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The Dark Eye Blackguards - turn-based tactical RPG set in The Dark Eye world
- Thread starter Kem0sabe
- Start date
I just finished the game, Blackguards, and really liked it, which is especially surprising since I had just dropped Drakensang: The Dark Eye after I found the latter boring. This is especially timely since Bubbles just completed his excellent review of the new Blackguards sequel: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/rpg-codex-review-blackguards-2.97567/
I decided to throw some money at the game and give it a go anyway, after reading felipepe's and Darth Roxor's positive review of it: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9378
Some random thoughts:
+ I was worried that the game would be very difficult to learn, since I remember folks complaining about how difficult it was to figure out character builds. This definitely wasn't the case for me, however. In fact, I thought the learning curve wasn't as steep as it was in Drakensang: The Dark Eye. I had more trouble figuring out Drakensang even while using the manual then I did Blackguards, whose manual I never bothered with.
+ This game granted me a basic understanding of the German Dark Eye tabletop RPG system. It seems to have borrowed some ideas from GURPS when it comes to active and passive defenses, and I think that probably jarred some players familiar only with D&D systems.
+ Daedelic had some cutscenes, but nothing stunning like you would have seen in an RPG from a AAA publisher. Also, the traveling system was quite simplistic, getting rid of having the party actually move in real time from location to location. Instead, we just got a simple point and click interface when it came to traveling from a town or dungeon location. Further, inside the town's we were given the same sort of simple interface where you could click on a person on the screen and initiate conversation. All people important to a village or town were usually found on a single static screen. So visually it sounds boring, but I'm still giving it a plus. This game is purely a turn-based tactical RPG with little exploration, and so it was smart of the company to focus on the combat side and almost completely drop the greater world exploration. This is a game that shows the designers new what they were doing and had the guts to impliment something different from its own peers and predecessors.
+ The story has a dark tone that is consistent throughout the game. I was still able to make decisions that made my little group of rejects fall more on the heroic side, but they were not able to save everyone in the game. And in the end, their heroism saved lives but failed to make their region of the world into a great utopia. It was a gritty world that stayed gritty and edgier than most, while avoiding becoming a parody of itself. This was not a mind blowing tale, but it was at least consistent.
+ The game doesn't hold your hand. I have no idea whether some of the decisions I made in the game were the right ones or not. There seemed to be obvious good/bad choices to make with implications of consequences, but the game didn't bother with anything like a paragon/renegade statistic. I really liked that. I also liked the fact that some 'good' decisions weren't as profitable as the 'evil' decisions. You could profit more in some ways by being an immoral arse, but I still tried to do right just because that's how I roleplay.
+ I never seemed to have enough money, but my archer was expensive with his multi-shot attacks. Maybe if I didn't play an archer this would have been different, but then I probably would have spent my money on more poison for my melee attackers to coat their weapons. The economy holds up throughout.
+ The game also didn't hold my hand when improving my characters. I played an archer and was glad that I did because he was awesome towards the end of the game. However, I think I screwed up my mage characters by spending their skill points on spells that weren't really as awesome as I thought they would be in the last portions of the game. Still, I soldiered on and won, but magic-users will never get enough experience points to max out all spells so you have to be smart in what you spend points on. I don't think I could appreciate this enough unless I decided to play this all over again.
+ I think I played this game for close to 60 hours. My Steam account says 24, but that's only because I logged onto Steam much less than I played offline. This is the first modern CRPG that I've played that I sunk close to 60 hours into and didn't get bored and quit for awhile.
+ I found the combat encounters in Drakensang to be boring with little variation. Blackguards makes the same type of recycled combat encounters interesting with time limits, regenerating enemies, useable traps in the combat environments, environment effects that make movement have a larger tactical importance, civilians needing saving and so on. The game really mixes it up, and I imagine there was much time and effort put here.
- Ok, some encounters are infuriating. Sometimes in the game there were respawning enemies mixed with hidden traps on tiles and time limits. When it came to a mix like that I really wanted to tell the game to go screw itself. It's hard to tell what you are supposed to do in some encounters, such as times that the objective is to wipe out all enemies in a single turn before respawning puts more onto the screen, but the game doesn't bother to tell you that, leaving you to learn through trial and error.
- As much as I enjoyed the grittier world, I never understood the villian's plan even though he spends a lot of exposition explaining it. I don't want to get into spoilers here, but it seems obvious to me and everyone else in the game that the big bad guy's plan amounts to: I don't like the evil in the world', so I am going to replace it the system with more of the same kind of evil I don't like. :derp:
- Same with some of the motivations of the NPCs. I liked the world, and I liked the personalities and quirks of the characters in my party, but I never understood why some of my party members stuck around with me after the end of Chapter 3. In hindsight, you could probably say that about a lot of RPGs when you really think about it, but still it should be addressed.
- Also, at the end game you need to solve some puzzles in order to either support or oppose the ethics of the god's in the game world, but those puzzles take place on a combat screen even if the ethics of the god in question do not translate well into combat. I think the game may have been better served if they had dropped the combat portions of this altogether and just went with a series of dialogue choices with difficult moral quandries.
All in all, this game surprised me. It didn't review well and I was expecting a mediocre slog in the way of Drakensang, but man was I so glad to be wrong. I'm a big fan of turn-based tactical combat, so this hit a lot of the right buttons for me.
Anyway, here are some spoiler-ish pieces of advice since I am posting as a discussion of the game and not really a review:
- I played an archer with maxed points in both bows and crossbows. This was a mistake. Although crossbows do more damage, bows are way more powerful once you find a trainer who teaches triple shot. Archers can be awesome in certain encounters where the melee fighters have a hard time closing with the enemy or with far off spellcasters.
- A great tactic against armored enemies involves knocking down an enemy and having an archer or second melee character do their best attacks against the prone body. Their best attacks suddenly go from having a slim chance of success to a 100% chance. I've wiped out a ton of difficult enemies this way, though the knock down attacks and spells seem to be nearly useless on giant opponents.
- I also spent a lot of points in several damaging spells. Later, magic resistance lowers the effectiveness of such magic. I found it better to focus on spells that buff the party, or that heal and take away status effects. Since you are limited by AP in what spells you can purchase, you really want to map out the spells you will purchase and raise to desired skill levels early on.
- Melee characters really max out by chapter 4. I struggled trying to spend the right AP on mages even towards the end game. For melee characters, I was throwing AP around just to throw it at something. I think weapon mastery was created just so you had an excuse to offload a bunch of AP, even though they were into the skill levels of weapons you would never use. Still, I found a shield to be important for the extra defense points for one fighter who often played the role of meat shield, and that a spear was critical to the other so he could attack over meat shield's head. Spears are awesome, as they have greater range.
- You need to sometimes revisit old locations and talk to everybody. This is important in order to find masters who can teach traits. Sometimes trainers can only be found after completing side quests, and I am glad I am a crazy completionist, because my characters had leaps in effectiveness once they found certain trainers. Case in point, my archer with one elf and the triple shot trait, and my mages with another elf who taught them to regenerate magic points faster.
- I went with two straight melee characters, one straight archer, and two straight magic-users by the end game. In hindsight I don't think I did this right. My second mage was good at healing and had an awesome spell that knocked enemies down, but she never had the opportunity to be built up as well as my first mage who was with me the entire game, and sometimes I wasted a turn with her. In retrospect, I think she might have made a better archer/mage hybrid. If I was to play again, I might have played as a straight mage and turned her into an archer with slight healing spells.
I decided to throw some money at the game and give it a go anyway, after reading felipepe's and Darth Roxor's positive review of it: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=9378
Some random thoughts:
+ I was worried that the game would be very difficult to learn, since I remember folks complaining about how difficult it was to figure out character builds. This definitely wasn't the case for me, however. In fact, I thought the learning curve wasn't as steep as it was in Drakensang: The Dark Eye. I had more trouble figuring out Drakensang even while using the manual then I did Blackguards, whose manual I never bothered with.
+ This game granted me a basic understanding of the German Dark Eye tabletop RPG system. It seems to have borrowed some ideas from GURPS when it comes to active and passive defenses, and I think that probably jarred some players familiar only with D&D systems.
+ Daedelic had some cutscenes, but nothing stunning like you would have seen in an RPG from a AAA publisher. Also, the traveling system was quite simplistic, getting rid of having the party actually move in real time from location to location. Instead, we just got a simple point and click interface when it came to traveling from a town or dungeon location. Further, inside the town's we were given the same sort of simple interface where you could click on a person on the screen and initiate conversation. All people important to a village or town were usually found on a single static screen. So visually it sounds boring, but I'm still giving it a plus. This game is purely a turn-based tactical RPG with little exploration, and so it was smart of the company to focus on the combat side and almost completely drop the greater world exploration. This is a game that shows the designers new what they were doing and had the guts to impliment something different from its own peers and predecessors.
+ The story has a dark tone that is consistent throughout the game. I was still able to make decisions that made my little group of rejects fall more on the heroic side, but they were not able to save everyone in the game. And in the end, their heroism saved lives but failed to make their region of the world into a great utopia. It was a gritty world that stayed gritty and edgier than most, while avoiding becoming a parody of itself. This was not a mind blowing tale, but it was at least consistent.
+ The game doesn't hold your hand. I have no idea whether some of the decisions I made in the game were the right ones or not. There seemed to be obvious good/bad choices to make with implications of consequences, but the game didn't bother with anything like a paragon/renegade statistic. I really liked that. I also liked the fact that some 'good' decisions weren't as profitable as the 'evil' decisions. You could profit more in some ways by being an immoral arse, but I still tried to do right just because that's how I roleplay.
+ I never seemed to have enough money, but my archer was expensive with his multi-shot attacks. Maybe if I didn't play an archer this would have been different, but then I probably would have spent my money on more poison for my melee attackers to coat their weapons. The economy holds up throughout.
+ The game also didn't hold my hand when improving my characters. I played an archer and was glad that I did because he was awesome towards the end of the game. However, I think I screwed up my mage characters by spending their skill points on spells that weren't really as awesome as I thought they would be in the last portions of the game. Still, I soldiered on and won, but magic-users will never get enough experience points to max out all spells so you have to be smart in what you spend points on. I don't think I could appreciate this enough unless I decided to play this all over again.
+ I think I played this game for close to 60 hours. My Steam account says 24, but that's only because I logged onto Steam much less than I played offline. This is the first modern CRPG that I've played that I sunk close to 60 hours into and didn't get bored and quit for awhile.
+ I found the combat encounters in Drakensang to be boring with little variation. Blackguards makes the same type of recycled combat encounters interesting with time limits, regenerating enemies, useable traps in the combat environments, environment effects that make movement have a larger tactical importance, civilians needing saving and so on. The game really mixes it up, and I imagine there was much time and effort put here.
- Ok, some encounters are infuriating. Sometimes in the game there were respawning enemies mixed with hidden traps on tiles and time limits. When it came to a mix like that I really wanted to tell the game to go screw itself. It's hard to tell what you are supposed to do in some encounters, such as times that the objective is to wipe out all enemies in a single turn before respawning puts more onto the screen, but the game doesn't bother to tell you that, leaving you to learn through trial and error.
- As much as I enjoyed the grittier world, I never understood the villian's plan even though he spends a lot of exposition explaining it. I don't want to get into spoilers here, but it seems obvious to me and everyone else in the game that the big bad guy's plan amounts to: I don't like the evil in the world', so I am going to replace it the system with more of the same kind of evil I don't like. :derp:
- Same with some of the motivations of the NPCs. I liked the world, and I liked the personalities and quirks of the characters in my party, but I never understood why some of my party members stuck around with me after the end of Chapter 3. In hindsight, you could probably say that about a lot of RPGs when you really think about it, but still it should be addressed.
- Also, at the end game you need to solve some puzzles in order to either support or oppose the ethics of the god's in the game world, but those puzzles take place on a combat screen even if the ethics of the god in question do not translate well into combat. I think the game may have been better served if they had dropped the combat portions of this altogether and just went with a series of dialogue choices with difficult moral quandries.
All in all, this game surprised me. It didn't review well and I was expecting a mediocre slog in the way of Drakensang, but man was I so glad to be wrong. I'm a big fan of turn-based tactical combat, so this hit a lot of the right buttons for me.
Anyway, here are some spoiler-ish pieces of advice since I am posting as a discussion of the game and not really a review:
- I played an archer with maxed points in both bows and crossbows. This was a mistake. Although crossbows do more damage, bows are way more powerful once you find a trainer who teaches triple shot. Archers can be awesome in certain encounters where the melee fighters have a hard time closing with the enemy or with far off spellcasters.
- A great tactic against armored enemies involves knocking down an enemy and having an archer or second melee character do their best attacks against the prone body. Their best attacks suddenly go from having a slim chance of success to a 100% chance. I've wiped out a ton of difficult enemies this way, though the knock down attacks and spells seem to be nearly useless on giant opponents.
- I also spent a lot of points in several damaging spells. Later, magic resistance lowers the effectiveness of such magic. I found it better to focus on spells that buff the party, or that heal and take away status effects. Since you are limited by AP in what spells you can purchase, you really want to map out the spells you will purchase and raise to desired skill levels early on.
- Melee characters really max out by chapter 4. I struggled trying to spend the right AP on mages even towards the end game. For melee characters, I was throwing AP around just to throw it at something. I think weapon mastery was created just so you had an excuse to offload a bunch of AP, even though they were into the skill levels of weapons you would never use. Still, I found a shield to be important for the extra defense points for one fighter who often played the role of meat shield, and that a spear was critical to the other so he could attack over meat shield's head. Spears are awesome, as they have greater range.
- You need to sometimes revisit old locations and talk to everybody. This is important in order to find masters who can teach traits. Sometimes trainers can only be found after completing side quests, and I am glad I am a crazy completionist, because my characters had leaps in effectiveness once they found certain trainers. Case in point, my archer with one elf and the triple shot trait, and my mages with another elf who taught them to regenerate magic points faster.
- I went with two straight melee characters, one straight archer, and two straight magic-users by the end game. In hindsight I don't think I did this right. My second mage was good at healing and had an awesome spell that knocked enemies down, but she never had the opportunity to be built up as well as my first mage who was with me the entire game, and sometimes I wasted a turn with her. In retrospect, I think she might have made a better archer/mage hybrid. If I was to play again, I might have played as a straight mage and turned her into an archer with slight healing spells.
Last edited:
- Joined
- May 13, 2009
- Messages
- 27,239
INB4 this gets moved to General RPG Discussion.
While I do own this game (got it in a bundle) I gave it a short try - and quickly uninstalled it, as the controls are hostile to anyone who doesn't use WASD, and I couldn't find a way to redefine them. So to me, the game fails before it's even out the door. I may have missed something somewhere, but then again any options we're given to redefine controls should NOT be hard to find.
While I do own this game (got it in a bundle) I gave it a short try - and quickly uninstalled it, as the controls are hostile to anyone who doesn't use WASD, and I couldn't find a way to redefine them. So to me, the game fails before it's even out the door. I may have missed something somewhere, but then again any options we're given to redefine controls should NOT be hard to find.
Bubbles
I'm forever blowing
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2013
- Messages
- 7,817
The control scheme is hardcoded in both games. I don't know why.
Drakensang is really extremely dull. My best explanation is that they designed it as the German answer to NWN2's single player campaign and didn't know when to stop.
CryptRat
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2014
- Messages
- 3,566
I finished Blackguards, and I am more than ever a Daedalic fanboy. I enjoyed everything the game has to offer.
- Concerning the story, and the writing,
The story is not particurarly deep but each playable character is cool. In fact many dialogs are cool. The humor is good. The quest with Sarino and Onaris is hilarious (I started it again at least 5 times).
- The character customization (skills as equipement) is very good.
- Many side quests
- I liked how the game is sequenced with many rather short and rather easy battles, some harder battles and some longer battles. I feel like proportions are good.
- Concerning the battles, they are mostly strategic, not puzzle and rather different from each others. They're also mostly short, so reloading is never frustating.
- Concerning the story, and the writing,
I agree with everything. Concerning the last sentence especially, the quest from the alchemist in the southernmost town is a model of what developers should do more often. The associated log entry is funny.
The story is not particurarly deep but each playable character is cool. In fact many dialogs are cool. The humor is good. The quest with Sarino and Onaris is hilarious (I started it again at least 5 times).
- The character customization (skills as equipement) is very good.
- Many side quests
- I liked how the game is sequenced with many rather short and rather easy battles, some harder battles and some longer battles. I feel like proportions are good.
- Concerning the battles, they are mostly strategic, not puzzle and rather different from each others. They're also mostly short, so reloading is never frustating.
When I played I lost Auralia because I didn't prematurely stop that dream vision she shows you. But if you don't continue the dream vision you miss part of the story. I hope that was changed in a patch; losing Auralia or not should depend only on how you treated her throughout the entire game.
Then again, the game tries to paint her as the protagonist's friend, but she was always a self-serving bitch. It's just lame to lose her after doing all that work to save her in the arena.
Then again, the game tries to paint her as the protagonist's friend, but she was always a self-serving bitch. It's just lame to lose her after doing all that work to save her in the arena.
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2014
- Messages
- 13,582
Just stay away from the sequel. I'm saying this as someone that had a great time with Blackguards.
vonAchdorf
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2014
- Messages
- 13,465
In my opinion they failed with everything they wanted to change / improve in the sequel.
Darth Roxor did a scathing preview and turned out to be right, and Bubbles did embrace the game to death in his Codex review.
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Arthandas
Prophet
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2015
- Messages
- 1,385
Did anyone experienced similar hexfield glitch? It's present in every battle no matter the graphic settings.
http://i.imgur.com/rDfMq7p.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rDfMq7p.jpg
Monstrous Bat
Cipher
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2011
- Messages
- 638
Is there an option/patch/mod that speeds up battle animations? I'm pretty sure I spent half the battle in the final encounter in Dwarf Game staring at the two spinning morningstars.
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- Oct 22, 2013
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- 3,348
No. The explanation was that it would require too much code change later in the process to fix. The fucking idiot producers told us 'don't worry your concerns are irrelevant. BG2 will be awesomelawlz." If course, it wasn't
vonAchdorf
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2014
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- 13,465
AFAIK stocks are limited. Did they raise the price for inns? They were line 1-9 S when I played it which seems negligible compared to the money you get in the game.
Cnaiur
Augur
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2014
- Messages
- 184
It's funny you say that. I've read some old posts stating that provisions used to be too expensive vs inns. Now inns are (beginning of the game) 1 gold - or whatever the fuck - vs 5 silver for a provision.
But if they're limited the inn is probably the safer choice - thanks.
But if they're limited the inn is probably the safer choice - thanks.
vonAchdorf
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2014
- Messages
- 13,465
In the end, it doesn't really matter I think, with the (more or less) fixed number of fights, you probably won't run out of provisions even if you used them regularly.
So I finished this the other day, can't really agree with the previous positive impressions though.
I know this is basically a combatfags game and I don't wanna criticize an apple for not being an orange but maybe I just learned something about my own personal taste here (namely that I am not a combatfag). I came to Blackguards after playing Expeditions: Conquistador. I really liked the tactical combat in that one but the overworld exploration was abysmal, so I thought I might try Blackguards. Comparable turn-based combat but an easy map to navigate. So yeah, at first I got what I came for, the character system was pretty amazing with a lot of different options and I particularly loved the spell system. So many spells! Some of the non-damage spells were really great, like the Arcane Wall that made me influence the battlefield in fun ways (like trapping huge enemies and then shooting the fuck out of them or relaying troop movements etc). And as others have said, the combat is really well designed with a shitload of different twists to the battles.
However, after playing for a few hours I came to the conclusion that its really just combat - and just that. Nothing more. Combat after combat after combat. And thats really not enough to keep me entertained. The main problem for me was probably that I disagree about the writing. I thought the narrative was barely even there, the characters were completely uncompelling (why the fuck do these guys even hang with me?), motivations and plot connections unclear. Everything was just a sorry excuse to get from combat to combat. And I don't really know what people talk about 'quests'. There are not quests in the way I understand it. You click on an activator in a city, it gives you a three sentence McGuffin, then you click on a new location on the map and in 9 of 10 cases it immediately brings you to yet another combat. There are no real quests, no exploration or anything. Just additional combat. It gets so boring after a while.
The most ridicioulous instance (which made me put the game aside for several months) was in Chapter 3 when whatever tiny little narrative there is comes to a further grinding halt while you are in the arena. There is no plot anymore whatsoever, just combat after combat after combat after combat. "And here a new challenge for our heroes!" Now I guess if you are 100% combatfag and thats where your enjoyment comes from these points are irrelevant for you, but not for me. Give me a cool plot that makes me motivated to go from combat to combat, give me real and believable character motivations, give me something I care about, tell me why this particular battle matters and I should feel excited about it. There is nothing there in terms of motivation to even keep on playing other than you like the combat. It got a little bit better when the story finally seemed to kick into gear at the end of Chapter 4 but that was too little, too late.
Compared to relatively similar combat-focused games likes E: C and Banner Saga, these two had much more going for them. E:C had the camp management, the atmosphere, the management of your crew, the exploration, the CYOA parts .. Banner Saga had that apocalyptic melancholic atmosphere and a compelling narrative, more C&C (though BG has a little), the caravan management and further CYOA. So in both games, while focused on the tactical combat, there are additional mechanics that spice up the gameplay and add to the experience and keep you motivated to actually go from combat to combat to see whats next. Even older popamole tactical RPGs had more in terms of variety than BG. In Shining Force for example you could go explore towns manually, talk to lots of different townsfolk, find items and so on. Compare that to the boring dead towns in BG. (Also SHF had a better story and the characters more personality, even though most of them only say a few sentences throughout the whole game.)
Oh well, I guess in conclusion BG is game that shines in the combat and character system department - and nowhere else. If thats enough for you, go for it; if not, better stick to the competition for it has way more to offer.
I know this is basically a combatfags game and I don't wanna criticize an apple for not being an orange but maybe I just learned something about my own personal taste here (namely that I am not a combatfag). I came to Blackguards after playing Expeditions: Conquistador. I really liked the tactical combat in that one but the overworld exploration was abysmal, so I thought I might try Blackguards. Comparable turn-based combat but an easy map to navigate. So yeah, at first I got what I came for, the character system was pretty amazing with a lot of different options and I particularly loved the spell system. So many spells! Some of the non-damage spells were really great, like the Arcane Wall that made me influence the battlefield in fun ways (like trapping huge enemies and then shooting the fuck out of them or relaying troop movements etc). And as others have said, the combat is really well designed with a shitload of different twists to the battles.
However, after playing for a few hours I came to the conclusion that its really just combat - and just that. Nothing more. Combat after combat after combat. And thats really not enough to keep me entertained. The main problem for me was probably that I disagree about the writing. I thought the narrative was barely even there, the characters were completely uncompelling (why the fuck do these guys even hang with me?), motivations and plot connections unclear. Everything was just a sorry excuse to get from combat to combat. And I don't really know what people talk about 'quests'. There are not quests in the way I understand it. You click on an activator in a city, it gives you a three sentence McGuffin, then you click on a new location on the map and in 9 of 10 cases it immediately brings you to yet another combat. There are no real quests, no exploration or anything. Just additional combat. It gets so boring after a while.
The most ridicioulous instance (which made me put the game aside for several months) was in Chapter 3 when whatever tiny little narrative there is comes to a further grinding halt while you are in the arena. There is no plot anymore whatsoever, just combat after combat after combat after combat. "And here a new challenge for our heroes!" Now I guess if you are 100% combatfag and thats where your enjoyment comes from these points are irrelevant for you, but not for me. Give me a cool plot that makes me motivated to go from combat to combat, give me real and believable character motivations, give me something I care about, tell me why this particular battle matters and I should feel excited about it. There is nothing there in terms of motivation to even keep on playing other than you like the combat. It got a little bit better when the story finally seemed to kick into gear at the end of Chapter 4 but that was too little, too late.
Compared to relatively similar combat-focused games likes E: C and Banner Saga, these two had much more going for them. E:C had the camp management, the atmosphere, the management of your crew, the exploration, the CYOA parts .. Banner Saga had that apocalyptic melancholic atmosphere and a compelling narrative, more C&C (though BG has a little), the caravan management and further CYOA. So in both games, while focused on the tactical combat, there are additional mechanics that spice up the gameplay and add to the experience and keep you motivated to actually go from combat to combat to see whats next. Even older popamole tactical RPGs had more in terms of variety than BG. In Shining Force for example you could go explore towns manually, talk to lots of different townsfolk, find items and so on. Compare that to the boring dead towns in BG. (Also SHF had a better story and the characters more personality, even though most of them only say a few sentences throughout the whole game.)
Oh well, I guess in conclusion BG is game that shines in the combat and character system department - and nowhere else. If thats enough for you, go for it; if not, better stick to the competition for it has way more to offer.
Last edited:
CryptRat
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2014
- Messages
- 3,566
That's where I disagree with you. I had fun playing a bunch of sympathic criminals with their very simple motivations if not no motivation at all who travel together only because they logically get along well and not because of some shared hatred against no matter what or who. It's the kind of mature writing that I like, compared with some childish search for the holy grail.
^A bunch of sympathetic criminals in a mature plot would be good, I agree. I don't need to rescue the world. But I don't think that characters like Zubaran or Naurim are particularly sympathetic nor particularly mature. They are both pretty silly and contrived. And if the characters barely seem to know what they are doing and the plot is barely detectable, there is neither tension nor excitement and the player has no real incentive to keep on playing as well (outside of the combat). I don't think there will be anyone here who could believably argue that he was invested in the characters or really excited to find out why lady McGuffin was killed. The only mildly interesting characters were Aurelia and Urias, one of which becomes only relevant after half way through the game and the other at the very end.
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Guys I'm a fucking idiot and just saw that there is a DLC for Blackguards. My questions are:
- Is it save-compatible or do I need to start a new game to play its content?
- Is it worth the extra bucks or not?
Codexers help me, cuz I'm exactly before the first gladiator battle where from what I read the new content actually "begins"
- Is it save-compatible or do I need to start a new game to play its content?
- Is it worth the extra bucks or not?
Codexers help me, cuz I'm exactly before the first gladiator battle where from what I read the new content actually "begins"
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 97,495
It's save-compatible. It adds various new missions to the game in various places, fleshing out certain plot elements (especially with regard to your companions). They don't all form a coherent plot together so don't expect it to feel like an expansion pack or anything.
As for whether it's worth it, I dunno. It's a bit more Blackguards. Decide for yourself!
- Joined
- May 18, 2015
- Messages
- 5,132
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