PorkyThePaladin
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2013
- Messages
- 5,208
As some of you might know, though I count entries from all RPG subgenres among my favorites (except maybe blobbers), I generally prefer aRPGs as of late. Partially this is just due to subjective taste, but a large factor is also that I consider aRPGs to be the "happening" sub-genre since the early 2000s. Back then, you had isometric, tactical cRPGs that pushed the envelope, such as Fallout 1/2, Baldur's Gate saga, PST and so on. But since then, in more recent years, I look at iso RPGs and see stagnation and mediocrity. There are the fruits of Kickstarter, the Divinity: Original Sins and the Pillars of Eternity and Wastelands and Numinumas, all B level games or worse that no one would be playing if there were better alternatives. There are efforts from the East, like Kingmaker, which is about 30 times more ambitious than the talents of its developers allowed. There are codex darlings like Age of Decadence and Underrail, which are quality indie games, but cannot honestly be compared to actual RPGs from full fledged development studios.
So imagine my surprise when I recently played and completed what turned out to be BY FAR the best isometric, tactical cRPG I have played since the golden age of late 90s and early 2000s. A game that you would think would capture the Codex's heart, and yet it is barely mentioned here (earned a mere 83rd spot on the recent top 100 list), while the likes of Shitmaker and Divinity: Original Turd are drowning in pages of discussion. That game is Expeditions: Viking.
I've read Tigranes's original review of it from 2017, and while I think he is an intelligent reviewer, I also think he was unduly harsh on the game. It feels to me that a lot of his criticisms stemmed from the fact that it changed things he enjoyed in Expeditions: Conquistador, which is understandable, but I am coming to Viking with a blank slate, and looking at it on its own terms, and my image of it is significantly more positive. I also don't know if they patched the difficulty since his review, but having completed it on Hard (not even Insane), I did not find the game to be excessively easy at all. In fact, only 3% of people who bought it managed to complete it on that difficulty, so I dunno..
All of that aside, this game combines what I feel is an excellent and fun turn-based combat system (that blows something like Shitmaker or PoE away), with a really well done story and setting (mostly well done because it's based on history and not some hack writers' skills), with amazing C&C on par with Fallout or AoD, with an interesting meta system of managing resources/time/travel/kingdom management (yes, yes, it might be a step down from Conquistador, but compared to regular cRPGs, it's pretty damn good). Easily the best iso-RPG I've played in ages.
So imagine my surprise when I recently played and completed what turned out to be BY FAR the best isometric, tactical cRPG I have played since the golden age of late 90s and early 2000s. A game that you would think would capture the Codex's heart, and yet it is barely mentioned here (earned a mere 83rd spot on the recent top 100 list), while the likes of Shitmaker and Divinity: Original Turd are drowning in pages of discussion. That game is Expeditions: Viking.
I've read Tigranes's original review of it from 2017, and while I think he is an intelligent reviewer, I also think he was unduly harsh on the game. It feels to me that a lot of his criticisms stemmed from the fact that it changed things he enjoyed in Expeditions: Conquistador, which is understandable, but I am coming to Viking with a blank slate, and looking at it on its own terms, and my image of it is significantly more positive. I also don't know if they patched the difficulty since his review, but having completed it on Hard (not even Insane), I did not find the game to be excessively easy at all. In fact, only 3% of people who bought it managed to complete it on that difficulty, so I dunno..
All of that aside, this game combines what I feel is an excellent and fun turn-based combat system (that blows something like Shitmaker or PoE away), with a really well done story and setting (mostly well done because it's based on history and not some hack writers' skills), with amazing C&C on par with Fallout or AoD, with an interesting meta system of managing resources/time/travel/kingdom management (yes, yes, it might be a step down from Conquistador, but compared to regular cRPGs, it's pretty damn good). Easily the best iso-RPG I've played in ages.