I bounced pretty hard off Solasta: Crown of the Magister

I was looking for one more game to play during my summer with game pass and ended up on Solasta: Crown of the Magister, a game on my wishlist. However, I didn't get far into it before I uninstalled it.

I don't know how much of it was having just finished Deadfire, a lengthy RPG from a veteran studio, but I wasn't feeling Crown of the Magister at all. It was developed by a newcomer called Tactical Adventures (and still continues being updated, by the looks of it). Their name implies focus on game rules and Crown of the Magister indeed seemed to me like a serious attempt to implement Dungeons & Dragons 5E combat in a video game -- except this kickstarted title doesn't have the D&D license, instead using Open Gaming License and filling the missing holes with custom stuff.

Without a D&D license there's no Wizards of the Coast campaign setting either. I wasn't impressed by the world of Solasta: Its lore appeared very barebones compared to something like the Forgotten Realms (which is to be expected, really). It kind of reminded me of Tower of Time in scope, another indie RPG I had tried for few hours and then abandoned.

I found it unnecessary to have an individual tutorial mission for each of my party's four characters. And how they have voice acted lines and supposed personalities -- that was quite strange. The ugliness of the characters' faces makes watching the dialogue bits unpleasant. It's perplexing that apparently the faces used to be a lot better looking. This screenshot, presumably from reddit user Exedra_, shows a character while the game was in early access (top) and how she changed in the release version (bottom).

I heavily disliked the game's GUI as well.You don't necessarily need a skeuomorphic (fun word) GUI like many of the old and new isometric RPGs have: For instance, Neverwinter Nights' GUI was light and floaty but it still fit the game world. Crown of the Magister's GUI brings to mind some metro tablet interface. I didn't feel immersed.