It shows its age. The textures are muddy when seen close up. There's some clipping. Cutscenes don't look so good. The writing is R.A. Salvatore at his cliche'd worst, telegraphing hackneyed lines left and right. That being said, this game is a lot of fun. Once you've figured out the controller (keyboard and mouse looks like it's murder), you're in for a treat in a series of action-packed and dynamic set-pieces across Faerûn. The soundtrack is powerful and pulse-pounding, and the levels mix things up often enough so that it never becomes repetitive. All in all, a sum of competent parts with some scuff marks and creaky parts, which will keep you entertained for a hardcore evening or a couple of days.
They really did. The developers wanted to make this worth your while. They let you customize your start screen, give you handy tips during the game, multiple endings, a blooper reel, and even have some in-game achievements and a shiny certificate for when you finish the adventure. The third and final Secret Files iteration does have heart, but that can only take you so far if it writes checks your ability (or budget) can't cash out. For starters, the plot is needlessly convoluted. The pacing is all over the place... which is where you literally go to in absolutely scattershot and haphazard fashion. You even control the baddie in a single area to solve a puzzle, and then promptly resume business as usual. Individual scenes add up to a whole that is exclusively the sum of its parts, like a checklist of thrown-against-the-wall ideas, throwaway and undeveloped characters and events going through the motions until a very abrupt and unsatisfying non-ending told by way of an unfunny "where are they now?" skit. Speaking of the ending, it really bespeaks budget issues, as do zooming and fade to blacks with sound effects and voices telling you what is happening to spare on animations. Which is kind of strange, as its prequels were successful enough, from what I remember. Maybe they got carried away in some of the superfluous more bombastic cutscenes and special effects... or perhaps it was the composer (who, to his credit, made the best OST of the series, with a few standout tracks that stick in your ear). It's also way too easy. Most of the times you can navigate only a limited amount of locations at a time, with objects lying conveniently close by for linear solutions. At most, you'll be challenged by a couple of pattern-finding puzzles. All in all, this one went out with a whimper. It's a sale purchase at best, and only if you're out of point and click adventures and happen to be craving one.
First, the cons: - Although the story is ok, the campaigns are somewhat underwhelming, not that much fun and exceedingly easy; little more than a game of aggroing solitary enemies with your ranged units, really. Why not just make a proper battle setup on missions, instead of a series of unchallenging encounters with stray enemies? - The models look fine on the battlefield, but are too rough-looking to be used in cutscenes, and probably looked like it in 2014 as well. - The soundtrack is one of the worst cases of absolutely phoning it in, with Jeremy Soule on autopilot in an utterly uninspired brass and drums dross. Everybody knows how much better he can do, which just makes this OST sound even worse. - Pathfinding can be a little iffy, especially during sieges. And now the pros: - Skirmish mode is awesome and addictive, even just against the AI. Hours and hours of fun to be had building and customizing your armies and pitting them against enemies, much like your little virtual Warhammer figurine collection. - Much like the sound effects, the voice acting is excellent. The Empire campaign even boasts Earl "LeChuck" Boen. - The units' non-magical special abilities are really cool. Even if they didn't have a practical effect, it just feels 'realistic' when they're used. - While not as sleek and polished as its more recent Total War counterpart, the game is a terrific plunge into the chaotic maelstrom of a proper Warhammer battlefield, and the heroes aren't overpowered.
Bound by Flame is one of those games that reminds you of a football team that sets out to win the Champions League, but only manages to win their national championship and a cup or two. It's ambitious, but falls well short of all the buildup and setup of its atmospheric and well-written world. The type of RPG you'll play when you feel more like a quick bite rather than a headfirst dive into a time-consuming 100+ hours fantasy world. Which isn't to say that it doesn't do many things well. Combat is unforgiving and dynamic, but you'll get the hang of it and it becomes satisfying as your (generous from the outset) amount of options become more viable and powerful. Sound effects are good, even if sometimes amateurishly lacking during cutscenes. The music doesn't always fit the mood and is, in a word, dissonant, which is best represented by its main theme, a brassy, chanting call to adventure that is overtaken by what seems to be a female-voiced random JRPG bonus track. Graphics are very much 2014, but nicely detailed and with a very idiosyncratic aesthetic that gives the world an identity all of its own. Speaking of the world, it's fairly run-of-the-mill fantasy fare, but mature and with a somewhat arch and oh-so-French sensibility (the bit about an elf talking of dragons and dwarves in mocking fashion as the stuff of fairytales was a slow burner that made me chuckle for a good half an hour, for example). Your companions are well fleshed out, even if their questlines feel abbreviated and the relationships you can develop are somewhat less than compelling, but all of them do a good job of embodying their world through their unique perspectives and leave you wanting more, like characters of a short story that ended a little too early. All in all, Bound by Flame doesn't really bring anything new to the table or use any unheard-of ingredients, but the dish it cooks up is no less tasty for it. Très bien!
Aarklash is a very straightforward game of tactical battle after tactical battle interspersed with some badly voiced exposition and some fairly easy puzzles to give you a breather between all those combat encounters. I do like the setting, the glimpses of lore it gives you are interesting, and it has the bold, stylized aesthetic that was one of the main strengths of the miniatures game it's based on. But the characters have precious little to say, what they do say is generally quite poorly voiced, and the plot is abruptly cut in a non-ending that, with less time constraints and more budget, could conceivably have come across as an ominous bookend to the story. In the end, fairly entertaining, and its pros manage to edge out its cons, so all in all a positive, if largely forgettable experience.
