Well I have completed my play through. Spent a total of 62.2 hours, which is fantastic for what is a $33.99 price in Canadian. For those looking for a deal, it is currently -15% off on Steam and worth the price to scratch that adventuring itch. Its strength does lay in the early game where everything is new and open for exploration once you arrive to the city, and departing brings up a world map and wilderness regions to explore. Longer loading times as the game progressed were worked on and became available as a patch during my play through, along with a number of other fixes to quests and game crashes.
It does not have that gritty D&D feel in comparison to Baldur's Gate 2nd Edition Ruleset and I found character leveling was just pumping options that simply were not enough to define one character from the next. General Skills are too few, Class Skills from what I saw every class had the same choice, as well as Weapons. I spent little time trying to equip my main character with any other weapon then the Spears and Halberd option but was forced to eventually dump it elsewhere because it was a requirement to level up. 15 is the maximum you can dump into Weapons for each available weapon, so once you reach that you dump it elsewhere even when I had no plan to change my weapon. Why is that? The lack of variety and strength from what I found, despite there being a number you can find, the wow factor just wasn't there to make a switch to a new weapon type. Armor is a lot better in terms of its variety.
Brewing potions or powder was an entire side quest on its own, finding a recipe, then trying to figure out if you need to dry the ingredients first, what strength is the heat requirement, is one candle strong enough to accomplish this task? The tutorial shows you the potential of the in-game system and it would turn out great for a quest or two playing a wizard, or mixing a cure for an elderly man or young child. I ended up selling all the little flowers, leaves, mushrooms, branches, etc., that are in the world after getting fed up with the system and lack of guidance for reach recipe. It saves you weight for more important items, gives you a good way to pad your coin purse selling what is a plentiful resource, and that allows you to just buy potions and powders you need anyway.
Side quests are plentiful too, just like the brewing ingredients you can find, but so many are fetch quests or delivery quests or kill monster quests, that it is no wonder greed in the world is growing - everyone is bored to death there are no compelling or interested characters creating problems that are truly worth investing your time into. It was forgivable at the start of your adventure, quests that help direct you out of the city to explore the wilderness, visit smaller towns or vineyards, but you only stumble upon more as you move forward and explore. Some variation or true investigation quests to break up the side quests would have been welcoming.
The main quest though is interesting enough and doesn't just toss fetch this, deliver that, or kill this. Thankfully it is engaging enough that it kept me moving forward with layer after layer revealing new interesting places and twists along the way as you unfold what befalls you at the start of the game, into a much larger world problem that made me feel like my own personal troubles were so insignificant and selfish, which I truly enjoyed. People still see you as a hero, but the world is going to move with or without you, and it doesn't care that you're a hero. It has more important plans.
That brings me to the final area before the final battle. Now it's been patched since then, but I have not replayed the game to say at what depth or balance it was patched, and how helpful contents in containers will be. This is in regards to all containers being utterly empty during my game where battles were challenging but offered absolutely no way to replenish what you've been using during those battles. Every. Single. Container. Empty. Didn't bring enough arrows? Better hope one of the enemies use a bow and have a few left over. Need some potions because you're running low, or a helpful parchment with a spell on it? Oh well. Planning on going back to either city? Well, you can't leave because uh ... *shrugs* :| It was so infuriating sneaking around from room to room, only to find every chest, barrel, crate, table, and bookshelf empty.
Black Geyser made me think of a wooden plank off a pirate ship, except this plank was solid, strong and promising during those first few steps, but began to wobble, creek and shrink the further you moved out. Late game was thin with content and even the fetch, delivery and kill quests could not bring beautiful areas to life. It felt as if the developers wanted you to see snowy areas and a desert too, but when you explored those regions it lacked much of anything except for the NPC you need to speak with to advance the main quest line.
The spine is there, the game clearly has a strong heart, it's just the appendages move independently from one another and smack the face around more often than it needs to.
Future patches and an upcoming DLC will add a lot more content such as stronghold quests, completed companion quests and a number of other additions.
At this point, I'd say buy Black Geyser during a sale if it is on your radar, and certainly wait for these upcoming additions that I do hope, give the game more bite than bark.
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