http://youtu.be/ORipwYgNHno

Nie bardzo wiem co kierowało Daedelic Entertaiment przy wyborze gatunkowym ich kolejnej produkcji i dlaczego wybór padł na RPG. Tym bardziej nie rozumiem szeroko zakrojonej kastracji, jaka miała miejsce na pacjencie i pominięcia pomysłów, które najwidoczniej zostały w notatniku twórców na zapomnianych przez wszystkich, posklejanych stronach.
—gikz.pl

Full Video Review here - http://youtu.be/G5S2mAGsoKA

As an avid RPG player, and one who is all about story, I hold any RPG story I play to a high standard. Daedalic have been great storytellers in the past and blackguards is no different. The game is dark and mature, just what I like. Often in RPG's the more morally grey characters are the most enjoyable, relate-able and overall liked characters of a given game. In Blackguards this the type of characters you play, instead of a group of moral paragons, you play a band of rogues, trying to get by in the world and dealing with events that have been thrust upon them.

You start the game as your chosen character hovering above the corpse of princess Elenor who is being eaten by a wolf, after killing said wolf you are blamed for her death, but the strange thing is, you can't quite remember what exactly happened before you saw the wolf. After being tortured and being questioned for a name you know nothing about. Enter the fire loving, fight craving, elf hating dwarf Naurim and you’re soon on a prison break with the intention of finding out just what the hell is going on here.

The Battles in blackguards are very addictive, they tend to be relatively short but by no means easier. The great thing about blackguards combat is its difficulty, some battles require real thought and careful planning. The game is very challenging but by no means overly difficult and while it can be unforgiving at times, the game auto-saves after every battle and even if you die you have the option to start the battle over at any point from the pause menu. Fans of tactical turn based Rpgs will really get a kick out of the challenge blackguards provides. One of the star features of combat is the interactive environments. In certain levels you will have objects placed around that you can use. You can cut a rope causing the hanging chandelier to crush the enemies below it, ignite flammable swamp gas to burn opponents and more. There are over 190 beautifully crafted battlefields in blackguards, these are no mere random maps, these are hand drawn, carefully thought out maps that not only feel unique but really leave a lasting impression.

If your an RPG fan, a turn based strategy fan or you just love a bloody good story, I cannot recommend blackguards enough. It is one of those rare games that I literally lost track of time playing. The story telling is good and engaging. Battles while not lengthy have great solid mechanics and good depth to them. The world is fantastically immersive, Daedalic have envisioned southern Aventuria beautifully. Check out the full video review for a more in depth look.


http://youtu.be/G5S2mAGsoKA

Cosmic.

I mentioned that I would edit my review once I had played more of the game, and I've finished most of Chapter 3 at this point, and wanted to weigh in again, now that there is more content available. Once again, I really enjoy the gameplay. X-Com fans will appreciate the turn based strategy. My earlier concerns regarding the limitations of the trainer system which inhibited true freedom in character development have been lessened however. I still would prefer true freedom to spend my experience points, but the additional content gives you plenty of fights and quests with which to expand your characters, as well as more trainers with the important abilities available to train for. If you are looking for cool loots though, prepare to be disappointed. The emphasis is really more on the characters themselves. As you progress through the story, upgrades of weapons that are marginally better are available, but using merchants to upgrade your characters gear doesn't really feel as fun as beating some monsters or bad guys and finding a cool weapon or magic item.

Overall, I feel the additional content pushes this game from 'not recommended' to 'recommended'. I am particularly excited for when they add more depth to character creation, as this will allow me to pick some starting skills that will more coincide with how I want to build my character. For example, warriors start with the skill that improves your attack when using a shield. If you want to build a 2-Hand sword wielding warrior, this skill is just a waste. But with the new system, hopefully you can skip that in favor of another cool skill.

Updated impressions to Full Version below:

Blackguards is the first Early Access game i really want to recommend!
First it´s quite well developed already (but surely not without some roughness, especially regarding balancing, texting and bugs), second
because they did two things very well:

Second it actually is a good game in the Realms of Arkania/Das Schwarze Auge universe, since the last ones (Demonicon, Schicksalsklinge HD) were poorest crap.
Secondary it brings a new genre to this rpg system - the strategy (yeah i know, they also did two adventures already, but imo adventure and rpg are not that different).

Also they try to bring a bit of a more grey atmosphere to the normally strictly black and white world of Arkania, you play as a convicted murderer, your party also consists of the strangest fellows like addicts, fanatics and so on.
Though this all Daedalic manages to stay true to the typical rpg feeling as well as presents it with quite some bit of humour as well.
You are somewhat limited in creating your character (three classes only, race and sex are fix) but the skill system (which represents the RoA rules surprisingly well) offers quite some flexibility to process all the characters the further the game progresses.
This mixture of freedom and linear story telling, continues throughout the game, while you visit the locations to progress the main storyline, you have always some options for side quests, which offer a variety of goals.

The battles themself remind me for one of Expeditions:Conquistador, where cover and strategically well placement of your characters is as important as choosing the right means of attack.
They also try to keep the battles different with traps, different obstacles as well as victory conditions.

As the game is still in development i can´t ultimately write about the story, but so far the characters are well done and the development is quite interesting.
So if you either like the realms of arkania universe or are a strategy fan, you can give this one a try.


Update:
In the full version Daedalic has implemented kind of free character generation, since many players wanted this and not only the pre made classes.

Well.. the plus is, Daedalic tried to give the fans what they wanted..
the minus is that they implemented it very half heartedly, it´s an ugly, short creation process, with nearly no explanation about classes or whatever (the only choosing here is a single mage yes/no button?!)
Also you kinda notice that the game was made with a hunter class in mind, if you create some very different hero, you may not find the best stuff/make the most out of it.

Also i still get some stuttering issues/cut off ends of cut scenes, so they didn´t improve this much.

All in all, this may be small points, but they damper a good first impression..

I was intrigued when I saw the game. So much so that I plunked down my cash for early access. But I realized very quickly that youre basically expected to run the game once completely blindfolded before you will ever know how to build the party or what theyre capable of. Mistakes will dog your every step during your first run. Its very tedious and frustrating. But the killer for me, the straw that breaks the camels back, is the ridiculous spike in difficulty from one fight to another. It would be one thing if there was some sort of difficulty precursor before a fight. But there isnt . You step from one fairly mild fight to, suddenly, be faced with a large force led by a high level mage and youre expected to kill everything on the map. IN SEVEN TURNS. Did I mention all the mobs have healing potions? And the leader is on the other side of the hex map? And there are spike traps and tripwires everywhere. So you need to kill 6 mobs, in 7 turns, while they use heal pots, while missing on roughly 30-40% of your attacks. This game is dead to me. I would say it isnt worth the 22 bucks i plunked down for early access. Its a ridiculous waste of cash at the durrent $35 price tag.