Finished. Some thoughts. ***Spoilers***

Remove all ads!

Fantastic game. I played a (lawful/chaotic) good fighter. I followed the story and avoided powergaming. I know I missed some stuff (players maze, modron maze) since I did not fall into them by roleplaying.
Things I really liked:
* The story. The best writing I have ever seen in a computer game.
* The cool NPC's. All different, non-standard D&D races. Excellent.
* The way alignment was handled. Much better than in BG. I could see sliding alignment used with reputation.
* Zero emphasis on powergaming. Very few "nice" items, very little combat. I did not even care about leveling up. Often times a party member would level up and I would not know for a while.
* The spell effects. I did not use magic a lot in the game (mostly just to see the effects). Why are they so much better than in the BGs?
* The atmosphere - Cool locales, interesting people, the charms.

My party consisted of:
Morte - excellent fighter. I loved the skull mob. "Get 'em guys!"
Dakkon - excellent fighter and mage. I mainly used him as a fighter, as the combat did not really require a lot of spell use.
Annah - tied with Morte for my favorite character. Great thief. Annah backstabbed her way through Baator.
Ignus - excellent mage, bizarre character, great story. I liked the way he turned at the end.
Fall-from-Grace - cool character, practically useless. I mainly used her as a healer. She got into too much trouble in combat.

This game reminded me of my favorite Ultimas (4-7) in that the game was really about the story. Levelling up, finding stuff, trading, and combat were all secondary to the story. You could also end the game without "killing Foozle".

Really incredible.

 

I had the same party make-up as you through my first run also. However I stayed true neutral from start to finish.

I wouldn't go so far to say Grace is useless. That lighting spell is mighty nasty. Plus her healing spells are great for the long haul. Just her stupid touch attack could be a problem.

 

I was too hard on Grace. What she brings to the party is more than combat (obviously). You get some interesting dialog with her along. I kept her in the party because of this, plus her healing abilities.

 

i've beaten the gae twice, once with the party above, and again with ignus gone and vhailor in the party. both times i chose a different way to defeat the end boss. First, by fight, decent ending, and second by my high wisdom, very cool end. I was a fighter both times and im considering playing through it again because i liked the game so much.