I dont speak German, but I'd love to get insight to how it's been received over on the German forum...
Can any of the German-English speakers give us a summary?
Yes sure, I completed the first act and can give you my spoiler free expierence with the game.
It's a very linear gameplay, but you can go almost everytime back to the beginning of the game. So basically, when you're at the very end of Act1 you can go back to your cell. And you'll need to use this possibility to solve some of the quests.
About the the difficult setting: I play it on "tactical" skill level and it's really tricky at the beginning. But you can always go to the Battlefields to boost up your stats. The Battlefields look like a whole seperate game: I would say it's Diablo 2 / Sacred inside of <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/beyond.gif" alt="" /> .
In the Battlefields are also trainers/vendors which will help you, when your armor or weapons are damaged or if you simply need a new healing potion. The trading system is similar to <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />'s. The NPCs give you also (very simple) quests in the Battlefield, like "defend monster x and get item y for me", but well, that's
only the case in the Battlefields!
Now to the gameplay: you have a passage in Act1 where you can choose to fight or to sneak. If you choose to sneak, you'll get many quests and a easy life. If you choose to fight, you'll have a hard life and many fights <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
But the cool thing is: you can do what
you want!
The humour element is used many times in the games and the results are really funny characters, incredible quests and good dialoges. You remember the peek where Swen talked about the the "big boom"? That's the style of those dialoges <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
The german version is almost bug free, there are two technical issues which are caused by the copy protection, a patch will be released soon (thanks Swen!). Hellfighter also posted a small list of bugs he could find, but no really plot-stopping issues.
About the skill system: it's one of the best I saw in a RPG. There aren't really limits on how you would like to develop your characters.
Now to the summoning dolls: I found the first one but I haven't used it many times. I need to look more into that feature to say more about that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Music is superb, nothing more to say <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Graphics are ok, nothing eye candy, but it's very top notch for the 2D RPG genre.
The interface is ok, but if there wouldn't be the filter keys...I would... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />