I worked on this game as a gameplay designer and it was the first professional project for me. Back then I didn't have much experience in game dev, development pipelines, iteration loops, QA, hell we didn't even have a producer for most of the development. I just wanted to make cool stuff so whenever the lead designer came to me with a new idea to implement I would quickly design something and start working on it without much thought on the impact of a certain mechanic on the whole ecosystem of the game or how much time it would take to fully flesh out, test and make sure everything is working the way it's supposed to not to mention taking feedback and improving. I was really proud that this was the first game I've worked on almost from the start to finish which got released but all that joy was overshadowed by disappointment afterwards. The game was super buggy, janky and didn't run well, we simply ran out of time and money and had to release the game in a poor state. It took us an additional year to get it to run better, more stable and a bit less janky by gathering player feedback. The free DLC was our form of apology to the players who bought the game and couldn't really play it but you can only make a good impression once so not many people cared about the game a year after it's bad release. I've watched your review today after Seven years long gone since release and suddenly remembered the good times I've had working on this game with some awesome people and it gives me comfort that some people still find the game enjoyable.
I've been playing this game recently and can say it's one of the best rpg experiences I've had. The level of attention, the craftmanship, the diverse gameplay, and immersive nature of the world are all excellent. Well done and good job on an excellent game.
Absolutely adore Seven! One of my favorite games of all time. It's such an open ended sandbox, I'd say this is "emergent gameplay: the game". Can't think of another similar game that does it as well. Real shame it's been so overlooked by so many. Happy that both you and Click4Gameplay has covered it, hopefully letting more people find this janky but wonderful amalgamation of Thief, Assassin's Creed and Hitman.
Being one of the people who kept asking you to play this, Im happy you did and thus, are bringing it to the attention to more people. I have played it, thru Gog and never had any problems or crashes with it, save a sidequest bugging out, that had me not fully completing it, in one of my playthroughs. I have roughly 150h put into it and i genuinely Love the atmosphere and what they were going for, with it. Sort of reminds me of ELEX 1, in a way. Love the world, even some of the gameplay and i honestly would love to see a sequel, ironing the mistakes and giving us more of the story - Specially after the cliffhanger ending. Underrated flawed Gem.
IMO it's highly underrated game. Level design alone is something truly amazing in isometric rpg. Verticality is insane and the possibility to go almost anywhere without loading screens is fantastic. I love the lore and overall "mood" of the game as well. I'd love to see a sequel but I know the studio is busy with Witcher 1 remake
Great review! I got this on GOG exactly one year ago today and fell in love with it instantly. The world they have created is so interesting and I loved the story and art style. I went for a stealthy playthrough and ended up doing every side quest and putting in over 100 hours. In your impressions video you said the game has immersive sim elements and it's true, immersion is a big part of it despite the occasional jankiness. One small correction though, regarding the weight limit and storage: your stash is not only available at your base of operations; it can be accessed via all crafting and alchemical stations (once you complete the 2 related early side quests) as well as all fast travel points (once they have been activated.) So, you're never really very far from a place to dump all the loot you collect.
Thanks for the review Mortim ! The star in the game for me was clearly the world and how you can interract with it. You didn't insist too much on that point but being able to climb practically everywhere is amazing. I often reached places I thought were unreachable by randomly climbing places and got rewarded with an amazing view of the landscape. Or I succeeded a mission in an unexpected way by climbing to some weird places ! (I also loved releasing the caged spiders when some were around) It's true that the game is a bit clunky and you can feel it's age and the lack of funds the devs had but as you said, you have such a good time with it. It's one of the rare open world game where I wanted to do every single side quest, explore everything and just continue to play the game forever. Reaching the end left me with an empty feeling, sad to leave the game behind. The challenge was just right, it made the game fun and not really frustrating because you can always be a bit more creative. The hardest part of the game was the very first area of the island, right after the tutorial as you feel lost and don't really know what to do and what direction to take in that small crowded town which made me abandon the game for a long time. But how wrong was I ! I keep wishing another game of the sort or a sequel will be developped soon. I feel like it's a game which got it's success after it got burried and labeled as "did not work".
Great review!! I've had my eyes on this game for years, and I decided to buy it a few weeks ago, and today out of nowhere, I see your review, I already knew I was going to like this game because I love stealth games in general and I like this perspective a lot too, the art style also talked to me, and now after your take on it, I'm going to install it and start playing it right away, thx!! You can even thank Seven because you gained a new subscriber!!
I think I need to try this one out! Thank you for reviewing it. I think a game which would combine a polished version of this type of gameplay, with rich dialogue and story, would be wonderful!
Bizzare to hear about the technical issues. I played it in 2019 and had zero crashes and very few insignificant bugs. Also, the playthrough took me (incl. DLC) 60 hours, doing sidequests. Hard to believe it is possible to play through this at 100% in twenty. Anyway, it was a great game, polish devs are some of the best on the planet. Looking forward to Thaumaturge and Witcher remake.
I want to play this game so bad but I can't seem to get it to work on my Steam Deck ): I bought it but refuse to refund on the hope that eventually it'll work.
Funny thing, i finished Seven and jumped into BG3 and instantly recognised Rafael/Artanak as the same Voice Actor. The thing that annoyed me the most was the "spacebaring" the Dialog.
I think originally you could have unlimited saves, but it caused several problems iirc But I too enjoyed the game on release - I really need to find some time to replay it, since I never played the free expansion content. thanks for the review and reminding me of this game
bought this last week and I was excited to play it but I had a terrible experience since the beginning. i couldn't even play the first 15 minutes because i couldn't get past a gate due the fact the character was stucked. restarted the game several times and it was glitching in the same spot. such a shame, was looking forward to play / finish it but instead i had to ask for a refund.
Absolutely amazing game, one of my favourites. If you're gonna play it, a piece of advice: remember what you are. The game is vast and you can forget, but what you are is a thief, so act like one
For me the best part of this game are the interactions between Teriel and Artanak. They are SO GOOD together because Chris Finney (Chris is Ifan, from Divinity Original Sin II) and Andrew Wincott (Andrew is Raphael, from Baldur's Gate 3) voice acting peaked all the time.
Does Seven Enhanced Edition game have playable recurve or compound Bows? Are they powerful? Can I create a powerful stealthy bow build? I'm not a fan of crossbows.
Great review as always but an FYI Fool's Theory is also the same dev who is putting out Thermatuge later this new yr and working on the Witcher remake. A few notes for those thinking about picking it up, there are only 10 main missions but are multi tier with over 50 side quests. You can talk to just about anyone in the game and they will have somthing to do. If you like the OG Assasins Creed, Deus Ex and Batman series, its all here in some sort of form. Some of my favorite Isometric screen shots are from this game.
Of course I just bought it, can't beat that sale price..your review Mort just got me too interested, and any game that got you that involved is worth a play, and I really like the look of the game..
@@MortismalGamingHaving a lot of saves is fine and all but to me, 20 is definitely a manageable number in a title this small. I would understand the case of having more if there were different classes or something to start with.I played this game on PS4 and I think on there there are even fuer saves but not 100% sure.
Thanks Morti, picked this up on the back of your review and find it great so far. One very minor comment on your excellent review, there are three font sizes for the text and the largest one is great on the steam deck. First ever comment on one of your videos, so just wanted to mention that they are uniformly excellent, never regretted making a purchase on your advice. I think I even learned how to enjoy some games more, I hope that makes sense😀
This game is awesome! I played it when it came out and outside a few random crashes I didn't have any problems with it. Amazing world I hope we see a sequel!
I enjoyed this game but experienced a bug where every guard in the game tried to kill me on sight, so I was never able to finish it. Even loading old saves didn't help.
Played for a little hour. I get some Gothic vibes from the game... it's all there the prison island colony, the gritty vibes, the player who doesn't the f*ck now what they are doing, probably dying by falling from some cliffs... yeah... isometric gothic. ;-)
I bought this at launch, loved it. Although it was a nightmare at launch. Played to the main city. Did about 40 hours but never finished it. Would you recommend going back to it? Thanks, have a happy new year.
So unstable and for so long unaddressed/unprioritized and still not completely solved is an arena-sized red flag for the game & studio. I greatly appreciate the information and the context of all that!
I'm a trophy hunter that has watched your full guides for a long time now and just recently checked out ESO for the first time and ran into an old video of yours years ago opening crates and didn't know it was you at first until I placed the voice lol.. Like I wasn't even looking at the creators or pages I was just watching random crate openings when you popped up..