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The Dark Eye Blackguards 2

Grunker

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Yeah, Darth Roxor has been thouroughly vindicated. I don't agree with everything in his preview actually, but Blackguards 2 is a massive failure, and I cannot see any reason to forgive Daedalic for what the game ultimately became.

I thought I expected the worst: a slamdunk, re-used, copy-pasted, short version of Blackguards 1. What I got was even less than that.
 
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SCO

Arcane
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I was like 'if i don't strengthen the army after forbidding chimerism, the nation will be invaded since they depend of chimeras for the army'

headcanon only.
:rage:
 

twincast

Learned
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Well, chimeras actually aren't really much of a thing in canonical Aventuria, to begin with.
 

SCO

Arcane
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
With respect, fuck canon. If indeed adherence for the canon of the P&P prevented any speculation of the future in the game (which i don't believe) then that is by itself worthy of censure. A game ending that teases C&C should have the balls to deliver different epilogues even if later on you have to choose a canonical and boring one or just make the previous game non-canon if it can't be reconciled. Considering that in many of the endings the blackguards npcs die, they don't even have any problem with alternative endings, they just didn't want to bother delivering epilogues.
 

Gulnar

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In my humble opinion, one of the best strategic rpg ever made.

Let's start with the bad.
Technically, it's a bit worse than blackguard 1. It's more prone to bugs (Great Petrifier fight is the biggest culprit, until patched, but there are other, like the things that happen if you kill ALL the enemies before the supposed enemy reinforcement arrives - causing you to wing the game, while there are still enemies spawned) and to translation errors (in italian, 'chest' mean both chestpiece ("Torace") and chest container ("Forziere"); as such, in blackguard 2, all characters wear chest containers on their chests. Because they're fucking badass).
It's also more artificially difficult than the first one. Some fights are absolutely atrocious unless you know what's coming, like the Adamant fight, where you're supposed to run in 6 different places of the arena while a sand golem pelts you with sand, swallows your party members, or knocks them down, and a wizard cast multiple crowd control spells, or the 30 quartz pieces fight, where you have to fight against regenerating and respawning lizards while breaking crystals.
The last 'bad' thing is the ending. Don't misunderstand me, it's not THAT bad. For example, it's not blackguard 1 bad. Mainly, the things that lacks are the ending slides. There could have been some slides, especially for various characters.

Now, for the neutral.
The combat system has been overhauled. It's better on one side since you can't spam anymore triple shot and kill everything. On the other hand, now the frost spell lvl 4, when applied four-five times in a row - which isn't exactly hard since spells now can't fail, and you may have up to two mages - clears 90% of the game fights.

And the good.
The characters are excellent! Zuraban and Faramund in particular, but the other too. We can even peer in the motives that pushes every single of the gladiators - for example, why is Naurim obsessed with fire, or why Zuraban is such a womanizer. And i'm not talking just about the main npc; the other guys that you encounter are very fleshed out, from the barely sane insect-breeder to the arrogant golem creator to the antagonist. They're even beliveable, which isn't very easy, since the majority of them is a bunch of insane psychopaths. And Cassia. I have no words for how good Cassia sounds. How... insane, and at the same time focused, unsure, and so on.
The fights. While i said before that some fights are incredibly difficult, they're also incredibly rewarding when you finally get them down. Adamant fight, for example. Or the Great Petrifier fight.
The atmosphere. It's like it's a mix between games of thrones - with Cassia as a Daenerys expy - and early Berserk volumes. It's very good, very grim (even tho sometimes it's unnecessarily so, and gets a bit derpy). It's what i always wanted from such an rpg. I mean, who cares about saving the world and then dying because you have to self sacrifice to stop the great demon of shit-puking. If i had to die, i would go in a blaze, on the top of a mountain of corpses, while king of the world.

tl;dr:
Some bugs, difficult fights, changed what was op, good characters, good fights, good atmosphere. Imho, one of the best srpg.
 

Grunker

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While i said before that some fights are incredibly difficult, they're also incredibly rewarding when you finally get them down. Adamant fight, for example.

In my humble opinion, the fight with Adamant might just be the worst fight of any RPG I've ever played.

Its main competitors for the title are other crystal fights in Blackguards 2.
 

Gulnar

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It is aggravating, i agree, but when you actually finish it, you know you did a great fight.

Orrrr you could just triple shot + haste him. It kills him in a single turn. But it doesn't feel that rewarding.
 

Grunker

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It is aggravating, i agree, but when you actually finish it, you know you did a great fight.

Close. More like you ask yourself "God oh God what I am doing with my life dear mom in heaven I never meant to end up like this"
 

Mortmal

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It is aggravating, i agree, but when you actually finish it, you know you did a great fight.

Orrrr you could just triple shot + haste him. It kills him in a single turn. But it doesn't feel that rewarding.

Hmm no, my feeling was more like thanks god the chore is over . Then you get only easy rince and repeat kind of fights without much savor till the next near impossible encounter relying mostly on luck.
 

SCO

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
adamant fight was easy as fuck what are you smoking.

Are you aware that the rain of arrows skill oneshots all 7 tiles monsters because all the arrows hit (incidentally, probably the reason the great petrifier is only one tile). And it even goes over obstacles like walls.
 
Possibly Retarded The Real Fanboy
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What a crappy game, i think Blackguards 1 was let down and i had hope that next game from that studio will be better, but now BlckG 2 are released with even more crap -
its most souless crpg ive encountered in last 25 years.
It's boring. boring and boring [in turns] and without any style, just like german cars, at least they are solid and have some variety among them.
Better spend money on supporting Underrail or Age of Decadence, of course if You already have played Inquisition [sorry couldn't resist to please Infinitron and his buddies once more :happytrollboy: ].

Ps. Want fine turn combat in modern crpg? Go get D:OS - or buy yourself a beer, etc. everything is better than buying Blackguards 2.
 
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Gord

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Are you aware that the rain of arrows skill oneshots all 7 tiles monsters because all the arrows hit

Was same in BG1.

No, in BG1 they could miss. Not sure right now if they would either all miss or all hit within the AoE, might depend on whether there's one or multiple enemies affected.

What a crappy game, i think Blackguards 1 was let down

Makes you wonder why you even bothered with BG2 in the first place.

Hurray for informed customers...
 

Gulnar

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Are you aware that the rain of arrows skill oneshots all 7 tiles monsters because all the arrows hit

Was same in BG1.

No, in BG1 they could miss. Not sure right now if they would either all miss or all hit within the AoE, might depend on whether there's one or multiple enemies affected.

In bg2 it can miss too. Saw multiple times those insectoid archers miss my archers with rain of arrows.
 

SCO

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
There's a funny thing about that, if you select a 7 tile monster out of center, it will show multiple, sometimes different chances to hit, but if you select the center it will only show one. I'm not sure if the obvious inference that center shot == one to hit roll.
 

SausageInYourFace

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Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
12$? it was at 45€ up until now in Europe which is the main reason I didn't buy it yet (of course there were probably some sales that I missed)
 

xrm1

Educated
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Jun 8, 2006
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Apparently the German retail version of BG2 launched at like 20 euro and is now down to 12. I would have been tempted to get it on Steam or GOG for that price but I'm not buying games on DVD in 2015, fuck these luddites and their cheap 'DRM free' physical copies.
 

Gord

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Indeed, it was even possible to find the retail/DVD version on Amazon.de for 15€ at launch.
Assuming the seller was legit (it seemed to be some shop), there's no reason for germans to pay the fantasy prices on Steam/GOG.
 

Darth Roxor

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The sales must be terrible considering how many of these vids they are putting out.
 

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