Its great. You meet treasure hunters who share artifacts with the cultures they're from so that those cultural leaders can decide what to do with them. You help a character come to terms with their gender identity. You encourage people to build community in more than just a "we can win with the power of friendship" kinda way. I'm only on the first half of the game too.
It reviewed kinda mid but honestly these touches have totally sold me. It's actually feels like the writers of this game were a multicultural group of people who put thought into making it inclusive.
Is anyone else playing? Is this the experience others are having? Is all this based-ness why people are review bombing it?
I'm playing it too rn, and I agree with the stuff you said. Also, yes, the review bombing is all-out based-ness for the most part (~90% from what I've seen). But there are other criticisms that I think are valid.
I'm personally not enjoying the game, to put it mildly, for multiple reasons:
I like the combat system, it's somewhat refreshing to see an action rpg setup in dragon age, so that your mage finally doesn't die immediately in close combat scenarios. I'm also madly in love with the hair animations. I keep entering the character creator to swoosh around the hair lol.
All in all, I wouldn't recommend (buying) the game, but it definitely has its moments.
for voice acting i really recommend setting the audio to a dub in a different language and using english subtitles. I haven't tried the french audio but I've been using the german one and I've found that the voice acting and tone is much more appropriate and natural sounding in most of the contexts.
Actually, that's a good point.
Pro gamer move.
I find the Bellara criticism funny. As someone with ADHD she's one of my favorites. A bit off putting at first but honestly I think she's great.
Overall the writing isn't great but I think it's pretty consistent in tone. It feels a bit lighthearted and I don't mind it.