I've had this game for a while now. I really liked it my first couple playthroughs and didn't really experience any issues. I just picked this back up after almost a year. As expected, I had to start another play through since the game has undergone some updates since the last time I played.

I've encountered so many bugs that I can't even get past the ritual at the beginning of the game. I gave it several chances, restarted the game four times and even started a new save but I still could not get past it. So at this time, unfortunately, I cannot recommend the game in its current state.

I want to stress that I love this game and I really like what it had going before. I was really looking forward to new updates. I hope that I'll be able to pick this game back up and change my review in the future.

Here were the bugs I experienced for anyone curious:
1. Mortar and Pestle talisman not working during the tutorial. I restarted the game to my last save, redid that portion of the game and it worked.
2. Lutki randomly spawning at Baba Yaga's house and kept following me through out the ritual. This happened each time I restarted the game but the bug never went away. I made sure I was far away from the Lutki before teleporting back to Baba Yaga.
3. Couldn't collect the grain during the riutal. I restarted the game a second time but it didn't fix the issue. So I restarted it a third time back to the beginning of the talisman task and was able to collect it then before the ritual
4. Couldn't walk up to the fireplace to collect the embers. I restarted the game a fourth time but it didn't fix the issue. So I started a new save; that didn't fix it either, so I finally gave up.

Ok, so I've been playing for about six hours. Love the art, the vibe and the concept, but the bugs are just too frequent. And when I say bugs, I don't mean minor glitches, I mean I just played the second map of the game for two hours not realizing that there is an entire village that did not spawn. So I did all the main quest stuff, and then when I couldn't locate the locations specified in my journal for the side quests, I went online and learned there is an entire town on that map that does not appear.

So I speed run back to that location with a new game, and lo and behold, this time the town spawns. The only problem is that on my primary save, I've already done a ton of work to my house and built up a lot of customization that I am not willing to replicate on a brand new save.

When you check the forums and stuff they talk about buttons to regenerate the map and what not, but in the latest version those appear to all be gone. So I'm stuck now on the second map, with a crazy customized house, and no way to proceed.

Also, there is no load game button and no way to go back to the main menu. So every time I tried to reload an old save to figure out what was going on, I had to shut the game down entirely, restart it, and then load my game. Like seriously...why is there no option to go back to the main menu, or to load a different save while the game is running.

I'll dump this back on the shelf and check again in a couple of years and see if they ever manage to get their code figured out. Because everything about this game was really good. Everything except the playability. =\

This game is honestly buns. I tried giving it the time of day but it's really just a glorified fetch quest simulator. The story is honestly mid, the optimization is horrendous and the world really isn't that beautiful. I played on the highest setting and all i realized is that the game is unpolished. Wait to play the game.