Barony

...a sunny walk in the woods? Dark Souls 1 & 2 A delightful diversion from rpgs devoid of deviltry? Barony is a masterful maelstrom of mischievous mayhem, maniacal monsters milling to and fro alongside treasure in the dark. Play with friends, to play alone is to be late for work the next morning.

after giving this game a reasonable go i have decided that i prefer Delver so straight up solo play. however, that does not mean that this game does not have its merits. I can see many places in this game where it would have been fantastic to have a partner helping you out. i have not managed to get hooked up with a multiplayer game yet but i'm sure it would have filled some of the holes i could feel in the way the game felt and some things i wanted to do. I might change my review when i get around to some multiplayer. the controls feel very stiff from a mechanical stand point but are also fast enough that some people wont notice. If you are waiting to see if the new underworld title is going to be worth playing, this might be worth a look.

It looks like it may be good...if it worked. I've spent awhile now trying to see what was happening and all it will do is start to load the loading bar. The log file goes nowhere. This is the Linux version so if you are using Linux...maybe see if there is a demo somewhere first.

Lets have a quote: "Gameplay inspired by RPG classics like Ultima Underworld, System Shock, & Daggerfall" To which I say is a pack of lies, to ride the coat tails of better games. Im not ragging on the little guy for fun. Im annoyed when anyone tells tall tales and a bunch of fools blindly follow, parroting the lies. Then I buy a product under that falsehood. Barony is a game more in tone to Minecraft, but with an rpg feel as much as one could add, to fps game Blood. Veloren. A very visually similar game. Which is free by the way. Comes blazing out of this horse race ahead of Barony. Due to adding in the basic mechanics people would feel familiar with, that Barony never bothered to implement. Barony lacks pretty much all the qualities one expects from the games it was "inspired" by. There is no comparison to any one them. Atleast in terms of mechanics. This is my primary gripe. Arx Fatalis has a reasonable claim to being similar....still crap of a game. But at least they made an attempt. So....is there anything redeeming? Sure. Why not mention a few highlights. 1-Graphics and music 2-Options and settings(lots of toggles) 3-Random generation of levels 4-A sandbox with an end goal...seriously this is really is important in most games. I know people like this game for what it does have. But it lacks far to much to appeal to me. Especially after having the balls to name drop those better titles and not even include their mechanics....wtf guys!? Heres an example: Someone wants to make similar icecream after Ben&Jerries goes under. People rejoice. Then when the customer buys that "icecream"...its...ravioli pasta! Fans exclaim they like it....yet I am scratchin my head askin about what happened to B&J icecream?? It is not what I have an expectation of at all. So just because the product is liked by many, it will piss off real fans of the games they claim to be like. You future customers are warned.

I love wizard games, I love playing as a wizard and I love magic. That's why I bought the game. Even if the mana regeneration was terrible, if there was a way of increasing it without having to give up on achievements (which unlock character x class combinations), I would give it 5 stars. You could say that's the dev's vision and how they want the game to be played. So, my family used to run a restaurant, and the best way I could compare the decision to punish a player that WANTS an easier/customized to their taste experience would be spitting on a client's food whenever they changed a plate. Oh, they don't like lettuce? Ok, I think this dish goes well with lettuce so I'll spit on their food because I don't agree with their choice and the restaurant is mine so I take the choices. Sometimes I love gamers, and sometimes I hate them. And it also applies to devs. I tried to like the game, I tried every class possible (that had magic because I love it), and all of them felt bad for the lack of decent mana regeneration. If I WANT to play purely as a mage, then I should be able to do so. Call me a crybaby, but the real crybaby is someone that does not respect a client's preference and choice. You could say "ok, so just don't play the game". That's what I did, after investing myself and really trying I just gave up. Even looked for mods that would allow me to increase MP regen, and just that. Didn't find em' so I just asked for a refund. And now I am telling you a game that would be absolutely wonderful for me left but a bitter taste in my mouth. Seriously, when people will stop treating devs like gods and simply have a mutual relationship of respect? Have a default mode and allow people to tweak stuff without shoving a knife on their guts. It's not hard, ok? Even easier than playing with low MP regen.