost magic spell to keep them constantly stunned.
Level design is similar to King's Field 3, in that it's for the most part a linear progression of non-linear maps that occasionally intersect. It's pretty easy to figure out where to go with the exception of dark caves, which are easy to get lost in without a map. The level layout isn't perfect though, as you can often find yourself backtracking for no real reason after completing certain quests. Maps also feel quite empty once you clear out all the enemies. I think a few more respawning enemies in certain areas and maybe some wall signs & additional details would solve this problem.
I really enjoyed the story. A lot of the NPC dialogues are well done and are often hilarious, many of which are actually easily missable. It just goes to show how generic storywriting is in modern RPGs when I'm feeling more attached to a voiceless NPC telling me to "bugger off" than I ever felt to any of the bland characters in Skyrim. My only gripe is that most NPCs are gathered in towns, so it can get tedious having to run around trying to exhaust the dialogues of 15+ NPCs in a single area. It'd help the pacing of the game if they were more scattered throughout the world.
As I stated above, probably the biggest issue I have with this game is the backtracking that is required after completing certain quests. It'd be nice if there were more shortcuts and maybe a warp stone system like in King's Field 4. A select few areas also felt a bit unfinished, like I noticed there were a lot of empty houses in Scala, compared to Calethan, which had houses full of detail. It'd also be great if some of the sellable items had more purpose, like being able to trade the ore you find throughout the game to the blacksmith in Scala to get special equipment would be awesome. Lastly, there were a few immersion breaking bugs I encountered throughout my journey, though, the recent patches seem to have fixed most of the major problems.
Overall, I'd highly recommend this game to any King's Field fan. I think that, over time, it could become something truly special if Ben kept at adding new content and features in future patches, maybe some new areas too? (Here's hoping we get to visit Kranth).
