The Learning Curve: 5 Hours with Dr. Chaos

I've tried many times to get into this game, but for some reason I cannot seem to crack the learning curve on Dr. Chaos.  No surprise it's another Pony Canyon/FCI effort.  Those folks really know how to get in there and design a deep and complex game that provides a really rewarding experience.  They also seem to need the player to invest heavily to reap the rewards they are sowing.  I've not encountered too many FCI games that didn't require me to really dig in before I was able to get into the groove (I spent untold hours playing Ultima: Exodus and only beat it some 20 years later as an adult...).  So it didn't really seem strange that I was having a hard time making heads or tails of Dr. Chaos.

On the surface it looks like an adventure/platformer, but then you enter one of the doors and it becomes a first person exploration game.  Open yet another door and you are whisked away to another action platforming level.  Initially the adventure levels felt really clunky and death was certain.  To make matters worse, while you could continue infinitely, death meant that you lost all of your accumulated weapons and health and you had to start pretty much from scratch each time.  You only get to keep your main quest items.  This makes early exploration deaths tedious and annoying.

Despite all of that I felt there was a good game in there somewhere.  The premise was cool and the game play was unique enough to make me believe that if I could just devote the time, I might find a really great game just past the learning curve I was bumping into.  It felt like a good game I just couldn't crack, and there were so many other games to play...

So, now it's Dr. Chaos' time to shine.  It's finally going to get the 5 good hours it needs to prove what I suspect.  Let's break it down hour by hour...

Hour 1:

Off to a decent start due to several previous forays into the house.  I kind of know where some of the basic stuff is in the first few rooms, so I have no trouble stocking up on weapons and making it through the first warp zone to collect the first piece of the laser and the warp zone detector.  I've been that successful it the past, but not much further.  I'm able to explore the first few rooms with little issue.  The skeleton ape kicks me out into the hallway a couple of times, but as long as you have your gun, he's little threat.  The one thing that is extremely annoying in the hallway is the rats.  They can run under your knife very easily and then ding you for lots of HP as they scamper about.  Which brings up the main hurdle for me in getting into this game: clunky action-platforming.  Enemies are finicky to hit and often require you to be on the same platform level as they are to successfully hit.  So even if that bat swoops down well within the range of your knife, you still have to jump to be able to hit it.  You should be able to stab that skull as it falls, but no, you have to wait until it lands and is already draining your HP before you can take it out.  These little things take the "action" out of action-platforming, but all is not lost.  On my way to finding the second boss, I had a minor epiphany about this game.  This isn't a romping action-platformer.  It sure looks like one, because it has a lot of the right features, but no.  This game requires patience and nuance.  You can't go blazing through this like it's Ducktales or Demon Sword.  You have to take your time in the platforming areas.  You have to treat each battle, even against a simple hallway rat, as it's own thing.  If you take this on like you're playing Commando, you are doomed.  That isn't how this game works.  You have to take your time.  At least in hour 1, that seems to be the way to handle the combat.
Sadly, that epiphany doesn't make the platform jumping any less aggravating.  If we describe the combat system as "finicky," we can only describe the jumping as absurdly precision based.  There are jumps the warp zones I've been in that require you to be pixel perfect in your positioning in order to clear the gap and land on the next platform.  If you miss, it's a drop and a tedious trek back to the ladder or blocks that get you back up to try the jump again.  I've tried the "take your time" approach with the jumps and it does help, but not every jumping situation in this game gives you time to center your Chi.  Sometimes 3 falling skulls, 2 bats, and 2 winged skeletons are bearing down on you and if you don't make the jump, at least one of them will knock you down to the lower level so you can do it all over again.  I'm still struggling with the jumping.

These things, however, do not indicate that I'm not having fun.  So far I have managed to locate about 6 warp zones and I've learned that I am totally not ready for 5 of them.  I've explored about 80% of the visible house (apparently there is a basement I have not seen yet...).  I've found a place to acquire all of the weapon types.  And I've even defeated a second boss (a little caterpillar looking fellow) and acquired the helmet that lets you breathe underwater.  I feel like I've gotten a lot done for the first hour.
Apart from the tedious platforming and combat, the biggest downfall of the game play thus far is having to totally restock your weapon supply every time you die.  While it doesn't take overlong to do this, it does get repetitive.  And since you die a lot, you can expect to restock a lot.  And never, ever, go into a warp zone without a healthy stockpile of weapons.  Bosses aren't absurdly hard if you have the right weapon and the right strategy, but don't go in to a warp zone without a stockpile.
Overall, the exploration is going well and is a lot of fun.  Looking forward to Hour 2.

Here's the first code for the end of Hour 1, if you want to play along.

Hour 2:

More progress!  Part of the learning curve of this game is just figuring out how to navigate the house. There are lots of secret passages accessible only by punching the walls and those hits need to be pretty precise.  I kept missing one hole because I was only hitting the direct middle and far sides of the wall.  The hole I was looking for was somewhere in between.  Also, if you are looking to punch you way into the attic, you'll need to punch high on the wall to uncover the ladder.  So with that being said, I was able to access the attic and find more warp zones.  In those warp zones I was able to recover two extra health containers!!  This is exciting as I was beginning to worry about having a 99HP cap on my health.  The warp zones are getting tougher and the bosses likewise.  99HP was starting to be insufficient to the task, so finding 2 more health containers and tripling my HP limit was very exciting!!!  I was also able to liberate the high jump boots, which will greatly increase my access to previously inaccessible warp zones.  One very important thing I have learned in this hour is that fish are brutally annoying enemies.  As previously stated about the combat system in this game, when battling the fish, the persnickety nature is particularly obvious.  Shooting fish?  No problem, but you don't want to waste all of your precious ammo on low level common enemies, when you are sure to need it for the bigger baddies and likely the boss.  So that leaves the knife, an honorable weapon no doubt, and the bane of rats and bats alike, but agains the fish, well...  Let's just say that the fish are quick and can evade the knife in close quarters far better than the rat.  You really need to strike at the fish before it comes into range and let it run into the blade.  If you wait and try to strike when the fish is close enough, it's already too close and you are hit.  What's worse, because you are in the water, you float and likely bump into another fish, or back into the same fish, over and over.  So stock up on bullets and prepare to blast your way through, or brush up on your knife skills.  Fish are the aggravation catch of the day!
I'm strongly considering making a map.  Even though the house isn't huge, there are 11 warp zones to find and once found it would be nice to be able to get back to them with ease.  Luckily for me I happen to own a map of the house already.  For those of you who didn't grow up with Nintendo Power kind of money, you may recall a little, barely licensed, monthly strategy guide called the Player's Strategy Guide to Nintendo Games.  This publication was much like something your shady Uncle Terry might have published out of his garage from games he had access to from his job at the Video Vender.  But, for those of us with discount childhoods, these mags were as good as gold.  Why am I going on about this?  Because in a issue of the Player's Guide I owned as a kid, they have a map of the Dr. Chaos house!  Their tips and secrets are of the most superficial and miserable kind (thanks of the "in depth" map of the first warp zone, which is the easiest and is just a straight line), but the map itself is just fine for what I need.  So I'll likely be working on that going forward, just to keep from going in circles as I get closer to the end.

"No way" door?  That's just a door you can't go through.  Not a huge help.

Finally a PRO TIP that it took me two hours to discover:  Pressing up while in a room will cause you to turn around.  Up to this point, I've been turning circles by pressing right or left and cycling through the four cardinal directions, but thanks to this fabulous discovery, I can now turn around and leave a room the way I came in just by pressing up.  Seems minor, but I promise it's a big help!
So two hours down, 5 warp zones cleared and I'm enjoying this game more and more!

Hour 3:

I really hope I am able to beat this game within the 5 hours I have devoted to it.  If not, I will most likely finish it regardless based on the amount of fun I am having now that I am passed the learning curve for getting into it.
More progress this hour!  I've found ways to access every part of the house, I think.  I can get to all rooms in the attic and basement now and have found 3 more warp zones.  I managed to beat a buzzy beetle looking boss to gain the vest (which cuts down dramatically on HP loss) and I got my butt handed to me by a flaming lion boss and a boss that is just a skull surrounded by a ball of bones.  This game is not lacking in the creative boss design category.  I am getting better at hallway combat, but the winged bone monsters in the warp zones are plaguing me something terrible.  Their movements are just too erratic and they always seem to dodge my shots.  House exploration, one of the initial hurdles in the learning curve, is now a snap.  Room layouts and access are all totally logical and that makes it easy to figure out how to access areas like the basement and the attic.  If an attic room is directly above a room on the second floor, chances are very good that punching the north wall in that room will reveal a ladder.  Likewise, if you want to try to access a room next to the one your are in, punched on a western or eastern wall generally grants passage.  The only big drawback remains the need to reload your weapon and health supply upon death, but that is only a minor annoyance at this point.  I did pick up a green health vial in the boss room with the bone boss, but I am not sure what it does.   I've got 6 pieces of the super weapon and have explored the entire house.  I think that puts me roughly half way to the end.  We'll find out more next hour!

Super Cool Boss Gallery! 

Hour 4:

The success continues!  I managed to take out a few more bosses this time around including the bone boss. The green vial (of which I picked up another in a different boss room) restores all health and is probably very helpful in some of these tougher boss battles.  It is likely a mistake that I rush into the room and grab it right away, but you live, you learn.  My map is pretty complete at this point and I find that apart from pinpointing the location of the warp zones, I don't need it too much.  It is helpful in remembering which rooms grant access to the attic or basement, but apart from that, house navigation has become very easy.  Basement or attic access is always found by punching on the North screen.  Access to other rooms is always on an East or West screen as mentioned in Hour 3.  South screens are pretty much just how you get back to the hallway.  I took out a trilobite boss and got another health vial brining me up to what I assume is the maximum 4 health containers.  And I discovered a new, and deadly boss that looks a lot like the White Dragons from Castlevania.  However with this menace, if you miss the head and hit the body, he breaks apart and spawns a second head, and now you have two white dragons flying around.  Not fun.  This boss will take some strategy.  I am also convinced the flaming lion head boss is the final boss.  The only weapon that hurts him is the knife and once you stab him with it he begins shooting fireballs out of his mouth effectively preventing you from stabbing him again.  Taking this guy out must be the use of the super weapon, but I guess we will see.  As it stands, I only have one piece of the weapon yet to acquire and I assume the White Dragon boss has it.  So next hour,  I'll have to stock up, strategize and take him down, then see if my hunch is right about that flaming lion...

Hour 5:

Turns out the White Dragon boss isn't so tough if you take your time and try not to hit his body segments.  I managed to split him into 4 parts (instead of 6 or 8 as previously) and just concentrate on one head at a time, and he was down in no time!  Laser cannon assembled!  That only leaves the Fire-breathing Lion.  The final showdown took three tries.  The first to confirm my suspicions.  Turns out when you stab him in the face and activate him, your weapon automatically becomes the Laser Cannon and you just battle it out from there.  It took a second try to work out the pattern of his fireball barrage, and on the third try he was defeated!  Dr. Ginn Chaos was restored and the warp zone peril was ended!

Final Appraisal:
Dr. Chaos is a really great game.  I am sorely disappointed that I didn't take the time to overcome the learning curve years ago, as it is clear I have been missing out on one of the NES's hidden gems.  With diverse gameplay and a moderate difficulty level, this game really hits the sweet spot between challenge and accessibility.  It is obvious the problem all along was me.

Learning Curve:
Based on my experience above maybe 1.5 hours.  It takes a little while to get used to the side-scrolling adventure action and house navigation, but once you understand a few things (pay attention to my pro tips and discoveries above) you should be exploring and having a good time in short order.  Only the recollection of items after your death proves to be annoying, but only minimally so.

Will I Finish It?
I did!  And there is a good chance I'll play it through again in the future.  It's a lot of fun and when you know what you're doing it probably only takes an hour or two to beat.

So there you have it!  The Learning Curve has proven successful in only it's second time out!  Dr. Chaos is a great game and I strongly recommend it!  Don't let the short learning curve keep you from having a great time exploring this underrated NES game!  What to play next...

The Learning Curve: 5 Hours with AD&D: Hillsfar

Not all games are Pac-man: the kind you can just pick up and play, with simple rules and fairly easy to understand parameters and goals.  Many games, sometimes even those that seem straightforward, have a steep learning curve which requires you to spend more than just a few minutes working out the nuances of the game play.  Too often these games get dismissed as “too hard” or “too clunky” and get tossed in to the pile of games that are collected and not played.  And sadly, a lot of really good games get lost in the shuffle due to a lack of pick-up-and-playability.  I’m guilty of doing this and you are too.  This was partly the motivation behind my old “Closer Look” series in which I took a hard look, and many hours of gameplay, exploring games that might not otherwise get a second look from the casual gamer.  Through that experience, I discovered that many games are quietly very good, but due to their steep learning curve, they don’t get the play or recognition they deserve.  Uncanny X-men is a perfect example. The litmus test for a game’s accessibility seems to me to be around 5 hours of game play.  If you play a game for 5 hours and cannot get into what the game is trying to do, then chances are good the game is A.) not very good  B.) just not for you. 

So with that in mind, I have vowed to sift through my NES collection, pull out those games that I have dismissed as “terrible” and give them 5 honest hours of game play to see if I am missing out on rewarding experiences due to an unusually steep learning curve.  I will play each game for 5 hours and then write up my experience, providing an hour-by-hour breakdown of what I discovered through my play.  Then I will weigh in with whether or not I find the game to be secretly great, not very good, or probably good, but just not for me.  I would love to hear feedback from you whether you agree or disagree.  You might even point me in the right direction!

AD&D: Hillsfar

Hillsfar, as it will heretofore be referred, is a traditional Western RPG.  The kind of game where you build your own character and set out on a generally wide-open quest in an immersive world.   That fitting because this game is part of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons world, the primordial soup from which all Western RPGs spring forth, at least as far as I am aware.  I wasn’t big into the AD&D scene back in the day (shocker, I know) so I’m not as familiar with the nuts and bolts of how this game ties into that world, but I shouldn’t have to be in order to enjoy a video game, not if it has been made properly.  Hillsfar is one of two AD&D titles for the NES.  The other, Dragon Strike, is more of an RPG shooter, something you don’t see too much of.  That game has more pick-up-and-play appeal so you’ll want to check that out on your own sometime; it’s pretty good.

Hillsfar looks like the kind of game I can sink my teeth into.  I absolutely loved Wizardry and Wizardry II, and as long time readers know, I have an unnatural attachment to the Might and Magic franchise on the PC.  But for some reason, this game didn’t grab me the few times I’ve popped it into my NES and tried to delve into the adventure.  So let’s spend 5 good hours playing and see if we can find the joy hidden in the city of Hillsfar…

Hour 1:

I spent most of this hour just figuring out what the game was about and how to get started.  I created my character:  I started with a thief because traditionally with these kinds of RPG’s having a thief as your first character is a good way to get access to stuff that other classes cannot.  Thieves can pick locks, sneak into places, and otherwise interact with characters that your average Fighter or Cleric cannot.  Whether or not this was a smart choice is yet to be determined.  You don’t start the game at the city of Hillsfar, you start at your camp right outside, so to get to town you have to engage in a very tedious and mostly annoying horse ride to the city.  This horse ride will link all destinations you travel to and will be a pox upon fun.  The horse is sluggish to control and the obstacles are random and not smartly spaced.  And whatever you do, don’t under any circumstance crash so much that you lose your horse.  More on that in hour 2.  

Once you arrive in town it is best to seek out your guild house and get something to do.  It is very easy to wander around town aimlessly and get into general trouble.  As a thief you can pick any door lock and go into pretty much any building if you have the wherewithal and the talent.  Furthermore, nere-do-wells wander the streets making you bad offers that more often than not send you to the arena (you do not want to go to the arena).  Every class belongs to a guild in Hillsfar and finding the guild house will grant you access to the quests that will give your life, and  hopefully the game, some meaning.  Hillsfar is a very open RPG and does not give you a master quest to complete.  Your destiny is tied to your guild and how you choose to play.  That’s pretty cool, but can be meandering if you don’t find your guild and get to work.

So I made it to the Rogue’s Hideout, home of the Master Thief and immediately asked for something to do.  My first quest was simple: just retrieve an item from the sewers. (well, I had to find the Magic Shop and talk to a guy first, but that was relatively easy)  This moves you along to what seems to be the basic game mechanic in Hillsfar:  enter a building, find the thing you are looking for before time runs out, and escape.  If you take too long the guards show up, take all the gold you found and either toss you out or toss you into the arena.  I got tossed out a lot and sent to the arena a couple of times as well.  In the arena you have to engage in absolutely confounding hand-to-hand combat with a monster opponent and, one way or another, emerge victorious or badly beaten (meaning with 1 HP, and given that recovering HP in this game requires a miracle or lots of gold, you don’t want to lose in the arena)  By sheer luck I escaped both times the victor.

Navigating the interior of buildings is also the province of luck, as the layout is randomly selected from a set number mazes and treasures and traps are scattered throughout.  Most chests are locked and require picking.  Many contain gold, a few are empty, and some give you bizarre items like old clothes, or are helpful by revealing the location of floor traps.  Picking chests proves to be a challenge as there is a time limit and if you choose the wrong pick, it will instantly break, leaving you with a useless set of tools.  This happened to me a lot.  Once your time is up, you get a notice saying the exit can now be found (you can exit immediately upon entering through the main door, but where’s the fun in that?) and that the guards are on their way.  From that point on, it’s a mad dash to find the newly spawned staircase, avoid getting pinned by the guards, and escaping with your plunder.  Since the layouts and stair placements are random this is not an easy task.  I spent much of the first hour breaking all of my picks, getting tossed out of the sewer, and generally getting beat up.  At the end of my first hour I had 9 HP, 3 Gold, and nothing to show for my troubles.  Not the best start.

Hour 2:

This hour brought more frustration and futility.  I was able to complete my first quest: finding the rare mushroom in the sewer and getting out without capture, but I had broken 4 of my lockpicks and lost all of my gold.  Needless to say, being a thief with no lockpicks makes you a pretty useless thief, so I spent most of this hour going back into the sewer, running around trying to find unlocked chests full of gold and escaping without being caught.  This was neither easy nor fun.  It might be what passes for grinding in this game.  But eventually I collected enough gold to repair all of my picks and was able to resume questing.  The next quest took me to a Hermit’s Hut to recover another item, a phial of liquid.  After all the sewer diving I had been doing this felt much easier, however getting to the hut and back proved to be a problem.  

To get to the hut I had to go to the Trading Post, a seemingly useless waypoint between Hillsfar and many of the world’s destinations.  At the Trading Post you can buy or trade for a new horse, talk to the guy at the Trading Post, or attempt to walk to Hillsfar if you haven’t a horse or the gold with which to purchase.  That’s about it.  It’s not very helpful, as my experiences soon prove.  

During one of my forays into the Hermit’s Hut, I managed to break two picks, was caught, and tossed out with very little gold to my name.  I decided I needed to return to Hillsfar to regroup and then try another campaign into the Hut.  Whilst riding my horse to Hillsfar, I was thrown off one time too many and my horse got annoyed and left me high and dry.  The game gave me a few options of what to do next, one of which was to look for a new horse, the other was to wait for another passer-by to give me a lift to the Trading Post.  I first looked for a new horse, to no avail.  The I opted to hitch a ride to the Trading Post.  Once there I was given the standard options of buy a new horse or walk to Hillsfar.  New horses cost considerably more than the 3 Gold I was packing, so walking seemed to be the only option.  This was not a good option.  8 times I attempted to walk to Hillsfar and 8 times I was beset by bandits who took my remaining 3 gold, roughed me up and dropped me back at the useless Trading Post.  8 times.  8.  This easily took up 15 infuriating minutes of game time.  Eventually I was able to find a new horse wandering around get back to Hillsfar, but I had lost all desire to ever leave and if I never saw the Trading Post again it would be too soon.

Hour 3:

I had taken several days break from playing Hillsfar after my ill treatment on the road and it proved to hearten me a bit.  I was able to restock my supplies in the city and then liberate the phial of liquid from the Hermit’s Hut with relative ease.  I was getting better with the lockpicks, I wasn’t panicking and breaking them constantly, and I was getting out without getting caught much more successfully.  The really good news:  for recovering the phial I got 1250 gold.  Oh how to spend it?  Well, let’s just say that in Hillsfar, fortune is easy come, easy go.  All it takes is one unlucky trip in a house and you’re back to skid row.  More on that later.  For now, I was riding high with a pocket full of gold and feeling like I was getting the hang of things.  The next quest was to find an amulet.  To do this I would have to prowl about a couple of taverns and the sewer seeking information on the amulet’s whereabouts.  Eventually the search brought me to a Hut located just outside of the city.  After about 6 successful forays into the hut, I began to suspect that the amulet wasn’t there at all.  This is hard to know since the chests all appear at random and you rarely have enough time to search every single nook and cranny of the building before the guards catch you, but after multiple trips coming up empty I began to suspect that something was amiss.  However, I was pleased to see that I was able to make so many trips, pick so many locks, and escape so many times without being caught.  It felt like I was finally starting to get the hang of the basic game play mechanic.  But no amulet.  The one thing I did find repeatedly was a piece of paper encouraging me to pick the cellar door in the taverns back in the city.  So as my third hour wound down I retuned to Hillsfar once again…

Hour 4:

So I picked the cellar door and eventually found the chain the amulet was on, but no amulet.  This meant a trip back to the Rogue’s Hideout to get more information from the master.  Apparently the amulet has been carefully tucked away in the Cleric’s Guild (also known as the Shrine of Tempus).  Getting into the guild house proved to be a bigger challenge than expected.  The lock is impossible to pick as it requires a pick I do not have in my tool set.  I’ve purchased 3 different sets of lock picks and none of them contained the correct pick, so I assume it’s a pick I need to find elsewhere or my luck is just terrible.  But there’s more than one way to pick a lock and a couple of times I was able to get in by physical force. This is a dicey proposition however as the lock is trapped and 75% of the time you will spring it and take 3-5 damage.  This caused several reloads and about 15 minutes of frustration.  Nevertheless I got in several times and explored the guild.  The building layout is static, but the traps and treasures are randomly placed.  This makes definitive exploration nearly impossible.  There simply isn’t time to see all the sights and get out unmolested.  The only upside is the hefty coin pouch I got from all the plundering.  Annoyingly, six trips in and no amulet.  Experience is a great teacher though and I’m no longer taking lumps getting in.  A knock ring purchased for 250 gold got me in nearly every time and with no fuss.  It’s not all good news, though, as this process is a series of diminishing returns with most trips into the Shrine netting an average of 195 gold.  So I’m 45 minutes in and I’m in a downward spiral of losing gold, finding no amulet and sometimes dying due to traps.  I’m back to not having fun.  I feel like I’ve checked every chest and I’ve even started checking walls and dead ends for secret doors or anything that might move the game along.  This doesn't seem like the kind of game prone to such devices, but at this point anything is worth a shot.  Hour 4 wraps with no amulet, a wasted hour of dungeon crawling and me questioning if I can even take an hour 5.

Give me the damned Amulet!

Hour 5: 

25 times I went into the Cleric Guild in search of an amulet.  25 times I emerged with nothing but gold and a few healing potions.  My time with Hillsfar was winding down and I was having decreasing amounts of fun.  So I decided a new tactic was in order:  Start Over.  It might seem a little late in the game for such an idea, but if I was going to salvage anything out of the final hour, this might be the only way to do so.  So I started over, this time as a Cleric.  The thief thing wasn’t panning out so maybe a different character would bring me better luck.  And, maybe due to familiarity with the game, or maybe the Cleric path is just easier, it seemed to be a lot simpler to get going.  I rode into town and checked in at the Shrine of Tempus (they just let me in, a frustrating juxtaposition from my previous experience).  I spent most of the fifth and final hour tooling about town finishing quests with relative ease.  I even had to go to that miserable Trading Post several times to complete quests.  Dungeon diving was much easier as it seems far more chests are just open and ripe for the pilfering than in the Thief track.  I soon accumulated a sizable pile of gold and had quite a few completed quests under my belt when I came upon the Haunted House (bonus points to any RPG with a haunted house).  My next quest required me to enter the Haunted House and find a bandit who had something the guild wanted.  Sadly, upon attempting to pick the lock and enter the haunted house, the only apparent way in, I triggered a trap which exploded and killed me.  The real tragedy: I had failed to save this character at any point during my game.  Thus, my final hour of play, while much more enjoyable, was completely undermined by a failure to save.  The entire hour just wiped away by a single trap.  Frustrating.

Final Appraisal?  AD&D: Hillsfar isn’t a terrible RPG.  It’s clunky and very slow to start, but I think someone determined to sit down and learn its ins and outs will be able to find something here to enjoy.  Some of the game play mechanics are tedious and some are downright incomprehensible.  The bulk of the game is just journey to X find the Y and return with no combat or battle system unless you get tossed into the Arena.  But the world is fairly well constructed and I can see really getting in to it if you are not turned off by the obtuse mechanics.  

Learning Curve:  About 2.5 hours of solid play should get you accustomed to how the game works and what is expected of you.  It probably takes a little longer to get invested in the world of the game, but it is possible.

Will I Finish It?  Unlikely.  Most of my time in Hillsfar was spent being extremely frustrated and the brief moments of accomplishment weren’t enough to help me power through the annoying parts.  I may give Hillsfar another look in a year or so, after I get over the aggravation of this play through, but I’m not inspired to keep the adventure going at this time.