Absolutely stunning game, though anyone other than RPG veterans will probably be bored with it's size and open-endedness.
STORY: The story has you playing as a slave for the empire who is freed to help the government deal with a dark lord. Your first assignment from the government is to go out into the world, gain experience, and earn a name for yourself in whatever way seems fit, so about 90% of the quests have nothing to do with the main plot. The main plotline will only progress once you've leveled up enough to reach the next stage.
GAMEPLAY: At first, I wasn't entirely sure how well a first-person melee game would work, but it works fabulously. Basically, you do what you'd do in any RPG: walk around, talk to people, explore and fight monsters. Battles play out like a first person shooter.
PLAYABAILITY: THIS GAME IS REALLY REALLY BIG. Islands, oceans, ashlands, and swamps, all rendered in breath-taking beauty. By the time I'd defeated the requisite dark lord, I'd only visited a third of the gameworld. Also, the number of quests is huge. Most of the game is devoted to joining various guilds and factions, and climbing in their ranks. Believe me, the number of factions is huge, from the typical Fighters/Mages/Theives guilds to political great houses to local temples to the army. There are even vampire clans that you can join, if you know how. With over a dozen factions, I would conservatively estimate that there are over 150 quests, not counting the main quests and random quests from people that you meet. However, there are a few problems. For one, traveling can be insanely tedious, as sometimes you have to walk in real time across the continent to your location. Also, the map and location system leaves much to be desired: people will ask you to clear theives out of Cave X, but they won't mark cave X on your map. Instead, they'll give some inspecific direction like "it's to the north", which has been known to mean anything from 100 yards to the north to the northern end of the continent. Wandering around in the wilderness can bog down the game, but not enough to keep it from earning a 10.
GOOD: Amazing graphics; huge game world is vast and open-ended; obscenely large number of quests; good story.
BAD: Lots of wandering around and endless walking; newcomers to the RPG genre will probably find it boring.
OVERALL: A spectacular game for veteran RPG players.
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