Seven: The Days Long Gone

Nov/2024 review after every update and the DLC: Solid 8/10 game with absolutely unique feel and impressive production values, but somewhat simplistic combat and imbalanced pacing of powering up.

It plays as an isometric AC in some ways, as the map is highly vertical, your character is capable of climbing much more than you'd think at first, there is a disguise system, full stealth, stealth killing, and open combat. The scenario is sort of post-apoc, sort of cyberpunk, sort of steampunk. The voice acting of almost everyone in the game is good or excellent, particularly the two protagonists, and it has highly rewarding exploration in a large, but not overwhelming map.

There are still some bugs and glitches that won't be fixed, but nothing gamebreaking. If I could shoot you two tips as a newcomer, it's those: first, try to aim your exploration as the quests take you, otherwise you could end up in frustratingly difficult parts of the map too early; secondly, don't worry too much about crafting or gear upgrade and skills, those will come naturally as you kill people, find things, and accomplish quests.

All in all, highly memorable experience for a more than humble price at this point. And given the enhanced edition upgrades, it looks like it could have been released last month. Remember to zoom in and take your time to really appreciate the details, and zoom out for a clear view of enemies, pathing, sense mode, etc. while in hostile areas.

Seven TDLG is such a weird game to talk about.
On the one hand, it's like 7-8/10 game because of it's flaws
On the other hand, I still love it with all my heart
Let's start from the flaws I mentioned earlier.
1 - The technical state of the game is really clunky.
It's buggy and sometimes anti-intuitive. For example: you see a ledge and think that you can reach it just to end up punching the wall with your face and falling to your death. You get knocked back by enemy attack and while your character tries to get up, he just gets body-blocked into the corner, while also being stun-locked from incoming attacks.
These situations are never fun and you never know how the game will screw you up, so, as the game itself tells you, save as much as you can. You can't be too prepared.
2 - The fixed angle of isometric camera.
It makes orientating in the world (multi-floor buildings especially) much harder, especially at the beginning. With time you can adjust yourself, but it's still might be uncomfortable.
3 - There are really few memorable NPC's.
It's not a problem on paper, but I can remember so many unimportant NPC's from The Witcher 3, New Vegas or Dark Souls.
The memorable NPCs here are usually the ones with interesting/important quests like Vaetic, Thyra or Cinderman.
Most of NPC's are just fine, but forgettable, which is kina bad, since, for example, in the end of Drowned Past expansion one of our friends sacrifises their life, but you don't really feel sad for them, cause they had, like, 5 lines of dialogue and weren't really charming during them. Even the furious leaders of two goverment factions fall for that - they both have good designs (especially Sekler), but their characters participate only in 3 conversations each, so there's pretty much no time to develop them.
4 - The main plot-line is really short.
During my first playthrough I've got a bad ending and then decided to speed-run the game to get the good one. It took me only 5 hours, and that's including wasting some time for the good ending side-quests.
Now, short plot by itself isn't a bad thing on paper, but it's rather a hint to the fact that the best way of completing the game is doing all side-quests you see, or else your adventure will be pretty quick.
Okay, so there are some pretty serious flaws. But I said that I love this game? Why?
Well, for pretty much everything else.
1 - The visual style and design.
Pretty similar to the one in Borderlands with these lines around items and characters.
Ob top of that, the design of everything is very pretty and unique. The uniforms of goverment fractions, the locations, the monsters, the weapons, the towns, cities and the buildings in them. It all looks very good.
2 - Sci-fi fantasy setting.
The world is in post-post-apocalyptic state - humanity was almost destroyed during a Great War with Daemons and now tries to rebuild itself on the ruins of it's former glory.
There are acrossbows and energy rifles, power-armor and swords (made from techno materials!).
Oh, and also electronic magic and various monsters that surround swamps, forests and junkyards.
3 - Music
So, during some battles I heard a melody that sounded suspiciousy similar to one of the melodies from The Witcher 3. I went to look it up and yep, both games have the same composer (and both of these OSTs slap).
4 - The amount of gameplay mechanics.
Holy moly, there are so many.
Complex crafting where you need to combine junk (polymer boxes, wires, duct tape) with components (made by dismantling useless junk). Ability to craft modifications for your armor and weapons (may it be silencing your steps, adding poison damage or increasing crit chance). A variety of traps and grenades to craft and use.
Don't want to waste time lock-picking a door? Well, you can always just drill the lock out! Loud, but effective!
Wanna use magic? Sure. Here you can have teleportation, slowing chronosphere (strongest spell in the game by far), black holes, invisiblity and some others abilities, most with alternative upgrades (like white hole that pushes enemies instead of sucking them in).
The magic and passive abilities are determined by which chip you'll put in your head (the MC is cyborg, yeah), each giving different amount and set of skill slots and stat bonuses.
Also, you can parkour on the roofs of towns. It's always fun.
5 - The stealth mechanics
Despite being a little clunky in some places, the stealth is very detailed.
Aforementioned spells are often made to help with stealth - teleport away from guards eyes or just turn invisible.
You can hide in smoke or in piles of leaves, but guards check those if they saw you.
You can throw bombs and rocks around to attract guards attention from the point you want to reach.
Instead of hiding between boxes, you often can reach high floors of buildings by getting to the roofs and windows via pipes and other things outside the buildings.
Wanna know, how far and wide a guard can see? You can mark them with your cybernetic eye to see what they can see and check how strong they are.
Also, you can dissolve bodies, so noone would be able to find them. (Unfortunately, this is a pretty useless skill. During my last playthrough I never dissolved a single body, yet guards never looked for me when they found a dead co-worker)
Also, the stealing and hacking. When you begin stealin, you pretty much just look through person's invertory, and if you don't steal anything, you (usually) won't even cause agression. The time stops when you're stealing/hacking and starts to move again for a brief moment when you try to take item from someone's pocket or to input new thing in hacking mini-game. Hacking mini-games are pretty simple, but cute and add difficulty with the fact that you've gotta do them quick to not get caught.
6 - The chemistry between Teriel and Artanak.
Well, at least two main characters of the story can't be called forgettable.
Their banter is always else funny or interesting. I never get tired of all the various ways that Artanak finds to insult Teriel, and also I never got tired of all the lore stuff that we learn from Artanak, who is old as dirt.
By the way, Artanak shares VA with Raphael from BG3, which made listening to Artanak during my last playthrough even more funny and enjoyable.
7 - Lore
I mentioned it in previous paragraph, but I didn't mention it's scale. And it's very big and wide.
The lore is always interesting and there's a lot of books and encyclopedia entrys that expand it.
8 - The amount of side quests and content of the map.
Side quests vary from "Bring me 12 jubiliquesters and I'll give you a bottle of beer, a piece of Nectar, blueprint of laser-cannon and 13 coins" to "Help me escape the life of a champion warrior that turned me into a slave that can't have a single day of peace".
There's a lot of them and you can find a quest or two in pretty much any location on the map.
Same is with upgrades for your abilities, so exploring the world is highly encouraged.
In my opinion, that's one of the best examples of lost gem - a game that was good, but never was known or popular.
I like playing Seven, but during my last playthrough I rage-quitted something like 20 times during these few weeks? Yeah, I really needed to take breaks from time to time because of stupid deaths that weren't even near of being my fault.
I have a lot of love for this game and a lot of respect and admiration for what developers accomplished and were aiming to accomplish. I really, really would want to call it a masterpiece, but, unfortunately, I don't think that it deserves this high of a praise. Though it defenitely deserves more than mere 1200 reviews on Steam.
Is it a good game? Yes, it is, and a very good one at it. I totally recommend to try it, especially since you can buy it for, like, 2 dollars during sales?
At worst you won't lose much and at best you'll have a pretty enjoyable experience, so why not at least try?

Worth checking out, but spread a bit too thin.
Several reviews didn't recommend Seven when I started it because of game-breaking bugs. However, they'd just released a patch at the time and I never experienced any issues. If that has you on the fence, you can likely lay your concerns to rest because it plays great now.
Overall, Seven is a solid RPG: good mechanics with an interesting world to explore.
My problem with this game is that it's a lot like listening to someone personable drone on through a long story. Enjoyable at first, but eventually wishing they'd just wrap things up because it's passed the point of storytelling and moved into a monologue.
As I write this with 17 hours on record, I keep thinking about picking the game back up to finish it. But man, it's become a chore. Every time I open the map I think, "I still have that much left to finish?" This isn't a lot of time played for an RPG, but unfortunately, I'm finding it really difficult to press forward.
Play the demo. If you like it, buy the game. I'm sure you can get your money's worth out of it, but be prepared for some end-game monotony.

Caution to anyone considering buying this game:
- This game has a bit learning curb, so you will have to do a bit of reading in the in game tutorial materials to master everything.
- The game relies heavily on the payer using stealth and exploring the map, so this is not a hack em slash em kinda game.
Game play:
A top down isometric game where you walk around, explore the map, use stealth, climb and jump a lot and discover the secrets the map holds.
The world is open so you can easily get lost and the maps is pretty huge.
The game has a main quest with loads of side quests, but it is easy to get lost in the side quests. So you will have to monitor your mini-map to highlight the quests you are doing and follow along.
This game does not have guard rails, meaning: running headlong to a cliffs edge doesn't mean you will stop because of the game invisible wall, but it means you fall and die because you didn't stop dummy lol.
You get objectives which you have to complete by exploring the map and reaching hard to reach places. This often requires figuring out how to get to the objective and involves climbing, jumping, sneaking, fighting etc.
You can pick locks (most annoying feature of game lol), or simply drill the lock but that makes noise and enemies get alerted and investigate.
You can hack computers, you can pick pockets, you can break combination locks and all these are mini games which last like a min or two at the most.
Game play also relies on special ability called "sense" which you can use to find hidden objects and objectives.
Quests rely on this ability quite a bit. At times you will feel like you are stuck, or ran into a bug, its usually because you haven't looked carefully enough.
Loot system / items:
You loot a LOT. in this game I mean a LOT LOT LOT as there are loads of materials which initially are confusing as heck.
But just a head-sup, most stuff you wont have to carry as these are plentiful things to loot in the game. So don't burden yourself! Just unlock the crafting table and alchemy table as soon as possible (quests) and use materials to upgrade those to the max. Once done you can easily calculate what you need or don't and loot accordingly. Otherwise you will get over burdened.
The game offers a limited number of similar items, there are no legendary, epic or such weapons. Just better versions of the same weapons. But items are not the main focus of this game, so it doesn't matter that much.
If you find a stash anywhere, just fill it with all the junk and its easily accessible for crafting when you get to a table.
Levelling up your character:
Level ups are not through grinding but rather through map exploration, discovery and finding schematics and upgrade materials.
These upgrades are sometimes marked on the map and often are not. So explore the map and the game lets you know when a hidden material is nearby.
Oh and in this game you will die a LOT, so remember the F6 quick save key, hit it often, but not too fast only hit F6 when you are in a safe spot. But save often!
Once you learn the basics of the game, it is a lot of fun
Battle system:
You can equip a ranged weapon as well as a melee weapons.
Apart from that there are various traps you can craft and lay out as well.
The game play requires a lot of stealth and careful climbing, sneaking, and well calculated attacks when needed.
You can straight up attack and kill enemies, but this is harder as attacks are generally weak and enemies are plentiful and swarm you.
It is recommended that you use stealth to attack or simply avoid conflict.
However battles can be fun and quick once you have better weapons / abilities.
You can also knock out your enemies but then they wake up after a while.
Your clothes also matter in different areas as wearing a guards uniform will get other guards suspicious and they will eventually attacks.
Visuals / Sounds:
Good overall, nothing to write home about but the graphics are decent and most of the dialogue is with voice.
If you find the game too dark just change the brightness in the settings it makes life 100% easier!
Should you buy?
If you like top down isometric games where you have to explore the map carefully and take your time using stealth and your real life noggin then you cant really go wrong with this title.
I found the game a bit frustrating at the start but I gave it a few hours to properly learn everything and now I am really loving it!
If in doubt: you can pick this game up as little as $6 on sale, so just keep an open eye!

SUMMARY: A fun indie stealth RPG that excels in giving you a unique world to explore with stealth-forward gameplay.
PROS:
+ The setting is masterfully set with a rich history to explore and engage with.
+ Graphics are tastefully done. While not amazing, the graphics are also nice enough that you get to enjoy the games visuals. I can play at 4K resolution 144 Hz refresh without a hitch.
+ Stealth-forward gameplay. The game focuses around a thief, so you get to really utilize those skills and go hard on it if you'd like. But don't worry, if you like to rush in with combat-first, you can do that, too.
+ Well voice-acted. The voice actors mostly do a good job at keeping you rolling through the story.
+ Depth of gameplay. I'm now 25 hours in and am pretty sure I'm only 60% of the way through. EDIT: I just beat the game with about 61 hours. Definitely a lot of content to go through. I like that the choices you made can help inform and sway the decisions at the game's end.
+ There are numerous paths you can choose for the ending.
CONS
- Looting containers can be a chore when useful items are also mixed in with crafting junk. But not everything is junk! Some items you legitimately need to craft upgrades, so look at the recipe for the item and make sure you save those items before dismantling or selling them. It's not a major downer, but an annoyance.
- Some stealth encounters are frustrating as you have to wait for an NPC to move, and sometimes that takes forever. Thankfully there's a reliable quick save.
- The AI can be a bit dumb. Let's say there's two guards, and I decide to stealth kill one of them. The other guard, upon discovering the body of his colleague, will simply loot the other guard and walk away back to minding his business. I'd rather he gets alerted and yells for help.
- The environment can *sometimes* be frustrating. For example, there's a quest location marker on your minimap, but you cannot find what you're looking for. It turns out, it's above you! The ability to know if something is above you is obfuscated a good deal of the time, so you have to jump around and know. Another example is when you're trying to fight and you get stuck between chairs while the enemy attacks you. It's not a huge issue, but it does cause annoyance.
- Some side quests are time sinks. Without giving away anything, there's a quest requiring you to bring numerous junk items to fulfill a need. If you collect them all at once, you wont be able to carry it due to the weight of the items. If you bring the pieces little by little, there's no indicator of how many of each item you have remaining; it just lists the total needed. This is beyond frustrating and made me say "no thanks" to that quest. The reward wasn't even worth bothering.
Overall it's a solid game and I'm having fun with it.

The environment is very beautiful and much more vertical than you might expect from looking at the map. The quests are plentiful and don't feel repetitive but rather unique. The visa system reminds me of Fallout: New Vegas, but expanded upon with the teleportation network that you can open up by hacking the overseers.
The DLC didn't have a DLC feel, but more of something that has been shelved during development and later finished as "DLC". It felt completely seamless with the main game experience.
To me the game felt like logging on to World of Warcraft and questing around until there was nothing left to do, which is great. :-)

It's a Rogue / Thief / Assassin game that does things extremely well. Sneaking, pickpocketing, lockpicking, all those things that you expect from the genre are implemented in a very nice way.
Combat is fun, exploration is rewarding, and the lore is interesting.