Concept wise this is incredible game, that leaves you wondering, why aren`t there more games in this genre. Gameplay: You are moving as a "figurine" on a global map (with other figurines representing lords, caravans, bandits etc), but whenever you enter a battle (or city\camp\village etc) you start to play from third person\first person perspective. All the action unfolds in the most dynamic way - ride horses, shoot from horseback, or run around as a foot soldier swinging heavy axe or whatever you want to swing, block, dodge etc. There is your typical looting and stat progression. Although skills are mostly "incremental" , like "more hp, more dmg, faster movement, more chance for your soldiers to survive "death" etc. So, don`t expect some sort of flashy combo-mombo strikes etc. Shortly after you start a game you will be able to hire some dudes into your warband, and at one point you gonna lead hundreds of soldiers into battle. When you accumulate enough fame and money and soldiers, you will be able to become mercenary captain for one of the faction, become a vassal, fight for your personal castle\city, eventually becoming a king of your own kingdom with vassals. The main thing, is that world lives regardless of what you do - caravans and villagers travel and trade, robbers rob, lords gather taxes and wage wars. You will not command them in some manual fashion, but depending on your standing you can influence\suggest\order. -- Now, all of this being said, I must warn you, that the original game is rather "samy", grindy and feels a bit too repetitive and lacking in content variety. I am not deducting stars, for one basic reason - there are very popular mods that fix majority of flaws and fix the lack of content. You will not go back to vanilla after playing mods, that is for sure, but since game is very moddable - it is to be expected. So, developers gave people great concept and mechanics and modability - and people polished this game to perfection.
Got this game on sale for several euros, and maan, it was a good deal :D Things to know: - Graphics are cartoonish (like WoW, warcraft 3 etc) , so developers achieved a pretty, stylish looking game that does not tax older computers too much. Game is a bit too flashy for my taste, certain skills do make it a bit hard to see what is going on, but it is manageable for this kind of game, its pace and its difficulty. - Speaking of difficulty - if you ever played arpg and you are familiar with concepts of building resistance, upgrading\socketing gear etc - it is probably a good idea to start on Hard. Normal felt way too easy, while Hard felt just right, especially endgame. By the way, this game features an interesting concept of endless "postgame" dungeon, which you unlock after you beat an official final boss. And yeah, the main story is kind of "basic" - it explains why mobs and location do change, and why you are doing what you doing, but other than that it is very simplistic. cons: - initial keybinds are kind of bad, you`ll have to edit one txt file to set better keybinds. - loot can`t be filtered by types, it is just "all or nothing". - no buyback option, be careful when selling stuff! >:( - no respec without mods or console. Some other random things - - combat and skill set are not particularly deep. There are your typical summons, resistances, shields, heals, knockbacks and dif. types of dmg (like fire, physical etc). No ultra fancy things to create something unforgettable or complex. But it is decent and easy to get into it. - 3 classes, which play differently and employ dif. tactics. - Smooth progression - no hardcore grind is required to beat this game. This being said, game plays very well, it has "juicy impact", physics are quite fun, some quirks of certain skills are easy to get used to, and this game has BIG amount of mods. So, if you don`t like something - check mods.
