My hands clench around the controller, as the screen displays the Quartermaster for the umpteenth time. The Quartermaster opens his mouth to speak and says -

"Skip." I grunt impatiently, tapping a button on the controller. The cutscene obligingly ends and I'm presented with my equipment choices for the prologue's final battle.

"Light armor. Casting focus upgrade." I scroll through the shop screen, "Not as if a sorcerer can use any of the other stuff."

Equipment selections having been made, the Quartermaster starts to open his stupid mouth again and I jab the skip key with surprising venom.

"Inventory screen, there we go." I grumble while working my way through the game's menus, "Upgrade focus. Done. Now equip armor, focus and knife."

I look briefly at the three dimensional representation of my avatar displayed on the inventory screen. He looks good. Really good. Almost lifelike in fact. And the graphical splendor of this game doesn't stop there either. The NPCs? High poly counts, all of them. I could see the seams of their clothes on screen. The faces are randomized, so no two NPCs look alike. They even dynamically sweat when doing stuff around the camp. Amazing.

The locations I've seen so far are even better. Crossroad City really resembles a living breathing city. Vehicles. Working mass transit. Civilian NPCs that have their own schedules. A law enforcement system that actually works consistently and doesn't rely on teleporting cops with bad short term memory. The Rift the prologue mission takes place in is absolutely awesome. Has a tropical vibe with day night cycles, changing weather and yes, being as close to photo realistic a fantastical location can get.

This game bleeds awesome from every pore. At least on the surface. But I know from bitter experience that the shit show is just about to start.

The camera pans to a loudspeaker mounted on a tall metal pole. Here it comes.

The bloody unskippable cutscene before the final battle.

Control is taken away from me as my avatar marches in step with the rest of the NPCs, the loudspeaker blaring instructions all the while. The two Captain characters begin their canned inspection of the Guild troops as the camera drifts toward the horizon, now blotted out with wave after wave of wolf mutants charging across a grassy plain. At the command of the Captains, the guild troops charge right at the incoming wave of mutants, called Bio whatevers in game. And control is handed back to me.

My stomach knots at the misery that's about to come. All games need a concept. Something that can hook the player. This one was obviously squarely aiming at graphics whores. But it also needed some kind of gameplay to keep the player engaged. That's where the developers made three absolutely terrible mistakes. At character creation, you could choose one out of three available classes. Warrior, Gunfighter or Sorcerer. All fine and dandy. Unfortunately, no matter what your choice is, you would be slapped in the face by mistake one.

The player avatar is pitifully weak.

I scroll through my available skills and select Soul Fire, my only attack spell. Locking on to an incoming mutant wolf, my avatar goes through the casting animation, dramatically raising the focus as it unleashes a bolt of purple fire. The mutant nimbly dodges to the side, but soul fire arcs in the air, adjusting its trajectory on the fly. The bolt of flame slams into the mutant's face eliciting a snarl of pain.

Before the mutant continues barreling right at me.

You see, Soul Fire isn't powerful enough to kill in a single hit. Plus it has a cool down, so I can't just spam it. Combined with how fast the mutants move, I can cast only once before an enemy is right on top of me. Despite knowing better, I begin charging my avatar's heavy melee strike.

"HUYAAAH!" my avatar grunts as he flails impotently at the dodging mutant.

As a sorcerer, my avatar's melee abilities are hot garbage. But that's fine. I've already worked out how to deal with this problem in the tutorial. And this coincidentally ties in with the second problem the game has, which goes back to why the player is so weak in the first place.

This game is supposedly about mass battles. Armies clashing with each other, that sort of scale. But the developers didn't want to go down the tried and tested route of a single OP character ROFL stomping everything in his path. That would be stale, wouldn't it? Their game needed to provide something fresh and new.

That fresh and new thing was teamwork. The player had to work with the friendly NPCs to beat the enemy. And supposedly the NPCs you worked with would start opening up, unlocking their sub stories. So on and so forth. The game was basically an action RPG with a fixed main plot but procedurally generated secondary stories. A near infinite amount of content awaited the player. In theory.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

In practice, all the friendly NPCs were as smart as headless chickens. They don't focus fire or tag team enemies. You could give orders to the NPCs around you, but they would just ignore it. Combined with how psychotically aggressive the enemies were, it meant that the player avatar would be butchered in very short order.

Which was why my avatar is the sorcerer for this playthrough. He's the only class that has something close to a cheat skill. A rubbish cheat skill to be sure, but one I could use to cheese through the lesser encounters. Like this one. Flicking my controller, I desperately back away from the mutant, colliding into a crowd of friendly NPCs and switch to the second spell in my avatar's arsenal.

Fortress.

A spell that locks my avatar in place, paralyzing him completely. But it also renders him invulnerable for the duration. The duration is a handful of seconds, but that's all I need. My avatar freezes, a lambent blue field of energy trapping him. The wolf mutant futilely bites at my avatar, just in time for a stray sword to pierce into its side.

The friendly NPCs aren't actually fighting the mutant attacking me. But with all the guns, swords and knives being brandished about, backing up into a group guarantees the mutant would be hit simply by accident. That's enough to divert the enemy AI into attacking the new target that presented himself, rather than the invulnerable giant paperweight. With the mutant and my impromptu partner going at it like lumberjacks, no one notices the Fortress spell wear off. Creeping up behind the distracted mutant, I begin charging the heavy melee attack once again.

"HUUUYAAAAH!" my avatar cries as his wild swing sends the knife tearing through the mutant. That's one down. I stay in the crowd, keeping a wide berth away from the next wave of incoming mutants. Fortress is still on cool down and without it I wouldn't be able to cheese the next encounter.

The game's interface informs me that Soul Fire's ready for use again. Scanning the battlefield, I spot one of the stronger friendly NPCs, a Combatant, battling a pair of mutant wolves at the same time. The NPC's not doing too shabby, with both mutants already bleeding from multiple wounds. But our man's not exactly in a good place right now. His breastplate has been pierced multiple times while both legs buckle from being adorned with gashes.

Yes. This game also has an injury system. Individual limbs, even organs, can be taken out in combat! Seriously, I really want to like this game. But for all the cool stuff it does, none of it makes up for what's going to come up soon.

Aiming at one of the injured mutant wolves, I send a bolt of soul fire lashing outward. The mutant in its enfeebled state can't withstand my avatar's magic and the mutant's entire body combusts down to ashes. The nameless Combatant strikes at his remaining opponent with renewed vigor, thanks to the pressure on him easing. His sword flashes and severs the mutant's head with a flourish. The Combatant then turns to me and salutes with his sword before charging back into battle.

Damn, another neat touch. All wasted. Completely wasted on this game.

Then control is taken away from me again. Oh no. Here it comes.

The camera pans around the battlefield, finally focusing on the pair of Captains cleaning house. The duo rip through entire waves of mutants by themselves, singlehandedly holding up the line. The ground begins to shake as the mutants scatter, clearing the path for an absolute titan to join the fight.

A giant horned ape towers over the pair of Captains, hooting angrily. Large parts of its body are covered in hard scales, as tough as plate mail. The ape mutant flexes its muscles and swings a tree trunk like arm at the Captains, swatting them aside in a single blow.

OK. So here it is. The boss of the prologue. Primal Ape. By now it should be clear that the player avatar has no way of beating Primal Ape by himself. The whole point of the fight is to throw in with your comrades and with the power of friendship, or more likely, heavy firepower bring the monster down. And that's the final, unforgiveable problem the game has.

Because the friendly NPC AI bugs out the moment Primal Ape shows up.

What should happen is that everyone dogpiles Primal Ape and wear the boss down. What actually happens is that once Primal Ape starts charging the Guild troops, all the friendly NPCs start running away, leaving the player avatar by himself. I've tried joining the rout in previous playthroughs, but the developers placed an invisible wall on the battlefield. The moment you hit that wall, Primal Ape catches up and kills you.

So there's no choice. You must fight Primal Ape. The boss is part of the main questline, meaning you can't proceed further until you deal with it. I open with Soul Fire. Its guaranteed to hit and do damage, even if that damage is a drop in the ocean compared to Primal Ape's HP pool. The purple flame hits the boss right in the face as it rapidly closes in on me.

Primal Ape strikes too fast for the Sorcerer's awkward dodge move to be effective. My only option is to use Fortress. As the spell tanks Primal Ape's fist descending like a hammer, I get ready to run through the gap between the boss's legs. Previous attempts at this fight have taught me that this is one of the few safe ways to maneuver around the giant. Once Primal Ape is done turning around and getting its bearings, Soul Fire would be ready for use again.

And then Primal Ape groans as a sword darts in between the carapace protecting its leg. The Combatant I helped just now makes a reappearance, slashing gamely away at the boss. Finally, a friendly NPC that did not bug out. Just as my spirits start to rally, they fall back to rock bottom as Primal Ape raises both its arms high.

"Oh come on!" I curse.

Primal Ape's second attack. It slams both arms to the ground, releasing a stun that has a ridiculously large area of effect. It wouldn't be an issue if Primal Ape's attention was split between hundreds of opponents, giving you a good chance of surviving even if you stunned. Unfortunately in previous playthroughs, I fought Primal Ape by my lonesome. Now with the Combatant sticking around, said chances have risen by a hefty yet rather pathetic fifty percent.

The shockwave of the stun sends my avatar reeling just as Fortress wears off. The Combatant slumps to the ground, completely out of it. Primal Ape roars in triumph and raises its fist once more. Who will it choose?

And the giant's fist slams into my avatar, reducing him to paste. Of course.

GAME OVER.

"Yeah. Its over alright." I mutter in disgust. I've had it.

Going to the main menu to exit the game, I begin the process to have it refunded.