If you follow the main quests without getting bogged down in side quests, the game doesn’t feel too long, but you won’t be nearly high enough level to take them on. So you will find yourself scouring the countryside for easy things to do. Maybe pillage a peaceful goblin village. Or play letter carrier for a hermit. Save a lot though, because you don’t know how easy or hard a side quest is until you’ve reloaded for the fourth time. Just because you killed giant lizards by the bucket in one location doesn’t mean you are ready for to take on a herd.

But the side quests are interesting, each firmly rooted in the mythos of the setting and there are enough of them to always give you something to do or some place to look for. The outdoor quests are a little devoid of flavor since they are revealed entirely in dialog, but some (like the selkie and giant spider quests) are full of humanity (if that’s the right word for seal people and arachnids). Nethergate doesn’t have the overarching moral message that Geneforge managed to communicate, but it is a series of good adventures strung together.

There is no doubt that Nethergate will try the patience of people unsympathetic to Vogel’s sad devotion to that ancient engine. But it is probably the best adventure to come from Spiderweb Software since the early Avernum games. It has a generous demo, so people on the edge have ample opportunity to see if this is the game for them.