Panzer Corps 2 is a turn-based wargame set in World War II. During the campaign, players control the Wehrmacht in various missions, acquiring new units and strengthening existing ones. An interesting aspect are the heroes, essentially officers who can be assigned to different units, providing them with bonuses. The idea is interesting, but as your army grows, managing multiple heroes becomes complicated. The game is solid, although graphically the various maps lack personality; for example, Warsaw is identical to Paris. Regarding the campaigns, as I mentioned before, in the base game you only control Germany, although there are several scenarios dedicated to the other factions. The DLC issue is complicated, given that Germany has a massive campaign dedicated to every year of the conflict (including a hypothetical 1946), while the other nations have DLCs focused on individual operations (like the Battle of the Bulge) that become tiresome over time. Let's say it's a game with a lot of untapped potential, but if the developers put in the effort it can hold its own.
The game is spectacular and offers several tactical options for tackling battles. Let's just say it's excellent on a cinematic level, thanks in part to some memorable characters. Unfortunately, there are some aspects that didn't convince me; starting with the camera controls, which are quite awkward and cumbersome, far from the comfort of, say, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Worse still, the character max level is easily reached, which means a fifth of the game is spent solely on advancing the story and collecting powerful items. As if that weren't enough, the city of Baldur's Gate isn't reached until late in the game (when it would have been nice to explore it earlier), and to get there you'll have to face a very dark, long, and sad section that, while well-crafted, is tiring (basically, a fantasy version of Resident Evil). A good game, but it might not be to everyone's taste, especially since the mandatory turn-based combat (often based on random dice rolls) forces a very slow pace.
Let's start with the positives: the game is fun, and the idea of combining typical RPG mechanics with typical match-3 mechanics would be great. Unfortunately, what ruins everything is the AI, which happily cheats even on the normal difficulty level; enemies not only have a lot of health, but even worse, in just a few moves they can make combos (and deal a lot of damage) that result in incredibly lucky gem combinations, and this happens quite often. If you have a lot of patience, you might have fun; anyone else will be really pissed off.
Simply a welcome return; graphically it looks great, while the interface has aspects that make it better than several modern titles. As for single-player we have four pretty substantial campaigns, and the developers have done a great job especially with Soulstorm, as the unit pathfinding isn't as disastrous as the original. Perhaps they could have been a little more daring, but that would have required reprogramming the entire game from scratch, so that's fine. It's a shame you can't see the trailers for the various expansions (there's only one for the first game), but that's really a minor detail. Do you like Warhammer 40,000? Do you love brutal games where you fight with large, heavily armed armies? Then get this game without regrets, trust me.
Remember the Enhanced Edition of Neverwinter Nights 2? Well, qualitatively, this collection is the exact opposite: plenty of content to play, various options (all of which can be disabled if desired) that enhance the original experience, and overall several tweaks that successfully bring these games into 2025. Graphically, don't expect miracles, but if you love intense first-person shooters where you're constantly battling it out while exploring the various levels (and several are quite intricate), you'll have a lot of fun, especially considering that you can save freely at any time.
Remember the Enhanced Edition of Neverwinter Nights 2? Well, qualitatively, this collection is the exact opposite: plenty of content to play, various options (all of which can be disabled if desired) that enhance the original experience, and overall several tweaks that successfully bring these games into 2025. Graphically, don't expect miracles, but if you love intense first-person shooters where you're constantly battling it out while exploring the various levels (and several are quite intricate), you'll have a lot of fun, especially considering that you can save freely at any time.
In short, the developers for this game did the bare minimum. I'll list a few examples I've already noticed in the prologue. The camera controls have improved slightly, but they remain clunky and uncomfortable at best. Loading times, even on SSDs, are longer than those of more recent games, such as Tainted Grail Fall of Avalon. The graphics are nice but nothing special, and you have to skip five cutscenes to get to the main menu. The companion AI is out of a horror movie; if you attack their own target, they'll immediately attack a different one, while combat turns into stadium brawls, with mages activating their AI and immediately using up all their spells. Another gem is that on both Steam and GoG, the quick save button is the same as the screenshot button, and you can't even change it—really embarrassing. In the end it's neither more nor less than the old Neverwinter Nights 2, I got it for about 20 euros and it already seems excessive to me, draw your own conclusions.
If you love Lovecraft's works and the early twentieth century USA, this game will captivate you, especially the characters and the setting. Unfortunately, some elements did not convince me, such as the fights penalized by a very clumsy camera management; furthermore, the monsters absorb several gunshots, to the point that it is often better to run away rather than fight. Furthermore, several puzzles are not intuitive, to the point that understanding them without using the internet is not easy. In the end we have a good game, but I recommend you buy it discounted.
This dlc doesn't convince me; the British campaign is interesting, while the Italian one takes away the desire to play it, because even if you win the missions the Italians are destined to lose anyway. I really appreciated that the different weather conditions change the battlefield, forcing the player to adopt different strategies.
The dlc allows to test many high level characters builds and the story is really interesting. Unfortunately it seems that the developers have put as little effort as possible in terms of level design, the dungeons are boring and unnecessary complicated, with repetitive fights with enemies which lacking of variety. Worse there are no safe places, therefore the only way to reduce corruption is find some relics. Perhaps least patient players will lower the difficulty to the story mode, because the whole experience reminds the Enigma dungeon; lasts but not least the ending is really disappointed, only two slides with little text. Take it only with an massive discount or with the definitive edition.
