Review Kharn does Mount & Blade

[Jason]

Tags: Mount & Blade; TaleWorlds

NMA patriarch and Codex junior newshound Kharn recently got down and dirty with <b><a href="http://www.paradoxplaza.com/Mount&Blade/?p=home">Mount & Blade</a></b> over at <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/software/mountblade1.php">GameBanshee</a>, scoring the game a 7.4. He complained that it's "too empty, too repetitive, not much of an RPG", but praised the combat.
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<blockquote>Combat in Mount & Blade is fantastic, stunning, and easily sports the best real-time swordplay ever conceived in a video game - and that's not even mentioning the mounted combat.
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When asked why we're supposed to prefer fast first-person real-time combat to the alternatives, the standard answer is that it's more immersive, immediate, intuitive, and fun. Oddly enough, those four principles usually combine into click-click-click-click combat, like you’d find in something like Gothic 3. To get some direct comparison material for Mount & Blade, I started up Oblivion right after one session, and found myself laughing out loud at the horribly stilted movement and awkward controls.
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That's what Mount & Blade does to you. Once you go M&B, you can't go back. </blockquote>

 

[Geofferic]

I want to see some reviews of Mount and Blade that pretend it's being marketed as an action/simulation rather than an RPG.

It hardly has any real RPG elements and seems to be exactly what a basic Action/Simulation would be.

I am wondering if the reviews would shoot up in quality assessment.

 

[ushdugery]

I suspect they would and while it's officially marketed as an rpg it doesn't seem to in actuality appeal directly to that fanbase.

 

[BillyOgawa]

It'd be nice to have a new Die By The Sword

 

[ixg]

It's an action and sort of strategy game. not an RPG given that it reminds me more of Total War than anything else I've played

 

[thesheeep]

It'd be nice to have a new Die By The Sword game.

Awww.... yeah

 

[aron searle]

I hated Die by the sword.

It was like street fighter, yea sure you had all these cool moves, but just pressing down+punch down+punch down+punch down+punch down+punch would win any fight.

 

[Brother None]

I want to see some reviews of Mount and Blade that pretend it's being marketed as an action/simulation rather than an RPG.

In that case GameBanshee would never have reviewed it.

Besides, I think some of its problems are conceptual rather than to do with consumer expectations. It is a combat simulator first and foremost, and the open-world RPG gameplay thrown over it never adds enough to hide the fact that as a game (rather than purely as a simulator) the experience falls short.

 

[HardCode]

What's with the RPG label on M&B? Here is an interview with Aramagan talking about the game, posted a few hours ago:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/10 ... interview/

Hint: CTRL+F in you browser and search for "RPG". You won't find it.

I can understand Beth-bashing, since they boldly claim to make epic, next-gen RPGs and come up with sub-par action-moronic shit. But M&B? It's not an RPG, isn't claimed to be by the developer, and really shouldn't be much of a topic at the Codex.

 

[Brother None]

What's with the RPG label on M&B? Here is an interview with Aramagan talking about the game, posted a few hours ago:

The official PR refers to it as a "medieval, action-RPG title". The fact that a post-release interview doesn't mention the word RPG doesn't really impact that either way, it's always been marketed as an action-RPG, and it isn't.

 

[HardCode]

Paradox is the one putting the RPG in the marketing. We know developers don't have control over the publishers. I wouldn't call it an RPG, but an action game with RPG elements (albeit few, but there is some form of C&C, however minor), hence the Action-RPG. Anyway, take the developers word, and shoot the messenger, er, publisher in this case

 

[MisterStone]

We need a new version of Bilestoad

 

[Fez]

He went around pushing it as an RPG for a long time - before Paradox was involved. He's reaping what he sowed. Don't blame it all on the "big bad publisher". The fanboys are working overtime as apologists for every little thing and now it seems we can combine that with revisionist history.

The game is flawed no matter what label you care to give it. Get over it. It deserves the middling-to-good review scores it is getting.

 

[Trash]

Still, the (mounted) combat is a shitload of fun. Then again, it was that like 7 versions ago.

 

[Fez]

Indeed. The progress has been rather disappointing.

Although even the mounted combat leaves something to be desired at times. Riding forwards at a walking pace while firing behind you = guaranteed death for any group of soldiers. The AI is on a par with zombies and that spoils it.

Once the player is on a horse you are a one man army, wiping out hundreds of men with ease, which undermines the main aspect of it being about amassing your own army.

 

[Livonya]

It'd be nice to have a new Die By The Sword game.

I loved that game, though my fingers hurt like hell. The weapon system was great, but hell on my digits.

 

[HardCode]

He went around pushing it as an RPG for a long time ...

Orly? I don't recall him pushing it as an RPG. Perhaps him posting here about it years ago means "pushing" it? If anything, he removed "RPG" from Action-RPG off the main web site quite a long, long time ago. Perhaps it was a Codex education?

 

[Fez]

I wouldn't expect a fanboy to say anything less. Keep up the good work. Maybe you'll earn someone else a few more dollars eventually.

 

[HardCode]

I wouldn't expect a fanboy to say anything less. Keep up the good work. Maybe you'll earn someone else a few more dollars eventually.

Solid counter-argument there.

 

[denizsi]

Orly? I don't recall him pushing it as an RPG

Good thing that we do. Now do yourself a favour and gtfo. Your solid original arguments are too much for us, you're wasting your intellectual skills here.

 

[Brother None]

Paradox is the one putting the RPG in the marketing. We know developers don't have control over the publishers. I wouldn't call it an RPG, but an action game with RPG elements (albeit few, but there is some form of C&C, however minor), hence the Action-RPG. Anyway, take the developers word, and shoot the messenger, er, publisher in this case

I am not shooting the publisher or the developer, I'm reviewing the game, so I'm taking the way it is sold out on the game. The "blame game" is not a relevant consideration for any reviewer, who cares who is responsible for labelling it an RPG? I didn't follow M&B PR much before Paradox got involved but the guys here seem to be sure the developer did it. Any links, guys?

That said, we're talking about a game being sold as something it's not. No matter how little control you have as a developer over the publisher I would certainly start protesting if my publisher were selling my game falsely as something it's not. It's a pretty egregious shortcoming in PR, large enough that everyone is to blame.

 

[HardCode]

That said, we're talking about a game being sold as something it's not. No matter how little control you have as a developer over the publisher I would certainly start protesting if my publisher were selling my game falsely as something it's not. It's a pretty egregious shortcoming in PR, large enough that everyone is to blame.

Granted, Paradox has it listed incorrectly as an RPG on the web site. At least the boxed copy doesn't say RPG on it anywhere. I don't believe it's being sold as something it is not. If anything, the only flaw is RPG in the "Genre" on the summary page, and the link off the Paradox home page stating, "An unknown stranger can make a name as a warrior in this groundbreaking RPG." Groundbreaking RPG it is not. We all agree. Groundbreaking sandbox action-RPG ... yes due to the combat. Even Paradox's game description/features do not continue incorrectly call it an RPG.

What happened to this place? It used to be that you could have a logical debate over games. Now it's all, "ROFLBOXERZ! They used the word RPG once! Bash the game! No C&C, no dialog! Blah, blah,blah." Even when it's 100% clear that it isn't an RPG. And it's obviously not being agressively marketed as an RPG. If anything, it's miscategorized by the publisher. I mean really, what the hell?

I'm all for games getting bashed when they market it for years with press releases, interviews, developer claims, all stating that it's going to be the best RPG ever. This just didn't happen with M&B.

If anything, I'd have expect the Codex to say, "Eh, it's not an RPG, so no reason to discuss." Instead, it's all hate. I really think all the years of getting fucked over by so-called legitimate RPG developers has taken its toll.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Stuff

To be fair, I think you know as well as anyone how often the term "RPG" is tossed around in gaming and how most people have crap-all idea what it really means when people use it, including "us" sometimes. I feel like it becomes some sort of catch-all descriptor when companies can't really think of anything to label their product as without becoming too specific. Under the "RPG" genre, we have games like the jRPG "Tales of X" series and Arcanum hanging out in the same broad category as far as most mainstream classification goes despite having almost opposite design elements. Hell, even games like GTA and Saints Row are argued by some people to be the "new wave" of RPGs. Honestly, Mount and Blade has some stats and combat using stats so it pretty much meets the mainstream requirement for "RPG" classification. Course, I think that's silly, just as I'm sure you do, but when you're the publisher, are you going to use something like Medieval Combat Simulator as the genre, or something with mass appeal like "action-RPG"?

 

[JarlFrank]

RPG is like metal. It has way too many subgenres to not be confusing. And the broad masses have a completely fucked up imagination of it, labeling games like Oblivion as RPG and bands like Slipknot as metal. It's exactly the same.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

i'd give it around 5.5 out of 10, it's not an rpg, there's very little strategy or tactics involved so it ain't worth shit as a combat sim. And there's no combo's or moves that you can pull off so it's not a particularly good fighting game.

And the animations still blow.

 

[DefJam101]

It's a game that sacrifices gameplay depth for graphical detail, but has absolutely no graphical detail to back it up. I've played action games with more depth than Mount & Blade, with a better presentation to boot.