Celestian Tales: Old North - Howl of the Ravager

Howl of the Ravager is, as it stated, prequel to main game showing many of familiar characters (not squires) in their past and shows how some of later event started to take shape. You will see young Ravager, already doubting Alain as right counrty ruler, young elf Niena before Ylianne was born and Pierre, naive knight (who probably Ylianne father-to-be). Niena is especially interesting since its way different here from main game. There is some old location and new added. More insights about universe, more questionable actions, politics, etc. As gameplay - this DLC keeps softcore RPG formula from main game, albeit i found fights here more difficult and little more tedious - if in main game avoiding fight was usual option (taking to account exp boost missed) here level design often force you to fight your way forward. Some things in DLC made it feel unbalanced or not well planned. For example enemies still drops a lot of loot, but this loot is basically useless since weapon upgrades is no possible, you have just 3 characters, you find a plenty of hi-end armor naturally (its kind of too plenty) as well as most accessories, so its basically no need to purchase anything in shops. As i said having only 3 characters makes easier to manage party, but at same time limits diversity. DLC give you about 3-4 hours of additional gameplay which i think is fair enough. Its it worth it? If you liked Old North - more then worth it.

The good will the first game built up with me was pretty much thrown out the window on this one. The story is interesting and fills in some gaps in the first game - with some serious implications depending on what they do with the bread crumbs dropped here - but this one is going to try your patience a little bit. Here's some issues: -The last hour of the game was padded with a lot of not so fun content, almost didn't finishe because of it. It's varied content, so I can appreciate that, but it wasn't very fun. -Enemy encounter rate was absurdly high with little to no room to avoid, so by the time we got to the last area (and had to trek it over again) we were maxed out and there was no point to fight. -A certain maze was obnoxious and should have been left in the 90s where it belonged. It wasn't fun then and it's not fun now. -Still issues with the last boss being cheap and really only having one way to defeat it. Would have really thought that would have been sorted out in this one (maybe not, it's DLC rather than a full game). The backstory of the bladebearers is intersting and why the swords exist/what they can do is a nice addition to what we learned in Old North. If you can really suspend your expectations, that's worth it. But if not...oof. It was a rough playthrough and I don't ever plan to revisit it. Has me seriously worried about going forward with this series.

This is a whole new campaign and I am glad about it. I really prefer standalones to content adding expansions. This campaign is less imaginative than the previous, the shorter length and less characters give less possibilities for the interactions. I really did not like the cast as much as Old North's as well. Level design was really not great and level progression/battle system were really not great at all as well. That being said it really is not that bad. If you liked Old North you would definitely like to play this one and know more of the world and the people. However, it does not really do all that much with all the resources it re-uses and leaves a lot for one to demand.