Overview

• Overall decent visual qualityThe fantasy world of SBTC is reasonably good looking, with decently detailed models, textures and characters. It still manages to deliver decent environments and passable atmosphere in most of its locations. Not a masterpiece by any means but can at least hold up its own in the current times. The addition of physics to enemy corpses and some props gives a bit more realism to actions.
• Rewarding exploration
Each level does have a good number of secondary locations, secrets and hidden loot to find. It is very much necessary to gather as many consumables and valuables as possible to face the challenges ahead, while certain places have optional bosses and unique gear as well. Exploring the world definitely feels meaningful and interesting - while also integral to character progression itself: those who are not thorough will be severely underpowered later on.

• Awful combat systemBe it with melee attacks, crossbow shots or magic once unlocked - every way the combat of SBTC is a total train wreck. Attacks in melee feel extremely stiff and inaccurate, it's not rare to have the hero swinging in a different direction than intended for no reason. Weapons have no weight or impact feel behind them, you won't knock down or make an enemy lose balance even with massive swords. Magic is underpowered and clunky to properly aim, while crossbows are totally useless because of low damage - unless for kiting. Damage ranges of weapons are way too broad, same goes for enemies, as consequence you won't know if your next attack will kill an enemy or do little more than a scratch. Dodge-rolling and parrying are a thing: while the first works, the second is tied to random chance - and not to your timing or skill. The fact you can spam potions and the total stiffness of movement translates into battles becoming exchanges of DPS where the biggest sponge wins.
• Major balance issues
For the first part of the adventure, your character will always be under-powered, as almost every skill available for level up results gimmicky or downright useless. Just a few enemies will be a danger and resorting to kiting, other gimmicks becomes a standard. After finding a specific armor, the game becomes the opposite as you'll be able to tank most blows with little effort. At no times the game feels balanced, it's either you being an emaciated weakling or overpowered a minute later. Bosses are often just HP sponges with huge damage and sketchy collisions, a real chore to face and defeat.
• Severe game design issues
The main quest often will entail finding parts or items to proceed, too bad there isn't any clue to their location - not even visual or lore wise. This translates into you running for every meter of each map like a madman in search of vaguely described objects. This is often a tedious, numbing process with items sometimes placed in totally illogical places as well. If you happen to run out of potions to restore your HP, you'll have to wait 10 seconds tor 1HP passive regen - the character has 100 base HP - i'll let you do the math.
• Generic story with ridiculous voice acting
At no time the plot feels even remotely engaging, while most voiced characters have terrible acting, especially the final boss speaking broken English with a strong Russian accent behind it - that was something else. It's a generic, uninspired story that has no identity. The character has 3 voice lines he repeats continuously without the slightest emotion.
• Horrible optimization
The game consumes an immense amount of CPU and GPU compared to the only decent graphics and relatively small scenarios. To give you an idea, it consumes more resources than Death Stranding. There is definitely some big problem with the engine and/or programming. It has framerate drops and stuttering even on top-tier hardware.

Rating: Bad

In-Depth Breakdown

Technical Breakdown

• Critical ProblemsNone
• Optimization
Awful. The game consumes about 70% GPU and 40% CPU on this machine at High settings, 1440p. Totally not in line with the visuals and complexity offered.
• Performance
Frequent framerate drops, stuttering and slowdowns.
• Bugs
No major bugs to report.
• Other Issues
None.