Blackguards Special Edition

So I thought I'd give this a go despite the mixed reviews... nd I kind of wish I hadn't. At first I thought it was pretty good, with nice atmosphere, a decent script for the characters, and good voice acting. Then I releaised it was basically just one tactical fight after another withotu much in betwee. That was ok, just barely because in small doses it was still fun and I was enjoying the banter and script (such as it was). Then I got to the 'Nine Hordes'. What a load of rubbish. 9 consecutive battles without a chance to heal or re-equip. Each on a gimmicky battlefield. Essentially a bunch of repetative SLOW puzzle-battles meant to be replayed till you understand each. Too bad if you didn't complete the prior one perfectly or cheese you way back to full astral points by tediously waiting with one enemy left on each map till you had recharged (and I hate having to cheese stuff)! No! Bad design! Stop wasting my time! If I want to drudge forward through something boring I'll go do the housework. Short, sharp, challenging and fun is a good puzzle or battle, zillions of rounds of slightly repetetive drudge is not! If I'd known this idiotic sequence of fights was going to just suck any redeeming qualities out of the game, I'd never have played as far as I did. Now you have been warned you can avoid this poorly designed rubbish

I was super excited when I started to play the game. But when I got into the middle the game started to be super annoying. You must play missions again and again and again in order to win and continue in the game. If you value your time and this game will be simply a major waste - frustrating and time consuming.

I liked this game. The voice acting is a main positive for this game. The story is also pretty good. The con: simplistic towns where you cannot do much... I wanted to complain about the prices, but overall this is actually a balanced aspect : everything is expensive (like very), and the items you get are quite rare/sparse, which makes resource management a necessary approach (and this is something I like; I don't find it fun to have unlimited mana/health pots and other consumables, or to be able to buy the best armour set after you completed 10% of the game).

I enjoyed the story, and for someone who was not familiar with Der Swarze Auge Universe, the setting was surprisingly interesting. To spoil the story a little bit, you basically get framed for something you didn't do, bust out of the prison thanks to a certain dwarf, to then go on a journey to seek the answers to your conundrum. The companions have presence and the voice acting was absolutely superb. I do however feel that the game loses some of its steam after you deal with the "Alchemist" - story perspective. In terms of the system, it is a turned based game with a steep learning curve that at times felt complicated, and at others not as intuitive as it should have been. I did however power through it to the point where I managed to grasp it, and even started to appreciate some of the decisions it gave me. Forget going into this blind however, open up an online guide for the sake of your sanity. Also, forget thinking that if you roll Wizard you're gonna end up becoming a God of the battlefiend. You're a buff and utility character in this game. However, there's potential to make your Wizard into a hybrid that also uses archery, or even does some melee. The class balance is also all over the place with a lot of abilities being poorly implemented from TTRPG, and thus certain options become less good compared to others. For instance, I wanted to play a Rapier character with a back-up sword to deal with certain enemies that are immune to piercing damage (undead), I found out that this was strictly inferior to 2h Hammerblow approach, which does 3 times as much damage for less effort. While the game is interesting with some challenging fights in the beginning, once you unlock more abilities and spells (like hammerblow and haste), the game really degenerates and becomes too easy. The final battles do not offer the same kind of challenge the early ones did. The narrative ending was a bit of a letdown as well, like they run out of resources and had to cut it short.

Interesting characters, great gameplay mechanics, and wonderful skill system hindered by overly specific encounter design. Most of encounters in this game that I made it to had a very puzzle-like design where the player is supposed to guess how the designer wants them to play it. There is some great gameplay that doesn't get much time in the spotlight because of the lock and key design of the encounters. While this may appeal to some I felt hindered by it.