I screwed around for about 10 hours trying to figure out how the game worked and then restarted and made a team that made more sense and brought that team to the game's apparent best ending by 72 hours total so I would say this is a 60 hour game. Apparently only .9% of players have seen the ending based on the achievement rarity, so here's my review.

It's hard to deny the achievements of this game, especially with its primarily two-person development team, they've really managed to nail a complete RPG experience that sits somewhere between Diablo and Elder Scrolls with a big focus on discovery as the experiential core. There's no questlog, you write down all the notes of what everyone is asking from you and leads on mysteries of the world by yourself, a lot of the quests have multiple possible solutions which you can figure out yourself organically, and the grander state of the setting and the world beyond it are always talked about diegetically, meaning no-one's going to stop to explain jack to you about what a Padurii is, or what the difference between a Witch and a Pagan is, or who Vol is and why are all the humanoid races called Vollings. This is a strong departure from a lot of modern hold-your-hand philosophies in game design and storytelling but to the right kind of gamer, this is a feast of wonders. A Banquet For Fools, you might say.

I admire that and I admire the way the systems create a sense of roleplay, with your own self-made characters gaining unique dialogue choices based on their race and the skills they spec into. I consider myself relatively novice about CRPGs but to use a comparison from the world of JRPGs which I am more versed in it reminds me of Etrian Odyssey and how in that series the drawing of your own map puts you in the position of being the adventurer rather than watching the adventure happen. And after some faff, I do think the combat system in this game is interesting too, it's hard to figure out what works at first but when it's at its peak it has a Loony Tunes quality of enemies flying around as your characters kick them back and forth while your Pagan coats the ground in burning lizards, but I think the game not taking itself super seriously in this regard is to its benefit, as it allows a lot more complexity beyond showing up with the biggest numbers. I just wish the AI tuning for the party members you aren't directly controlling were more specific.

But it's not all praise for me, I ran into a fair share of bugs, one of which had to be corrected by a dev sending me a revised save file. The sea combat was always something of a slog and just not as fun or dynamic as the landed combat. There were places where I thought the game's signposting was downright awful, such as in one of the final areas you are meant to turn a wheel to open a door to move forward, but rather than put the wheel in the center of the giant stage that you find the area's sub-boss in, it is instead hidden in the corner next to the stage, nearly the same color as the stage itself. There is something wrong with the way this game handles cloud saves, as Steam was constantly telling me I had an error and had to resync every time I closed the game.

And my final, subjective gripe is that even though this game looks very "weird" and I do genuinely think has a beautiful aesthetic, I find that once you get past the initial defamiliarization the story's world is only superficially unique. It has petty nobles ruling over serfs and performing acts of unexamined colonialism, squabbling gods whose magic has faded from the world, a happy ending that consists of the heroes being given a bunch of money and a party for being so Good and defeating the Evil. It is archetypal European high fantasy to its core that pushes aesthetic boundaries on only surface levels with little beneath it ideologically or philosophically. And you know, I wish it was more but than that but ultimately it's fine. If it was a book or a show, I'd think it was too much of a rehash with a new coat of paint, but because it's a game, the joy of it is being in the driver's seat and living out your murderhobo life and not worrying about how you are doing much worse violations of the law than the people you throw in jail. I guess that's really what's worth celebrating about Banquet For Fools. It's a game that wants to put you in it, doesn't hold your hand, doesn't drag you along, just shows you its world and says go out there and find something. I think in that regard it's a remarkable success.

Awesome game in the style of 90s CRPGs, and the art style is amazing! Everyone who loves CRPGs owes it to themself to check this game out.