Legends of Eisenwald

Major fault 1: New players beware - after tutorial you are on a tight time limit. The game won't tell you about it, but every enemy on the map is power-leveling at about twice the speed accessible to the player. The whole quest log is a giant trap - it invites you to walk around talking to people, carrying things, explore the map etc... All the while, that clock is ticking down - at some point you will have irreversibly lost the game as the 'potential but inevitable' enemies will have far out-leveled your ability to take on, but you won't realize until many game-hours later. Major fault 2: The above is greatly exacerbated by the fact that many quests give you very little info to go on, ultimately leaving the player to just randomly visit and revisit everything on the map and hope to find the next objective. In some cases the progression is outright locked down behind info that's only available via walk-through - for example one of the early quests mentions the need to find a particular NPC whose exact address is given. Stated nowhere is the minor detail that the only way the option to talk to that NPC shows up is if you happen to go to that city while in possession of a specific loot item from a seemingly random group of enemies walking around the map. Major fault 3: The 'economy' is ultra tight, and has a bunch of built in aspects to it that again, one can only figure out from info outside the game or from a lot of experimentation. In vast majority of cases, every fight will cost you - it will take more gold to heal your troops than what you get. To have a net gain, one needs to start exploiting things like garrisoning troops early, not healing them (spreading XP), exploit cheap potions, trade at specific locations at right time of day... All 3 together mean that this game is only possible to win through by way of first doing a lot of mandatory research online, and than in addition to that save-scumming a whole lot to make sure you don't waste any time.

I'm enjoying this game so much that I'm already looking forward to another play-through of it, that's an achievement only a handful of games capture. It will be one of the games I always go back to and play again for years down the road. It's unique so you can't really say it's like this game or that game. Your lead character and map movement resemble heroes of might and magic but it's not really like that game either, like I said a unique game! I highly recommend you check out the you tube videos of the combat and game play and if you even think you might like it (that's how I felt at first) buy it! I don't think you'll regret your purchase. A lot of the bugs in game mentioned in reviews and online have been sorted it. I through most of my first play through and have not encountered any of the game breaking bugs mentioned in various places except for one and there is a work around on it. If the tool tips go off screen uncheck "use system cursor" on the game start screen and it fixes the problem. I also choose to go full screen though I don't know if that was also part of the fix so if you still encounter this problem also try going full screen. To sum up my review this is an awesome game and has been my favorite purchase recently even considering the big name titles I've purchased.

This is a game into which the designers have put much love and dedication. The main hero is easy to identify with and the story is amazing, ever-driving the game forward and bringing multiple strong emotions. I can highly recommend reading through the rumors and legends the game presents you with. You will be immensely rewarded story-wise. The next big part of the game are battles. These are fought on hex-shaped battlefieds in turn-based mode. While you may employ a limited amount of tactics, they get repetitive pretty quickly. Luckily, they are fast-paced and usually over quickly. Music is pleasant to hear throughout and well completes the medieval setting. Graphics are pretty solid in my opinion for a game of this age. My biggest reservation about the game is that it is not very polished. So e.g. when at the beginning you give name to your character, nobody tells you that you are a noble „von Lahnstein“. Not knowing that, I named my character „Heinrich von Tannwald“ which resulted in him being called Heinrich von Tannwald von Lahnstein some time to the game (too much to re-start and rename him). Or you cannot rename your save by holding backspace. You need to press backspace individually for each character in the default save name you want to delete. Or you cannot load your save by double-clicking the save, you need to select it and then press the load button. In one quest, there was an issue in translation (from German to English) which prevents you from going where you need to to finish the quest. But these are all minor issues. I can highly recommend buying this game.

Very good idea, good beginning, but when you go further the game is getting boring. Very linear scenario, you do not have the impression, that you have influence on the course of action.

Eisenwald seems like a more "gamey" version of Mount & Blade: Warband. The map is smaller, not a sandbox. Combat is turn-based. The story seems stronger. Graphics are better. The combat is quite interesting: I *hate* turn-based combat. And yet, in this game, it doesn't really get in my way, probably because the choices are so restricted, and because it's "an action is one click" There are a few problems with that game that means I'm currently giving it its third and last chance before I move on. 1 - Difficulty is frozen: My first try was on Normal, and when I got trashed in the second mission, I found no way to lower it to Easy. 2 - Easy difficulty seems not much more different than Normal: My second playthrough was in easy, and I... got trashed in the tutorial, because... 3 - Mistakes are punishing: In my second playthrough, on Easy, I tried to keep money by dismissing my 2 mercenaries. Bad idea. The last combat became impossible to win. And despite visiting every village, I've found no new mercenaries to hire. 4 - NPCs are... unrelatable. On the second mission, suddenly, all my vassals are fighting among themselves. Th way to solve that is so stupid I'd rather kill all those dumbsticks, because, SRZLY, the management needs to be renewed (In my third playthrough, I'll actually try that... If the game lets me do it, kudos!) I want to love this game. I want to follow the story, and learn what happened. But I can't defend this game because the story and roleplaying are such a thin layer over the game mechanics, and because the game mechanics get in the way. If you buy this game for the story/characters: - Play in Easy - Be prepared to revert your actions/choices, so save often, and never overwrite our saves I'll update that review after my third playthrough.