The game is based on Regencysolitaire, upgraded with different mods&challenges for Solitaire and a small rpg&adventure part. The Story is ok, the arts&atmossphere and the puzzlechallenges are nice, the fights and the rpg-part are a mixed bag because it's very luckbased, taking into accaunt that most enemies are stronger then you can make it quite frustating. Lets explain...the attributes give you a very small chance that something happens while you remove card...for me it is a 5%to remove a randomized 2.card and a 3% chance to find a joker if you reveal cards, the active abillities allow me to remix the cards once every 40 removed cards or to destroy 2 random cards every 48 removed cards. My last fight was a duell..you and the enemy get both a rapier and have to score 80 points (normal hit does 10, if you remove 6+ cards in a row you get a bonus), but i start with -8 points and the enemy get a stungrenade that stuns for 2turns. Until now the Ki never made a fault...so it's mostly which card is revealed for you and the layout of the deck. The game is nice for a few minutes inbetween or if you don't mind restarting a fight several time until you get a start that give you a chance to win.
I only played the necro-campaign until now, so my impression is based on this part of the game. The basic gameplay is based on Eador MotBW, with all pros&cons...including some of the old bugs like access violation&savegame corruption but compared to the release version of MotBW technical problems are rare. The real difference are the "story-campaigns" compared to the free sandbox campaign and some new mechanics like worship that are not explained anywhere At the start of the campaign you get your storyhero, allready level 10 (with some bad skillchoices), a demese with some prebuilt buildings..again with several bad choices and a below average revengestory. Now you conquer the land like any shard, expect for a turnlimit. After conquering the shard you get some more simple phrases and move to the next shard with your hero+army+inventory. Now you get a 2.hero, level 7, preleveld&skilled, a demese with some buildings etc. Building up a hero like this would be really a great fun...if...the campaign had a better story or with MY hero in a sandbox campaign. Until now it felt more like a expanded tutorial for the new class...not a real storycampaign. Overall...you trade the freedom of choice&a strategic sandboxcampaign for a below average story,some unexplained new features&the ability to carry your hero over from hard to shard... I don't regrett buying it but it's clearly less then i hoped.
The game has two mainparts... I."The Guild" is the place where you buy upgrades and unlock new classes, if you played a few rougelikes wou wan't find anything new and most thinks are just standard, the only downside are some missing descriptions. Choosing the exploring butting will switch to a map where you can see all Dungeon you know, choosing a Dungeon will open a box with the Quest for that Dungeon, the Questorder is fixed, Dungeon can't be revisited. Startting a Quest will generate the Dungeon. II."The Dungeons" are semi-random, most the time you have same predefinded Tiles and enemys but the Rest of the Dungeon will be created by you. While in the Dungeon everything is turnbased, first you get some Dungeoncards (Tiles, Treasure and Enemys), Tiles are random for most Dungeons, Treasure&Enemys are Semirandom..the longer you stay in the Dungeon the higher the chance for enemys with higher level and better treasure. You can play up ti three cards, then your Hero moves as he! likes, if he attacks somesone the battle is solved via turnbased cardgame, then the enemys move, if your Hero is attacked the battle is solved via the cardgame...rince and repeat until you reached the goal(s). The game has same flaws... 1.Sometimes wou will just sit there and wait 10+ Dungeonturn to get the Tile you need to go on 2.Sometimes it cashes while in the Dungeon=all progress,loot lost..it's rare but it happens 3.Your Heroes will start at Lev. 1 without any equipment, even if they survived the last Dungeon and after the first area(after the orb) you will have a decent difficultyspike because of new and stronger enemies...surviving the first 2-3 fights until you got some equip is a real pain because it depends only on luck during the battle-cardgame...it's just like russian-roulette with at least 3 bullets.
The Description tells you that space run is a RT-Space-Ship-Construction-Strategy game but this is not true...after 7 or 8 mission your ship need quite some micromanagment...boosting engines&shilds, redirecting weapons, repairing,...etc. Just completing a level at express is impossible later on if you don't know what's coming and how you have to place your weapons. So..you start a level..play it, restart it..try to remember what you need and the place the stuff ahead because you will be shoot to pieces if you need to think about a new ship config whils micromanaging 10 weapons, 6 engines, 3 booster,repairing,... With some kind of active pause the game would be that RT Space-Ship-...so...it's memory in Space :)
The Story is quite simple, as are the gamemechanics and the "RPG"-System that are both easy to learn and to master. The battlesfields are small and have nothing special to pay attention at and you only need basic tactics to win. If you play all optional battles you will have around 8-10 hours of gameplay without any reason to replay it because the gameplay, the progress of the story, the availability of army and equipment..even the battles itself are all linear. But for that price is it still ok if you like the artwork. PS: The games states to be book I of ?
Dralel said most what i had in mind...i would only add that the Eventtrees and the RPG-Part are mostly a puzzlegame. There are fixed Events and every Event has most the time at least 2 possible solutions..sucsess and failure for each solution will trigger something..the puzzlepart is..that you have most the time no idead what you need until you played through at least one..so..you will fail the first time(s)...change your schedulepuzzle and try again...and...
Gormp allready wrote about the "good side" of the game and left only the flaws for me ;) 1.Bad Pathfinding, Units get stuck often and you have to order every few steps to avoid it. 2.No Formations 3.Each Unit within a group move with their normal speed instead the speed of the slowest unit Not gamebreaking, but, at least for me, nothing it more annoying then stupid! babysitting, like being forced to split your force into tiny groups, but only of the the same kind, and lead them step by step through every narrow passage, angeled spaces...
