I tried multiple times to like this game, but in the end the encounters all play out in the same frustrating way for me: Miss a bunch of high percentage strikes while the opponent keeps hitting his low chance strikes and ends important characters (which is basically anyone of your party in the early to mid game). Sure there are certain ways to mitigate those outcomes and some tested strategies. But it is one of those games where you don't get far if you refuse to read up some gid-gud guides beforehand. In a game with the premise of adventure and exploration, having to read a guide before engaging every new enemy is just a nogo. Without any kind of comeback mechanic or permanent gain from lost runs (as some rogue-likes offer it these days) and quite a high time investment per run, there is no fun in learning by failing. Only frustration. Everything snowballs pretty fast since there are barely any low-level or non combative tasks, and while you try to get back up after a defeat (or even a costly win), the world around you evolves and spawns harder enemies and events. Save-scumming is also highy encouraged since the same battle can go many different ways depending on rng (the fights themselves, but also the battle map's general layout, weather conditions and enemy composition and gear). The art is great and as a medieval enthusiast I especially love the attention to detail given to the armor and weapon types. Equipping your brothers is a joy and finding good loot feels rewarding. The party system overall feels great and offers a lot of role-playing potential. Or it would, if min-maxing the shit out of every brother and naming them something like "2H Heavy Armor Dude #3" wouldn't be the meta. The "overworld" map is travelled in real-time (mount and blade style). You watch your party hover from city-node to city-node and sometimes adjust the path to do scouting or engage a group or dungeon location. Not much strategy to be found here and quite a boring affair tbh.
WARNING :Please don't buy this total scam. I once played a quite early version of the Brythenwalda mod for Mount and Blade Warband and since they put the mod-teams name on this product, I expected this to be a version of the mod, improved by the teamwork of a mod team and the original developer. You can't be more wrong. This product is just made to rip some money out of us stupid fans of the M&B series. They milk me like a cow, and for that I more and more hate this scum. Dare them fucking up M&B 2. The game is totally broken and unplayable. I could list all the bugs and technical issues, but others already did that and the steam reviews are a good source too. If you want to play Mount and Blade in that area and time-period, get the newest version of the original Brytenwalda mod (e.g. the "refined" edition avaliable on the steam workshop for Warband) and have a shitload of fun with it. Nearly every aspect of this product is found in the Mod but less buggy, plus some features not even touched by the product. Further it's a mod for Warband, so you can add more smaller warband mods with little afford. Many of you guys accept the flaws of this game. Most of the time because of ignorance (you don't know the mod or the original M&B and don't bother to research) and a lack of feeling for the relation between price and quality of a game. ALL of the features in this game which are not buggy, are features from the M&B core game. Even the new ones (like Naval-Battles) are included in some mods and work without bugs. Therefore you buy the same bunch of data again. Thats okay if there is a iteration of that core mechanic or (more likely for a DLC) a spezialisation in a specific direction. If the base-product is developed as open for modders as M&B is, DLCs and new official versions HAVE to deliver something the mods lack. This could be new features, items, etc. and it HAVE TO BE production quality ! So don't tell me I'm whiny. You're just too ignorant to get it.
