It is definitely worse than the previous 2 games in the series. Coteries of New York and Shadows of New York (and Heart of the Forest) may not have been perfect, but they were the games, that made me think, that some of my ideas probably can work as visual novels, if I ever get to those, while before I did not even consider the genre. If Reckoning was the first game, that would not have been the case.
The main problem is overall inconsistency. The art style, especially when you compare the models (which suddenly required Unity for 3D effects, I guess) to backgrounds. But even comparing one background to another there are some inconsistences that my brain was able to pick-up. They are minor ones, but still. I could have complained that the style is generally different from previous games, and I do not like it as much, but I would have lived with that. Inconsistencies - not so much. Especially that ugly gray line on the albino girl, visible at least in the 2nd playthrough.
Character inconsistencies were also noticeable to me. Not necessarily compared to previous games (can't say I remember much about the recurring characters), but the new ones - definitely. Padraic is the best example, because Kali describes him as kind of "silent" type practically all the time, and notices every glimpse of emotion on his face, but... She notices those emotions in practically any conversation and multiple times, which completely breaks Padraic's character. Kali herself is not that consistent as well, but I am not sure I can get into details here without potentially spoiling some things.
I also did not like the fact that text was now on the right also being a log at the same time. It took too much space, and considering that left side was empty very often, and character models were really small, it felt like there was a lot of wasted space. I think previous games used the available (negative) space much better, which helped with immersion. Let alone them having multiple faces for each character, which also helped with immersion into the story.
What's worse the story itself was not that great. It started in a way that reminded me of my own earlier writing, and I can tell that it was bad. It could have still worked if Kali was an intriguing character with a clearly defined personality, but she was just following the flow almost aimless. Yes, the circumstances kind of forced her, but Julia was also forced into things, and still had her own motivations besides pure survival. Until this game, at least, where she also became 2-dimensional.
The finale of the story was completely anticlimactic, too. It essentially went nowhere. I guess, it was an attempt at a cliffhanger, an open ending, but I am not sure it really worked. It was begging for something more... "Final". I hoped that 2nd playthrough for a different character would add something, but... It made things worse. 85% of it was just repetition of the exact same things as 1st playthrough, 10% - more thoughts of this character (won't tell whom, because devs apparently consider that a spoiler), which do not really expand the character that much, and the rest - some extra scenes, half of which are not even related to either of the characters, feel completely out of place, and the other half is... Mostly inconsequential.
And it ended in the same place. Absolutely same place. Let alone it showed that all your choices in 1st playthrough did not matter at all. Not only for the story in general, but they were not even "remembered" by the game itself, because Kali said some different things from what I chose in 1st playthrough. If I remember correctly, previous games did have proper choices, that changed things. Hey, in-game map made and "skipping night" made sense there, and here it has only 1 option most of the time just forcing you to hold spacebar instead of just tapping it.
The sad part of it is that story could have been saved even in current format. Start with the 2nd character first, then unlock Kali. Remember the choices from 1st playthrough, show only moments when the characters were apart and then you can even use Kali's current ending. This way it would have been, at least, somewhat bittersweet, and not just bland.
Alas, we can't hope for a "Snyder's Cut" here. I do want to support the devs, but unfortunately, I cannot recommend this game, unless you are a die hard fan and it's on heavy discount.
