The engine was fine, it was a square peg / round hole situation. They picked an off-the-shelf engine that was designed to simulate tabletop games like Dungeons

The engine was fine, it was a square peg / round hole situation. They picked an off-the-shelf engine that was designed to simulate tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons in 3D. Maybe they got a good deal on it. The bird's-eye click-to-move camera mode is what the engine was designed for, but the developers kludged in some keyboard controls because they were making an action game. The odd timing-based fighting styles sort of make sense, because the engine wanted to handle combat with dice rolls on a mostly-fixed interval. It could have turned out a lot worse, when you consider what they were working with. I hope they keep some of the weird quirks, like the rhythm swordplay.