In Dragonfall there were lots less spellcaster enemies so you might not notice, but in HK there are tons more so more likely would find cover does nothing for players. It blocks flank/critical shots for enemies but not players, and this include the ki protective spells. You'll miss more 99% than you miss 95% hits in battle brothers. It revamps tabletop rules so it feels like enemies get free Edge on them so they do better. With console command you can start with maximum agi elf character and first tutorial fight mobs would still hit him 1/3 of times. It also changes morale system of tabletop, where enemies flee dependent on their rank. Here enemies are all fearless rookies, fearless street s__m, etc.
It gives a major puzzle but end abruptly half way. Also got quest that leads to infinite human enemies to force bad end route....
Now base ck2 is free and is a solid game on its own, if you're interested in the game you may play that first to test the water (although lots of rules are different due to lack of DLCS). Most DLCs contents are in the other edition, this one gets some bonus that aren't quite fitting. This edition gets multiple out of place song. Viking would be singing in modern English about Viking God and random pop songs that make 0 sense in a medieval world would be used, I had to disable these. For the game, it's made to be played as independent. While playing as a vassal, eventually you'll rise up and hit the ceiling where either others vote you to be a king/emperor somewhere. Even if you decide no longer want to be a king and want to abdicate to play a duke/count, it would require tons of works. Your liege do not proselytize "their land" so 25 uprising with 6k troops pop up every month that break the country, anti player aggression so NPC give up their whole war just to chase you who only raids 1 county 5000km away. None friendly NPCs also seem to get a higher resistance against incidents, so you don't see as many as maimed/incapable liege that have their head hit in a war. Your dynasty die every frequently if you choose to recruit them to the warrior lodge. The duel system also have 200+ personal combat constantly losing to -20 so your character gets hit then die/cripple in meanless way. The balance has also become very poor in late updates where crusade would win most of the time. You may as well attack 2 to 3 minor tribal county that join the war and will win the top prize. Lots of viking like Halfdan Ragnarsson/ Ubbe also may get mass converted before even giving a fight, which makes Alfred the great doesn't feel that great. Designating heir like William the Conqueror did in history is impossible in the game. Overall just play the free edition first.
Bought this on steam but refunded it. Despite there is a region based level choices in opinion, the game still has level scaled guards which roam around the road very frequently and would appear in deserted places just to hunt players. Also a quest is involved in defeating npc guards without loss of a very active but weak npc. The combat itself is ok but you'll constantly need to pay for repairing gears unless you get bears as tanks, but once you get those bears the game feels dull... Pro: graphics, camp random interactions, fighting animations Con: level scaling, game balance, game "gimping" (such as when you go to a city, robbers only attack you, not the caravans; in the same city, guards only went after you if you're wanted, but would ignore npc robbers), The game has very stingy reward, such as when you do a "major quest," which can be varied to save a kingdom, you get like 300 gold that can buy 5 days of food for a group of ten, probably less. You're a legendary mercenary group but nobody really bothers giving you a position(like mount and blade) or give you a contract, just go kill fetch quests as the regional stories (usually 5 in total) in general. It'd make you wonder why people want to be a mercenary rather than a farmer. Also some stats like castle population don't seem to have any effects ingame.
The gameplay is fun if you like D&D 3e, however the balance may be a bit off. The exp is about 1/10~1/100 of tabletop, then divides again by 15 spread among your followers. The biggest problem is it still has lots of bugs. One npc can get locked in cage without leaving and get infinite items, pet sometimes runs backward, NPC become T pose once you finish a certain mythic quest, etc,. While some enemies are overpowered having a challenge rating over epic level, some enemies get odd stats like undead bear have 10 hp despite being level 10?? Also the game throws 2 level 20 enemies at you when you're around lv.9, you can drop one of the enemy to 1 hp but it would just keeps fighting for like 3 rounds without giving you extra exp, stingy :/ There are lots of paths and even now many walkthroughs are still missing things, it's still fun to play blind.
The game is infested with info dump like POE1. Compared to previous games Obsidian made (New vegas, Arcanum, fallout, TOEE, etc.), most key words and made up terms are kept minimal to less than 3 in the introductory. This game? You get like 7 countries, 5 occupations, 6 factions all in character creation before the game even starts! There are more made up terms coming along once in the game. The difficulty is also quite absurd, either you micro manage the real time combat or have the AI break your party. The AI won't be able to pass 19/20 encounters just in chapter 1. Played lots of strategy games and this one is the worst I've ever seen. You're a character of importance have little to no wealth, you've to search through containers like homeless. The giant invincibile army is in a stall therefore your level 1 fatebinder (the game has multiple ___binders so I cannot remember no more, could be oathbinder or peacebinder) is supposed to help them. Horrendous.
Game is good, story is good, but lots of "Overtranslation" and "Undertranslation" are done to normal dialogue. For example, don't overexert yourself may be translated to don't make troubles. "You bastard" may be translated to "You *swear word" bastard *swear word" *swear word." and there are lots of examples I cannot quite all remember. It seems a common problem with Japanese translation nowadays. Not it affects the story but the mood setup is quite different. Still a good game though.
Bought it since the beta when the first island was the only place you could explore, and that was the only good thing about the game. Technically you still get new monsters in mid and later games, but player skills are the same. Most skills you can learn would all be done in chapter 1, later the game would simply morph into power gaming with the same skills. Every time you see an enemy which is 2 level higher than you, you'd know there is super stats inflation so better leave it for now, go and find gears that are level scaled to your current til the next level. Even when you don't start the game with a map changing hit, enemies will, which makes it very repetitive once you notice this. Last but not least, most choices you did do not matter in the game. You can kill a plot character in chapter 1 and once you get to chapter 2 it revives again without remember your deed. In fact if you're going to the next area, may as well kill everyone in last camp for the puny exp and their loots since they do not have any after effect at all. Gothic 2 was more RPG than this modern highly praised work. Only good thing about it is good graphics.
The game is basically a Yumina the Ethernal in dark fantasy setting. If you’ve experience with the game before Darkest Dungeon was released, you’d notice both the games share the front row back row different skills, have four characters, all have four skills, and are dungeon crawlers that use random dungeons. DD doesn’t have interruption skills nor immediate (de)buffs however, and is not story based. In Darkest Dungeon you’re likely to lose characters, even the best players would still lose a few due to the way the game is set up, certain characters are no longer useable after certain stages. Often you’ll try to push the game progress in a very random rolled game by sacrificing a few characters. It’s not a bad mix, except the game balance is not very well. Enemies like leather armor bandits start out with prot 15, while all players’ characters whether wearing robe, or plate armor, it doesn’t matter, everyone starts with 0. Enemies are going to get to protection 80 around level 3 dungeons, which means either you have the dlc (which has a character that can ignore defense), or use dot damages that will last for a long time. There are a few skills that decrease enemy protection but not enough to make the 80 to a reasonable number. The balance is pretty horrid, and it gets worse at level 5 dungeons and endgame dungeon. Most settlements require to grind resources to build so you can use certain feature like heroes of might and magic/ disciples, but resource is very low so you’ll need to grind lots. Enemies are also going to have cheat rolls. It’s easy to set up a character that has critical chance 30%~50% that has attack all enemies or heal players, then you’ll notice the character actually performs less criticals than enemies. The game also forbids high level characters going to lower level dungeons, so you cannot grind then try it later. Lots of bosses are going to be reused so just experience level 1 and 3 dungeons then call it a quit wouldn’t be bad idea.
The game has a random generated world like mount and blade, leading a troop makes it promising so bought it for the play. I was wrong. Quests get very repetitive fast. The hunt down settlement, track thing, guard caravan and send items. It's ok since sandbox like Mount and Blade or Darklands also have these type of quests, however unlike them these quests are level scaled. In Skyrim if you check the level, npc are level 19 when you're 19, once you level up the Dreugar level up with you. It's the same with BB. You fought leather bandits at low level, and once higher level bandits automatically get better armor, just like Oblivion bandits all wearing ebony armor. The number of enemy bands also increase with you, what's the point of leveling up and getting better? Except enemies are going to be 20 or 30 when you only get 12 or 13 on field. Occasionally over levelled enemies are thrown at players, but never lower. Enemies also have infinite arrows so "doesn't break ai" while "remaining fair"... even games like New Vegas had ammos and an ai for running out of arrow.. Only made for die hard level scale lovers and masochists. Good ideas everywhere, but not a good game.
