Heads Will Roll: Reforged

I don't play VNs and while this game isn't a VN, it's a bit like one but here's where it's different. Random events, RNG depending on what you're wearing/skills you choose/weapon/whether you're virtuous or wicked the determine dialog/event outcomes. It uses the weapons and descriptions of gear to make you feel like you're really playing in that time frame as you equip yourself to do battle. It has 4 difficulty modes to choose from: Story, normal, hard, HWR (very hard). I play story because I prefer the small difficulty and stress reduced playstyle it gives. The artwork is very nice and the UI is serviceable. It has a nice tutorial mode and there's lots of help text. tl;dr It's fun and as hard as you want to make it.

And Depth! Want to play a run with crossbows, and no honor, you can! Want to play a run with maces, high honor and extreme strenght, you can! Want to play a run with a (yawn) board and sword, and full plate armor, you can! Want to play a run with Polearm weapons or Spears, you can! (Lot's more weapons too.) Want to focus on crafting more, (you don't have to, to win, but, you can! Want to ignore sex (why??????) you can! Also, don't download optional nudes. Want to read fantastic banter between you and dukes, earls and hot girls (eh hem, women)? you can! I have purchased this TWICE! once on steam and just now over here at the wonderful archival world of GOG!

This game is extremely fun. I’ve already sunk plenty of hours into it and am nowhere near being done. The strategy engine is deep, the story is compelling, and the artwork is wonderful. Apparently, Heads Will Roll was produced by a husband-and-wife team with no prior game development experience. What an impressive first effort. I will admit to being a little disappointed when I encountered one of the game’s many endings because I thought the story was only just getting started. I was expecting a lengthy strategy game with light visual novel elements. It’s acutally more accurate to call this game a visual novel but with fairly deep strategy elements. With that being said, there’s a huge amount of content to explore in the game’s relatively brief story because the depth is in all of the branching plotlines and optional quests. You’ll only see a small portion of the content in one playthrough. Because you’ll be replaying the game anyway to see all of the content — and probably restarting a few times when you see that your initial character builds won’t be successful — I highly recommend playing on the Heads Will Roll difficulty level. You’ll die a lot at first, but you’ll eventually have a much more powerful character than you could have built in a single playthrough on the standard difficulty level. A lower-difficulty story mode is also available for those who don’t care so much about the strategy portion of the game. I’m looking forward to playing the DLC and will eagerly buy future chapters or a sequel. Also, please release the Mac version of HWR: Downfall on GOG!

I just couldn't get any fun out of this game. It feels like someone sat down and thought, "You know what the world needs? A 'Well, life just isn’t fair' - simulator." And that’s exactly how it plays. The game is divided into two segments: rest phases and combat phases. So you constantly switch between checking your equipment, improving your stats, or talking to NPCs. Then it's time for "war," and you're thrown from one fight straight into the next. But the completely ridiculous stamina and fatigue system makes most battles boil down to just replenishing those while enemies beat them right back out of you. But that’s not even the worst part. The rest phases are constantly interrupted by NPCs treating you like their personal errand boy. And you have to do it because anything you don’t complete exactly as intended gets you hit with draconian penalties. That means if you want good gear and a decent amount of money, you have to grind hard and make a lot of sacrifices. Then, at some point in the game, everything is just taken from you. Just like that, you lose all your money and a huge chunk of your equipment. That was the point where I completely lost interest. You spend 20 hours busting your ass just to get some halfway decent gear, and then the game strips you of everything. Even your weapon. Yeah, no thanks—I don’t need a game that’s designed purely to frustrate me.